NCJ Number
151799
Date Published
1993
Length
264 pages
Annotation
This discussion of the way in which mental disorder affects criminal responsibility focuses on the judicial history of the issue in Ireland.
Abstract
This approach, which draws heavily from the scientific literature on mental illness as well as the jurisprudence on the insanity defense, attempts to integrate the psychiatric understanding of mental illness with a conventional analysis of the legal problems surrounding the insanity plea. The author argues that, ruling of the Irish Supreme Court aside, serious mental disorder is better understood as a cognitive failing affecting an individual's ability to make valid inferences from available data, rather than a volitional disability affecting that person's capacity to control his actions. The specific topics dealt with in the book include cognitive insanity (with an emphasis on the impact of the M'Naghten Rules), volitional insanity, mental disorder, proving insanity, verdict and disposition, fitness for trial, and diminished responsibility (comparing models developed in California, Scotland, and England). The final chapter draws on relevant international civilian experience and outlines three approaches, termed psychopathological, psychological, and interactionist. Chapter references