Insanity On Trial

The insanity defense debate has come full circle, again. The current round began when John Hinckley opened fire; in 1843, it was Daniel M'Naghten who pulled the trigger; the "acts" of both would-be "insanity acquittees" provoked the press, the populace, a President, and a Queen to expressions of outrage, and triggered Congress, the House of Lords, judges, jurists, psychologists, and psychiatrists to debate this most maddening matter. "Insanity" -which has historically been surrounded by defenses, defen ders, and detractors-found itself once again under siege, on trial, and undergoing rigorous cross-examination. Treatises were written on the sub ject, testimony was taken, and new rules and laws were adopted. The dust has settled, but it has not cleared. What is clear to me is that we have got it wrong, once again. The "full circle" analogy and historical parallel to M'Naghten (1843) warrant some elaboration. Hinckley's firing at the President, captured by television and rerun again and again, rekindled an old debate regarding the allegedly insane and punishment (Caplan, 1984; Maeder, 1985; Szasz, 1987), a debate in which the "insanity defense" is centrally situated. The smolderings ignited anew when the Hinckley (1981) jury brought in its verdict-"not guilty by reason of insanity" (NGRI).

This book, published in 1984, tells of the insanity defense in English and American law and of the trial of John Hinckley, Jr., in 1982 for the shooting of Reagan and three others on 30 Mar 1981. Recounts the proceedings of Hinckley's trial for the attempted assassination of President Reagan, traces the history of the insanity plea, and argues for the continued use of that defense.

The insanity defense has become the most passionately debated issue in criminal law, a debate marked by slogans and stereotypes. Mr. Goldstein offers a reasoned study of that debate and the current rules behind the law, as well as a careful examination of what might be expected from any new rules now proposed.

Softbound - New, softbound print book.

This book, published in 1984, tells of the insanity defense in English and American law and of the trial of John Hinckley, Jr., in 1982 for the shooting of Reagan and three others on 30 Mar 1981. Recounts the proceedings of Hinckley's trial for the attempted assassination of President Reagan, traces the history of the insanity plea, and argues for the continued use of that defense.

A powerful and humane exploration of the history of the "insanity defense," through the story of one poignant case. When a three-year-old child was found with a head wound and other injuries, it looked like an open-and-shut case of second-degree murder. Psychologist and attorney Susan Vinocour agreed to evaluate the defendant, the child's mentally ill and impoverished grandmother, to determine whether she was competent to stand trial. Even if she had caused the child's death, had she realized at the time that her actions were wrong or was she legally "insane"? What followed was anything but an open-and-shut case. Nobody's Child traces the legal definition of "insanity" back to its inception in Victorian Britain nearly two hundred years ago, from when our understanding of the human mind was in its infancy, to today, when questions of race, class, and ability so often determine who is legally "insane" and who is criminally guilty. Vinocour explains how "competency" and "insanity" are creatures of a legal system, not of psychiatric reality, and how, in criminal law, the insanity defense has to often been a luxury of the rich and white. Nobody's Child is a profoundly dignified portrait of injustice in America and a complex examination of the troubling intersection of mental health and the law. When prisons are now the largest institutions for the mentally ill, Vinocour demands that we reckon with our conceptions of "insanity" with clarity, empathy, and responsibility.

The insanity defense is one of the oldest fixtures of the Anglo-American legal tradition. Though it is available to people charged with virtually any crime, and is often employed without controversy, homicide defendants who raise the insanity defense are often viewed by the public and even the legal system as trying to get away with murder. Often it seems that legal result of an insanity defense is unpredictable, and is determined not by the defendants mental state, but by their lawyers and psychologists influence. From the thousands of murder cases in which defendants have claimed insanity, Doctor Ewing has chosen ten of the most influential and widely varied. Some were successful in their insanity plea, while others were rejected. Some of the defendants remain household names years after the fact, like Jack Ruby, while others were never nationally publicized. Regardless of the circumstances, each case considered here was extremely controversial, hotly contested, and relied heavily on lengthy testimony by expert psychologists and psychiatrists. Several of them played a major role in shaping the criminal justice system as we know it today. In this book, Ewing skillfully conveys the psychological and legal drama of each case, while providing important and fresh professional insights. For the legal or psychological professional, as well as the interested reader, Insanity will take you into the minds of some of the most incomprehensible murderers of our age.

Both expert and lay audiences have struggled to understand and apply commonplace definitions of sanity, and the portrayal of the insanity defense in popular culture has only served to further frustrate such understandings. Andrea L. Alden argues that the problems with understanding the insanity defense are, at their foundation, rhetorical. The legal concept of what constitutes insanity and, therefore, an abdication of responsibility for one's actions does not map neatly onto the mental health professions' understandings of mental illness and how that affects an individual's ability to understand or control his or her actions. Additionally, there are multiple layers of persuasion involved in any effort to convince a judge, jury--or a public, for that matter--that a defendant is or is not responsible for his or her actions at a particular moment in time. Alden examines landmark court cases such as the trial of Daniel McNaughtan, Durham v.