NCJ Number
86089
Date Published
1982
Length
228 pages
Annotation
This book discusses multiple personality and other dissociative disorders, emphasizing how these conditions should be regarded under the law of criminal responsibility.
Abstract
Case studies are emphasized throughout the book. Major topics addressed include punishment, retribution, and criminal responsbility; legal conceptions of insanity; categories of mental disorders; diagnostic factors in the expression of antisocial behavior; evaluation of criminal responsibility; dissociative dynamics and multiple personality; and psychoanalytic psychology. Although the issue of criminal responsibility is raised in less than 2 percent of all cases that go to trial, it remains a primary concern in the area of criminal law. The criminal law is a form of political and moral philosophy, and excusing conditions are a persistent ethical and humanitarian feature of the law. In operation, the insanity defense results in a relaxation of the traditional rules of evidence. The test for determining criminal responsibility remains the same in 28 states as it was when established in 1843 in the M'Naughten case. Basically, the rule provides excuse from culpability if the defendant, because of mental disorder, did not know the nature and quality of the act or did not know that what he was doing was wrong. Variants of this basic rule have been adopted in the remaining jurisdictions. The threshold question is whether a mental disease was present; if so, questions regarding cognition and control become crucial to a successful insanity defense. An index and a 600-entry bibliography are provided.