Insanity defense reexamined:The AMA board recommends its abolition but lawyers and psychiatrists say that would undermine the moral basis of criminal law

Science ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 222 (4627) ◽  
pp. 994-995 ◽  
Author(s):  
C Holden
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Insanity Defense ◽  
Moral Basis

Introduction: Criminal Law

1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-5
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Public Response ◽  
The Public ◽  
Moral Basis ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Justification Of Punishment ◽  
Criminal Conduct

It is hardly surprising that philosophers have long regarded the criminal law as fertile ground. As the most visible application of state power, the criminal law raises issues of the first importance to political philosophy: issues of liberty, justice, and the common good. In announcing and enforcing rules of behaviour the criminal law connects with the concerns of moral philosophers, who have paid particular attention to the justification of punishment and the moral basis of criminal responsibility. Lastly, since the criminal law is typically concerned with the actions of human beings, it raises issues in the philosophy of action. Philosophers have devoted much attention to such central criminal law concepts as voluntariness, intention, and causation.The essays collected here explore topics which fall into three broad groups: the interests protected by the criminal law, the relation of agents to outcomes, and defenses to otherwise criminal conduct. Criminal law protects certain types of interests against certain kinds of invasions. Not everything that sets back a person’s interests is subject to legal sanction. Among those interests that the law deems worthy of protection, only certain kinds of invasions merit criminalization. The papers by Marshall and Duff, Hampton, Lacey, and Brett all touch on issues of the moral basis of criminalization. Marshall and Duff focus on the general issue of criminalization, arguing that crimes merit a certain kind of public response because they are attacks on the public. Drawing out the implications of the familiar fact that the state is a party to a criminal proceeding, they argue that the criminal law appropriately addresses wrongs that are shared by the wider community. For Marshall and Duff, criminalization is about deciding that a wrong against one person is serious in a way that makes it a wrong against everyone in the community, and demands a collective response.

The Abolition of the Insanity Defense in Sweden and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piers Gooding ◽  
Tova Bennet
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Insanity Defense ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Legal Capacity ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Substantive Equality ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
Due Process Rights

The U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) may require the abolition of the insanity defense and similar “special defenses” in criminal law. Proponents argue that abolishing the defense would advance efforts to fully recognize the legal capacity of persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others; detractors suggest it would compound the substantive inequality of an already marginalized population. This paper seeks to accelerate this debate with reference to Swedish criminal law, which saw the abolition of the insanity defense in 1965. Neither side of the debate appears to have considered the anomaly of Swedish criminal law. Equally, Swedish legislators appear to have overlooked CRPD-based considerations. Instead, Sweden seems likely to reintroduce the insanity defense following long-standing domestic criticism. This paper brings together developments in Sweden and international human rights law, and draws out conceptual and practical lessons in the quest for due process rights and substantive equality for people with disabilities in criminal law.

The Insanity Defense: Effects of Abolition Unsupported by a Moral Consensus

1984 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 471-500
Author(s):  
Lynnette S. Cobun
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Insanity Defense ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
Criminal Sanctions ◽  
The Face ◽  
Diminished Responsibility

AbstractThe insanity defense reflects the moral judgment that some criminal defendants do not deserve criminal sanctions because of mental incapacity. This Note examines the alternative formulations, such as guilty but mentally ill and diminished responsibility, that some states have enacted in the face of growing controversy over the insanity defense. It observes that the alternatives, if used in lieu of the insanity defense, distort the criminal law and do not comport with the legal doctrine of responsibility, which eschews punishing mentally ill defendants. The Note concludes that the insanity defense should not be abolished unless the moral consensus changes regarding the criminal responsibility of mentally ill defendants.

scholarly journals Madness and Revolution: The Impact of Radicalism on the Treason Trial of James Hadfield

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Austin Nolen
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Insanity Defense ◽  
Causal Connection ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Impact ◽  
George Iii

The insanity defense is a doctrine in the criminal law which excuses from punishment defendants who commit crimes as the result of serious mental illness. However, the sorts of mental illness that qualify for the defense, as well as the causal connection required between the illness and the act, have varied widely across Anglo-American legal history. This thesis argues that historians have not sufficiently considered the role that radicalism and social unrest have played in shaping the defense, and explores the 1800 treason trial of James Hadfield for the attempted assassination of King George III, where government fears of the French Revolution and associated English radicals helped to reshape the insanity defense.

Risking One’s Life: ‘Soft Paternalism’ and Feinberg’s Account of Legal Liberalism

1995 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Joel Feinberg ◽  
Moral Basis ◽  
Soft Paternalism ◽  
Legitimate Concern ◽  
Harm To Others ◽  
Social Gain ◽  
Personal Harm

In his The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law: Harm To Self, one volume in what is arguably the most impressive and thorough statement of liberal political philosophy to date, Joel Feinberg claims that there is a problem of reconciling the reasonableness of our concern for people who endanger themselves with our repugnance for paternalism:preventable personal harm (setback interest) is universally thought to be a great evil, and... such harm is no less harmful when self-caused... If society can substantially diminish the net amount of harm to interests from all sources, that would be a great social gain. If that prospect provides the moral basis underlying the harm to others principle, why should it not have application as well to self-caused harm and thus support equally the principle of legal paternalism?... On the other hand, we are challenged to reconcile, somehow, our legitimate concern with diminishing overall harm with the threatened proliferation of criminal prohibitions enforcing a “Spartan like regime” of imposed prudence

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