scholarly journals The problems of psychiatric expert witness by pathological reaction to alcohol

1998 ◽  
Vol 70 (9) ◽  
pp. 13-21
Author(s):  
Borislav Kapamadžija
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Expert Witness ◽  
The Real ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Forensic Psychiatric ◽  
Condition Diagnosis ◽  
Pathological Reaction ◽  
Psychic Condition

We presented a case of brutal murder in the condition of pathological reaction to alcohol. The author also gives a brief view of forensic-psychiatric literature data on this problem. The conclusion is that clinical descriptions are not precise in details which makes certain unsecurity and confusion in expert witness. The problem is more complicated with the fact that these conditions mostly last for a short period o f time and are transitory, so that expert witness see a man of normal psychic condition. Diagnosis of pathological reaction to alcohol automatically includes the judgement of total inaccountability which is seldom accepted both in criminal law and in public. In that situation expert witness feels insecure, being aware of the reaction of jurisdiction and public to such an expertise. That is the reason why they often are not precisly defined in literature data and have not enough professional and social sourage to make the diagnosis of total inaccountability. Inspite of all these imprécisions, such conditions have some things in common: they are not common and well known condition of "drunkeness" but they present conditions of true psychosis (mental illness) with transitory character. Although we know that alcohol is only the provocative factor, the real cause of these conditions still remains unknown.

scholarly journals Problematic issues of Criminal and Criminal Procedural Legislation in Applying Coercive Medical Measures

2020 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 258-270
Author(s):  
D. V. Turenko
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Procedural Law ◽  
Modern Development ◽  
Procedural Code ◽  
Forensic Psychiatric ◽  
Main Component

The author of the article proves that the possibility for a court to apply coercive medical measures to an insane person who has committed a socially dangerous act is regulated by the norms of the law on criminal liability and the provisions of the criminal procedural legislation of Ukraine. Their implementation is carried out in the interaction of substantive and procedural law, in particular in certain forms of criminal liability and in measures that are not covered by criminal liability, but are called criminal coercion, and is resolved through individual procedural institutions. The scientific positions of certain scholars and representatives of scientific schools on these issues were studied. On their basis the author expressed a number of own conclusions on problematic and debatable areas and issues raised in the article. Based on the results, the author of the article made some conclusions about the application of coercive medical measures: establishing the fact of committing a criminal offense by a specific person; after a forensic psychiatric examination to determine that such a person is mentally ill and according to its results cannot be sane; such a person is socially dangerous to society and must be isolated for the period of involuntary treatment. In the absence of at least one of the elements of the specified structure, coercive medical measures cannot be applied. The author made generalization, based on the initial provision that the main component of criminal liability is the conviction of a person, the adoption of a court conviction, which provides a legal assessment of the act and the specific person who committed it. Comparison of the current criminal and criminal procedural legislation provides an opportunity to assess coercive medical measures by coercive measures of a criminal law nature, as those used in criminal law relations against persons who committed a socially dangerous act, are ill with certain types of mental illness at the moment of the commission of a crime. The tendency of modern development of the direction in criminal law about delimitation of concepts and essence of "release of the person from criminal liability" and "punishment" from "exclusion of such responsibility" and existence and allocation at the same time of other direction - "criminal coercion" is distinguished. At the same time, the conclusions concerning persons who fell ill with a mental illness after the commission of a crime or while serving a sentence in places of imprisonment that relate to the procedural mechanism of temporary suspension of the imposed criminal punishment, were singled out. The results of the study of criminal and criminal procedural legislation on the application of coercive medical measures confirm and present the mechanism of interaction and implementation of substantive and procedural legislation to ensure the objectives of criminal proceedings under the Art. 1 of the Criminal Code and the Art. 2 of the Criminal Procedural Code of Ukraine.

Is There a Need for Elderly Forensic Psychiatric Services?

2005 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
I O Nnatu ◽  
F Mahomed ◽  
A Shah
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Old Age ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Mentally Disordered Offenders ◽  
Mentally Disordered ◽  
Court Diversion ◽  
Mental Health Difficulties ◽  
Old Age Psychiatry ◽  
Forensic Psychiatric ◽  
Developed Nations

The population of the elderly in most developed nations is on the increase. Furthermore, the prevalence of mental disorder amongst elderly offenders is high. The true extent of `elderly' crime is unknown because much of it goes undetected and unreported. This leads to a failure to detect mental illness in such offenders. Court diversion schemes may improve recognition of mental illness but these schemes usually tend to deal with the more severe crimes. This may result in an overestimation of the amount of serious crime committed by the elderly and a failure to detect mental illness amongst those who commit less serious crimes. Efforts to service this hidden morbidity call for multi-agency collaboration. Improved detection and reporting of crimes is essential if mental health difficulties in the elderly are not to go unnoticed. The needs of elderly mentally-disordered offenders are complex and fall within the expertise of old age and forensic psychiatry, without being adequately met by either one. Therefore, consideration should be given to the development of a tertiary specialist forensic old-age psychiatry service.

