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Justice and the Insanity Defense.
- Source :
- Annals of the American Academy of Political & Social Science; Jan85, Vol. 477, p96-103, 8p
- Publication Year :
- 1985
-
Abstract
- Making insane persons liable for their criminal acts may be unjust. There are two reasons for this. If such persons are handicapped by mental illness in a way that deprives them of the ability to abide by the law, they enjoy the same excuse as anyone else who is helpless, and recognition of the excuse is a requirement of justice. Furthermore, the suffering inevitably produced by making a person liable to criminal punishment turns out to be unjustifiable in such a case, since in these circumstances the punishment is unnecessary. The injustice of punishing such persons must not be confused, however, with the injustice of holding liable a person whose act was without those mental elements required under the law for a particular crime. Conceived broadly, there are four varieties of disability that matter for a defense of insanity, and for policy reasons there must be some definite pathology to account for their presence if they are to be acceptable as the basis of a defense of insanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00027162
- Volume :
- 477
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Annals of the American Academy of Political & Social Science
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 24366365
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716285477001009