Civil commitment by conservatorship: the workings of California's law

This article summarizes the conservatorship provisions of the California Civil Commitment Statute, the Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act and reviews the major findings from previous studies. By studying the hospital records of eighty-five gravely disabled patients affected by LPS, the authors address issues raised by these reports. The results indicate that the law's provisions work unevenly. Patients with acute and current disability received conservatorships more frequently than those who had been disabled in the past. There is some evidence that the process is used to confine threatening patients and does not function equally well for all diagnostic groups.     

Community standards of criminal liability and the insanity defense

Two experiments (N=71) compare lay standards of insanity to standards incorporated in American legal codes. In Experiment 1, case vignettes provided only legally relevant information about defendants' degrees of impairment in cognition or in behavioral control. Respondents' judgments of criminal liability ornot guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) reflected an exculpatory standard of substantial impairment in both cognition and control. In Experiment 2, case vignettes provided realistic information about defendants' psychiatric diagnoses; respondents had to infer levels of cognitive and control impairment. Results showed that respondents made highly idiosyncratic inferences based on diagnostic categories, but once made, these inferences predicted NGRI judgments. Implications of the concordance between laypeople's rules for assigning NGRI verdicts and the rules used in American legal codes are discussed.Daniel Bailis gratefully acknowledges the support of Public Health Service grant No. 5T32 MH18021-07 for Research Training in Social Psychology during the time in which the present research was conducted. John Darley wished to acknowledge the generous support of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and Princeton University. Study 2 presents work done for the Princeton University undergraduate thesis of Tracy Waxman. The authors are grateful to Norman J. Finkel, Valerie Hans, and three anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier draft on this article.Northwestern University.     

Developments in criminal law and criminal justice

Conclusion It follows from what has been said above that history, principle, and authority combine to compel the conclusion that § 80's guarantee of trial by jury precludes a verdict of guilty being returned in a trial upon indictment of an offence against a law of the Commonwealth otherwise than by the agreement or consensus of all the jurors. That being so, § 57 of the Juries Act, 1927, cannot, consistently with § 80, operate to authorize the conviction of either of the appellants by a majority verdict. Their convictions were unconstitutional and must be set aside.The appeal should be allowed. The orders of the South Australian Court of Criminal Appeal should be set aside and in lieu thereof it should be ordered, in the case of each appellant, that the appeal to that court be allowed, that the conviction be quashed and a new trial ordered.B.A., Columbia University 1972; J.D., Hofstra University 1975.     

Developments in criminal law and criminal justice

Developments in criminal law and criminal justice     

Developments in criminal law and criminal justice

LL.B., Victoria University of Wellington 1969; J.S.M., Stanford University 1972.     

The social construction of criminal responsibility and insanity

This study examines the effects of judicial instructions (traditional American Law Institute [ALI] not guilty by reason of insanity [NGRI] instructions contrasted with ALI instructions supplemented with the guilty but mentally ill [GBMI] alternative) and case information cues (delusional content and planfulness) on student and community subjects' attributions of responsibility. GBMI instructions substantially reduced the probability of NGRI and guilty verdicts in response to vignettes portraying highly psychotic defendants and altered the pattern of variability in responsibility construal ratings. Variation in delusional content cues (self-defense versus non-self-defense) influenced ratings of criminal appreciation but did not affect the verdict distributions. Less planfully commited crimes resulted in higher proportions of insanity verdicts. However, individual differences in responsibility construals of the defendant and in attitudes toward the insanity defense were stronger predictors of verdicts than the design variables, suggesting that individual differences in social-moral cognition are at least as relevant to the attribution of responsibility as are case cues or legal frames of reference. Contrary to previous studies,Witherspoon death penalty attitudes were not related to verdicts, but people without conscientious scruples toward the death penalty were more likely to render guilty verdicts.     

Incentives, criminal defence lawyers and plea bargaining

Plea bargaining has become a central feature of criminal procedure in Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions. This paper explores an area seldom discussed in the economic literature on plea bargaining: the influence of the defence lawyer's fee contract on the terms of the bargain. In particular, it uses data from one jurisdiction of the impact on case trajectories of changes in publicly funded defence lawyers’ contracts to test the proposition that the nature of the lawyer's contract influences how cases are managed. An event study methodology on a pooled time-series cross-section data set of case trajectories before and after the change in the nature of the contract is used to examine whether the new payment regime significantly changed the trajectories of cases through the summary criminal justice system. Overall the results seem to suggest that the behaviour of defence lawyers may be influenced by financial incentives. This implies that the terms of plea bargains reached between prosecution and defence lawyers may be affected by the defence lawyer's remuneration contract. Consequently, the authors conclude that the role of defence lawyers has been under-researched in the literature on the economics of plea bargaining.     

Forensic neuropsychology and the criminal law

This article explores theoretical and empirical issues in the application of clinical neuropsychological evidence to forensic issues in the criminal law. The nature of forensic neuropsychological evaluations is discussed with reference to issues of competency to stand trial, criminal responsibility, and other competencies in the criminal process. Examples of specific disorders relevant to criminal law standards are presented, together with data estimating the prevalence of brain dysfunction in criminal and forensic populations. Research is also reviewed on the role of neuropsychological brain dysfunction in the etiology of violence and criminally relevant behavior. Finally, empirical and ethical issues concerning the applicability and admissibility of forensic neuropsychological data in the criminal context are discussed.     

Class bias in the criminal law

Crime, Law and Social Change -     

Asperger's disorder and the criminal law

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 offences of physical violence, sexual violence, arson, stalking/harassing and computer offences across a range of jurisdictions to evaluate how courts have latterly incorporated Asperger's Disorder into decisions about criminal responsibility and culpability.     

试论刑事政策与国际刑法的关系

刑事政策是对犯罪有组织的反应,国际刑法以研讨国际犯罪为己任,对国际犯罪的研究需要以刑事政策为视角。本文通过分析刑事政策的含义及其国际化特征与国际刑法的发展方向,在刑事政策的视野下,揭示国际刑法的发展趋势——刑事政策的国际刑法化与国际刑法的刑事政策化,进而把握刑事政策与国际刑法两者的契合性。