How Propaganda Works: Nationalism, Revenge and Empathy in Serbia

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 403-431
Author(s):  
Jordan Kiper ◽  
Yeongjin Gwon ◽  
Richard Ashby Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Expert Witness ◽  
Causal Link ◽  
Bayesian Regression ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
Brain Sciences ◽  
War Propaganda ◽  
Legal Judgments

Abstract What is the relationship between war propaganda and nationalism, and what are the effects of each on support for, or participation in, violent acts? This is an important question for international criminal law and ongoing speech crime trials, where prosecutors and judges continue to assert that there is a clear causal link between war propaganda, nationalism, and mass violence. Although most legal judgments hinge on the criminal intent of propagandists, the question of whether and to what extent propaganda and nationalism interact to cause support for violence or participation remains unanswered. Our goal here is to contribute to research on propaganda and nationalism by bridging international criminal law and the behavioral and brain sciences. We develop an experiment conducted with Serbian participants that examines the effects of propaganda as identified in the latest international speech crime trial as causing mass violence, and thereby test hypotheses of expert witness Anthony Oberschall’s theory of mass manipulation. Using principal components analysis and Bayesian regression, we examine the effects of propaganda exposure and prior levels of nationalism as well as other demographics on support for violence, ingroup empathy, and outgroup empathy. Results show that while exposure to war propaganda does not increase justifications of violence, specific types of war propaganda increase ingroup empathy and decrease outgroup empathy. Further, although nationalism by itself is not significant for justifying violence, the interaction of increased nationalism and exposure to violent media is significant for altering group empathies. The implications of these findings are discussed with respect to international criminal law and the cognitive science of nationalism.

The Royal Road to the Criminal Law’s Concept of the Psychology of Persons

2020 ◽  
pp. 143-204
Author(s):  
Michael S. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Psychological Characteristics ◽  
Central Focus ◽  
Royal Road ◽  
As If

One of the most famous excuses from responsibility and defenses to criminal liability is insanity. The doctrines of insanity are the royal road to grasping the nature of personhood presupposed by both morality and the criminal law. This is because the insane are thought to lack that which makes us accountable agents. The doctrines defining legal insanity are thus examined at some length, probing such doctrines for their suppositions about what psychological characteristics sane persons must possess to be responsible agents. Considerable stripping away from standard doctrines of insanity is needed to reveal the defense’s presuppositions about personhood and moral agency. For those standard doctrines treat insanity as if it were an ordinary excuse like mistake or coercion, just one incidentally limited to those offenders who are mentally ill. Whereas in fact insanity excuses independently of both the cognitive excuses of mistake and of the volitional excuses of coercion, and it does so because of the defense’s central focus on mental illness. Because of their mental illness those who are legally insane lack something more basic than the cognitive and volitional defects on which the defenses of mistake and coercion are based; those who are legally insane lack the moral agency possessed by sane adult persons. This is why this sui generis excuse of insanity affords such a unique opportunity to probe law and morality’s suppositions of what persons must be like to be responsible agents.

scholarly journals Criminal Law: Insane Persons: Influence of Mental Illness on the Parole Return Process

1961 ◽  
Vol 59 (7) ◽  
pp. 1101
Author(s):  
David G. Davies ◽  
John H. Hess
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Return Process

scholarly journals Media for Mental Health

1990 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 380-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalind Ramsay
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Real Situation ◽  
The Real ◽  
Broadcast Media ◽  
The World ◽  
Responsible Attitude ◽  
The Way

Broadcast media can powerfully influence the way we view the world. Journalists drawn to sensational news items do not necessarily portray the real situation they are describing. Often they strengthen belief in stereotyped images, such as the ‘mad axeman’. Yet they have the potential to foster greater public understanding of mental illness and a more responsible attitude to sufferers.

Reliability of Psychiatric Evidence in Serious Criminal Matters: Fitness to Stand Trial and the Defence of Mental Illness

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 446-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Large ◽  
Olav Nielssen ◽  
Gordon Elliott
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Expert Witness ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Consecutive Series ◽  
Expert Opinions ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Fitness To Stand Trial ◽  
Criminal Matters ◽  
Level Of Agreement

Objective: The criminal justice system relies on the opinions of expert witness to assist in decisions about fitness to stand trial (FST) and verdicts of not guilty by reason of mental illness (NGMI). The aim of the present study was to assess the level of agreement between experts about these legal issues using a consecutive series of serious criminal matters in New South Wales. Methods: Pairs of reports from 110 consecutive criminal matters completed by the New South Wales Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions between 2005 and 2007 were examined. The opinions of experts about FST and NGMI were recorded. Results: Agreement about FST was fair–moderate (experts engaged by opposite sides, κ = 0.293; experts engaged by the same side, κ = 0.471), although there was a higher level of agreement in homicide matters. Agreement about NGMI was moderate–good (experts engaged by opposite sides, κ = 0.508; experts engaged by the same side, κ = 0.644) and there was a higher level of agreement when the experts also agreed about the diagnosis of schizophrenia. Further analysis using generalized estimating equations did not find a higher level of agreement about FST or NGMI in pairs of reports containing the opinion of experts from the same side. Conclusions: Little evidence was found for bias in expert opinions about either FST or NGMI, but the comparatively low level of agreement about FST suggests the need for reform in the way that FST is assessed.

Why isn’t history a recognized criminal specialists’ teacher?

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
Jarosław Warylewski
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Justice System ◽  
The Real ◽  
Penal Law ◽  
History Of

The study includes reflections on the history of punishment and other means of a criminal reaction, their effectiveness and their impact on the criminal justice system. It indicates the limited “repertoire” of the mentioned measures. It draws attention to the real threats to the most important legal interests, especially to life, such as war and terrorism. It doubts the effectiveness of severe penalties, especially the death penalty. Indicates the dangers of penal populism and the perishing of law, including criminal law. It contains an appeal to criminologists and penal law experts to deal with all these dangers in terms of ideas rather than individual regulations.

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