Crime, psychiatry and the insanity defence: a report on some recent reforms in the United States

References

• Along, one might add (tongue-firmly-in-cheek), with Crocodile Dundee, Foster's Lager, Midnight Oil (one of several Australian rock groups cross-fertilising the musical scene here) and a growing list of other products from 'down-under' enriching the US culture
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• Morris N. Crime and punishment under the constitution. University of Chicago Law School Record 1994; 40: 10–15
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• Stone AA. Mental health and law: a system in transition. Rockville, Maryland: National Institute of Mental Health,. 1975
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• Brakel SJ. Legal schizophrenia and the mental health lawyer: recent trends in civil commitment litigation. Behavioral Sciences and the Law 1988; 6: 3–14
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• Even where the event itself does not 'cause' the change in trend, it serves as a catalyst enhancing the speed and power of change
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• Low PW, Jeffries JC, Bonnie RJ. The trial of John W. Hinckley, Jr: a case study in the insanity defense. Mineola, New York: Foundation,. 1986
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• The public may concede that people who commit such crimes are 'nuts', but not nuts enough to hold them harmless from the consequences
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• Brakel SJ, Parry J, Weiner BA. The mentally disabled and the law. 3rd ed. Chicago, Illinois: American Bar Foundation,. 1985
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• The M'Naughten rule: It must be clearly proved that at the time of the committing of the act the party accused was acting under such a defect of reason, from a mental disease, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong. 1843
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• The ALI test: A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct, as a result of mental disease or defect, he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality or (wrongfulness) of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law. §4.01(1) Model Penal Code (Proposed Official Draft. 1962
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• United States. v. Currens, 290 F. 2d 751. 1961
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• The diminished capacity/responsibility concept was introduced into American jurisprudence via the California case of People v. Wells, 202 P. 2d 53. California 1949
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• The 1984 Federal formulation:. Affirmative defense: It is an affirmative defense to a prosecution under any Federal statute that, at the time of the commission of the acts constituting the offense, the defendant, as a result of a severe mental disease or defect, was unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts. Mental disease or defect does not otherwise constitute a defense
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• Burden of Proof: The defendant has the burden of proving the defense of insanity by clear and convincing evidence. Pub. L. No. 98-473. 1984, 18 USC §17
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• In re Winship 397 US 358. The requirement of proof of guilty mind or criminal intent is excepted only for some very minor 'strict liability' offences, such as parking violations and the like. 1970
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• The first State to adopt the GBMI 'defence' was Michigan in 1975:. Michigan Compiled Laws Annotated §768.36(3). Of the dozen or so other States who subsequently joined the GBMI bandwagon, eight did so after the Hinckley result
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• Oregon Revised Statutes. Annotated §161.295
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• United States. v. Lyons, 731 F. 2d 243. 1984, citing Professor Richard Bonnie and the American Psychiatric Association Statement on the Insanity Defense (1982) for this language. The more common expression is 'between dusk and dawn'. One could speculate on whether some subtle meaning is intended by this slight change in the idiom
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• These 'others' are psychiatrists with whom the authors have discussed the matter. The views represented may be found scattered throughout the relevant. Literature, as opposed to a single coherent publication
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• See: Brooks A. Law and psychiatry in the criminal justice system. (Draft of text to be published by Little & Brown, Boston.). 1989
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• BWS has many legal uses:. self-defence, mens rea, mitigation, clemency and sometimes insanity. In the infamous Bobbitt case (news of which cannot have missed Australia) the battered (?) wife asserted and succeeded with what was in essence an insanity defence
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• The televised spectacle of the O.J. Simpson case will no doubt raise the collective consciousness to new heights
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• The demise of diminished capacity in California is one of these Big Event phenomena. The State's legislature taking its cue from public outrage over the Dan White case. White, charged with the deliberate murder of the mayor of San Francisco and another high-ranking public official, received only a light sentence when the jury accepted the defence's theory that White had become impaired from eating too much high-sugar 'junk food'. Hostess Twinkies being a favorite brand of such junk at the time in America, the defence put up by White became known as the 'twinkies defence', an association from which the diminished capacity concept did not recover
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• Cowan v. Montana. pet. for cert. 93-1264. See also State v. Korell, 620 P. 2d 992. Montana 1984
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• McGraw BD, Farthing-Capowich D, Keilitz I. The 'Guilty But Mentally 111' plea and verdict: current state of the knowledge. Villanova Law Review 1985; 30: 117–191, It is conceivable, however, that GBMI will draw renewed interest in the wake of the US Supreme Court's decision in Foucha v. Louisiana 112 S. Ct. 1780 (1992), prohibiting States from continuing to detain insanity acquittees who, although still demonstrably dangerous, are no longer mentally ill. Legislators may reach for the GBMI option to plug the so-called 'detainment gap' resulting from Foucha
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• People v. Crews. 522 NE 2d 1167. Illinois 1988, Harris v. State, 499 NE 2d 723 (Indiana 1986)
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• Oregon Revised Statutes Annotated §161.385 (formerly §161.290)
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• Brakel SJ. After the verdict: dispositional decisions regarding criminal defendants acquitted by reason of insanity. DePaul Law Review 1988; 37: 181–258
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• Jones v. United States. 463 US 354 (1983). The Foucha decision referred to above [24] is ostensibly a logical extension of Jones. At least, this is what the Court's majority argued. The dissenters, by contrast, lambasted the majority for essentially overruling Jones. Such is the mystery of law. The Foucha case, whatever its relation to Jones, will make it more difficult to infuse the release decision with political considerations
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• Silver E, Cirincione C, Steadman HJ. Demythologizing inaccurate perceptions of the insanity defense. Law and Human Behavior 1994; 18: 63–70
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