Asperger's Disorder has the potential to be relevant to many aspects of the functioning of the criminal justice system. However, its mere presence does not excuse or justify all offending. The inquiry into its potential relevance to criminal offending and sentencing must be both contextual and informed by suitably qualified expert evidence. This column reviews court decisions in respect of offe...

The setting-up of the Criminal Cases Review Commission has set back the pursuit of justice in the UK by more than twenty years. We now have a post-trial process that is long-drawnout but only intermittently efficacious. We have also created a situation whereby the UK criminal justice system has a defective trial process and a defective appeals process, but then abdicates its responsibility for ...

Asperger's Disorder remains an under-diagnosed condition because of clinical unfamiliarity with its adult presentation. As forensic clinicians become familiar with the presentation of Asperger's disorder, it appears that affected individuals are over-represented in forensic criminal settings. Unique features of such persons may heighten their risks for engaging in criminal behavior. Both Theory...

AIM To evaluate the effect of educational intervention on individuals' knowledge of and attitudes toward forensic mental health. METHODS We conducted a questionnaire regarding attitudes toward various ideas about forensic mental health. The respondents attended a 1-h seminar regarding forensic mental health after answering the questionnaire. On completion of the seminar, the respondents answe...

For at least 111 years society has been searching for a will o' the wisp "legal test" of criminal responsibility, i.e., liability for punishment provided by law, applicable to all cases in which the defense of insanity is raised.' The purpose of the search is obvious: Society wants a legal standard by which to judge whether or not a man should be held responsible for his acts in order to establ...

as a private domain, the family is subordinate to the characteristics of private law. on the other hand, as the only major authority, the government has the responsibility of supporting all individuals by resorting to civil and criminal law. however, by taking the public aspect of the criminal law into consideration, its basis is on the lack of need of its presence when facing the family, the b...

judges should not be regarded as mere speakers of and tools in the hands of the legislature. they are as actors animating the laws enacted. the judges’ acting can be justified on three grounds: limitations of law-making, including lack of expertise in and inattention of, the being expedient of, and purposeful acts of legislature, being societies in transition, and impossibility of anticipating ...