Legal Standards for Admissibility of Evidence in Insanity Defense Cases.

This article examines two legal cases that pertain to the use of evidence in trials involving individuals who plead not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI). In the first case, the court allowed the prosecution to present evidence from the defendant's competency evaluation, even though the defendant's statements during the evaluation were made without Miranda warnings. The court argued that it was necessary for medical experts to have access to all relevant information. In the second case, the court determined that a defendant's statements to healthcare professionals acting as agents of a physician or psychologist should be privileged in an NGRI trial. The article also touches on the ethical concerns faced by forensic psychiatrists when reviewing illegally obtained evidence and the potential impact of the court's decision on the impeachment exception. Additionally, the article briefly mentions another case involving expert testimony on IQ testing in an Atkins hearing to determine intellectual disability in a capital murder case. [Extracted from the article]