This article, which is based on and expands on an amicus brief the authors submitted to the United States Supreme Court, first provides the moral argument in favor of the insanity defense. It considers and rejects the most important moral counterargument and suggests that jurisdictions have considerable leeway in deciding what test best meets their legal and moral policies. The article then dis...

this paper is an attempt to discuss the concept of madness and its differentcauses and functions in bessie head’s semiautobiographical novel a question ofpower. it aims to explore the multifaceted insanity of elizabeth the exiled coloredprotagonist in terms of different theories. we will see how once a devastatingtrauma turns out to be a habilitating schizophrenia. head challenges the readers’n...

There is no mental disease called insanity. Insanity is a legal term used to designate the condition of certain people who exhibit particular symptoms of mental diseases. A patient may be psychotic, but the law acts upon the assumption that he is not insane until there is a judical determination that he is. Where insanity as a defense in criminal cases is concerned, many medical men believe tha...

This article compares the M’Naghten Rules and some of the principal variations found in the Commonwealth of Nations for the purpose of formulating the best possible provision on the defence of insanity. The discussion is enhanced by evaluations of the concept of diminished responsibility operating in the Commonwealth, and of the provision on insanity in the Statute of the International Criminal...

Abstract Whilst the exact aetiology of pellagra remained unclear, effects disease could not have been clearer: asylums in maize-growing areas northern Italy were filled with cases disease. Part II this book focuses on experience insanity caused by pellagra. We explore how pellagrous was understood, diagnosed and treated medical investigators asylum doctors alike, as well patient terrible phase ...

head. Every variety of insanity may result from this exciting cause. Thus, of 482 cases of melancholiat (Lympemanie ou Melancholie), 10 or 2"0 per cent, were the result of injury to the head. Of 588 cases of mania, J 13 or 2-5 per cent, were caused in the same manner. Of 235 cases of dementia,? 3 or 1 -2 per cent, had the same origin. Injuries of the head likewise produce moral insanity?i. e., ...

In Japan, new legislation regarding forensic mental health, namely, the Act on Medical Care and Treatment for Persons Who Have Caused Serious Cases under the Condition of Insanity (Medical Treatment and Supervision Act (MTS Act)) was enforced in 2005, although community mental health care remains largely unchanged. We surveyed local clinical psychiatrists by questionnaire to gather information ...

In Michigan, during the middle of the last decade, a combination of new legislation and a state supreme court ruling significantly altered the definition of legal insanity and the disposition of those individuals that were adjudicated Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI). In early September 1974, the Michigan Supreme Court upheld a lower court's ruling in People v. McQuillan that found the s...

I WILL, without any prefatory remarks, and with great submission to those whom I have the honour to address, endeavour to> direct the attention of the Society to the following salient and relevant questions connected with the important subject selected for discussion. I will consider seriatim:? 1st. The nature of insanity in its medico-legal relations. 2nd. The legal doctrine of responsibility ...