(Source: The University of Alabama Press)
The University
of Alabama Press has published a book on the US history of the insanity defence
in court.
ABOUT THE BOOK
The insanity
defense is considered one of the most controversial, most misunderstood, and
least straightforward subjects in the American legal system. Disorder in the
Court: Morality, Myth, and the Insanity Defense traces the US legal standards
for the insanity defense as they have evolved from 1843, when they were first
codified in England, to 1984, when the US government attempted to revise them
through the Insanity Defense Reform Act. Throughout this period “insanity” existed
primarily as a legal term rather than a medical one; yet the testimony of
psychiatric experts is required in cases in which an insanity defense is
raised.
The adjudication
of such cases by courtroom practice is caught between two different but overlapping
discourses, the legal and the medical, both of which have historically sought
to assert and maintain firm disciplinary boundaries. Both expert and lay
audiences have struggled to understand and apply commonplace definitions of
sanity, and the portrayal of the insanity defense in popular culture has only
served to further frustrate such understandings.
Andrea L. Alden
argues that the problems with understanding the insanity defense are, at their
foundation, rhetorical. The legal concept of what constitutes insanity and,
therefore, an abdication of responsibility for one’s actions does not map
neatly onto the mental health professions’ understandings of mental illness and
how that affects an individual’s ability to understand or control his or her actions.
Additionally, there are multiple layers of persuasion involved in any effort to
convince a judge, jury—or a public, for that matter—that a defendant is or is
not responsible for his or her actions at a particular moment in time.
Alden examines
landmark court cases such as the trial of Daniel McNaughtan, Durham v. United
States, and the trial of John Hinckley Jr. that signal the major shifts in the
legal definitions of the insanity defense. Combining archival, textual, and
rhetorical analysis, Alden offers a close reading of texts including trial
transcripts, appellate court opinions, and relevant medical literature from the
time period. She contextualizes these analyses through popular texts—for
example, newspaper articles and editorials—showing that while all societies
have maintained some version of mental illness as a mitigating factor in their
penal systems, the insanity defense has always been fraught with controversy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrea L. Alden
is an assistant professor of English at Grand Canyon University.
More information
here
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