On January I, 1978 Oregon instituted an insanity defense system that is unique in the country. The central feature of that system is the Psychiatric Security Review Board (PSRB). The system was experimental; the statute provided that the PSRB was to cease operation in 3 I h years unless the 1981 legislature renewed its existence. Before and during the 1981 session the Oregon legislature conduct...

Insanity acquittees are often (erroneously) believed to get away with murder. This article examines one possible cause of this view--that insanity acquittees may have, to various degrees, caused or exacerbated their own mental disorder in the first instance. Such a component of prior fault is illustrated with recourse to the putative insanity defense of Dr. Jekyll, who, while almost certainly n...

This Comment addresses the present gap in insanity-defense laws created by the defense’s abolition and offers an Eighth Amendment based remedy. Part I reviews the history and evolution of the insanity defense in Anglo-American law. It then describes how four states have statutorily abolished the defense. It concludes with a discussion of Clark v. Arizona, the Court’s most recent decision on the...

Little attention has been paid to the processing of insanity acquittees subsequent to criminal trial. This study first obtained descriptive data on new insanity acquittees (N = 137) in Illinois between January 1982 and July 1984 and then examined the criminal commitment criteria used by evaluating psychiatrists and criminal courts in the disposition of insanity acquittees. Acquittees in Illinoi...

1 Rosancff, A. J., and Florence Orr, A study of insanity in the light of the Mendelian theory, Amer. J. Insanity, 68, 221-261 (1911), also Eugenics Record Ofice BsU., No. 5. 2 Ridin, E., Einige Wege und Ziele der Familienforschung, mit Rucksicht auf die Psychiatrie, Zs. ges. Neurol. Psychiat., 7 (Hft. 5), 487-585 (1911). 8 Galton, F., History of Twins, in Inquiries into human faculty and its de...