Psychology and Law

1
Psychology and Law

• Expert testimony
• Forensic Assessment
• Child custody disputes
• Insanity defense
• Criminal Profiling
• Predicting Dangerousness

2
Outline of weeks topics

• Insanity defense
• History of Legal provisions
• Cases Dahmer, Menendez, Hinckley
• Non Pathological criminal incapacity (SA)
• History of Legal provisions
• Cases Chretien, Moses
• Expert Testimony
• Problems and considerations de Kock and the
  TRC.
• Socially responsible expert testimony

3
Law vs. Psychology

• Law
• Deals in Absolutes
• Concerned with the particular
• Concepts of self control, responsibility,
  morality
• Free Will
• Search for justice
• Protection of society

• Psychology
• Deals in Relative terms
• Interested in the general, extrapolation
• Discourse of Illness/ Medical model
• Determinism Biopsychosocial causality
• Search for facts re. Human behaviour.
• Protecting the individual

4
Insanity Defense

• Jeffrey Dahmer
• Crime
• Background
• Expert Testimony
• Diagnosis?

5
Insanity Defense

• History
• McNaghten 1843
• Persecution complex ? attempt to kill PM Sir
  Robert Peel
• Accidentally shoots secretary
• Found NGRI
• Disposition Lunatic asylum 22 years
• McNaghten rules
• The accused must suffer from a disease of the
  mind of such severity that the accused was
  incapable either of knowing the act was wrong or
  of understanding the nature of the act.
• Purely cognitive test
• Fairly strict not enough to have delusion
  must be relevant to act. E.g. delusion of rumours
  should not ? murder

6
Insanity defense History continued.

• Historically the NGRI plea only used to evade the
  death sentence
• Incarceration in prison largely preferable to
  psychiatric commitment
• Conditions
• Prospects for release
• 1954 Bazelon
• Concern that disproportionate representation of
  socially deprived in Criminal justice system.
• Desire for rehabilitation in good mental
  institutions

7
ALI test 1955

• Adds to McNaghtens test a volitional component
• A person is not responsible for criminal conduct
  if at the time of such conduct as a result of
  mental disease or defect he lacks substantial
  capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of
  his conduct or to conform his conduct to the
  requirement of law.
• Volition ability to control self
• Most controversial aspect of insanity defense

8
Jeffrey Dahmer

• Cannibalistic killings
• Uncontrollable urge to have sex with
  unconscious victims
• 17 victims drugged, lobotomized, dissected
• No hallucinations or delusions
• Almost caught when one boy tried to escape
• Found guilty ? 936 years in prison without
  parole. Why did NGRI defense not succeed?

9
Disorders of legal significance

• Need to know how the mental illness concerned
  affected either cognition or volition
• 89 of successful pleas either schizophrenic or
  mentally retarded
• Schizophrenia
• Loss of integrated functioning
• Paranoia/delusional thinking
• Hallucinations

10
Disorders of legal significance continued

• Bipolar
• Can have mania, psychotic features
• MPD/DID
• A subtype of PTSD
• Western disorder, possession states?
• I find you all guilty!
• PTSD

11
Impulse Control Disorders

• What are they?
• Inability to resist urge ? tension ? act ?
  release
• Examples
• Pathological gambling
• Kleptomania
• Paraphilias
• Homosexual Panic! DSMI
• Policeman at elbow
• Disorders of self control or disorders of intent?

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Syndrome evidence

• Battered spouse syndrome
• Battered Child syndrome Menendez
• Lyle (age 25) and Erik Menendez (age 23)
• Killed parents with shotgun while watching TV
• 911 call good actors
• After murder shopping spree
• Claimed years of emotional sexual abuse
• Deadlocked juries manslaughter vs. murder.
• Were these murders result of irresistible
  impulse?

13
Psychopathy

• Unsocialised Individuals
• DSM criteria
• Circular definition
• Excluded specifically in ALI
• South African provision

14
Diagnostic vs. Legal concepts

• Changes in diagnostic categories e.g..
  Homosexuality
• Many different diagnostic systems DSM, ICD10
• Some disorders have higher scientific status than
  others
• ? Battle of expert witnesses
• Consequences of disorder ? seek help e.g. alc.
  abuse, gambling ? gamblers anonymous vs.
  stealing.
• Relevance of the mental illness to act disease
  must have bearing on either volition or
  cognition.
• DSM IV now contains warning re. use outside
  clinical setting.

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Burden of proof

• On the accused
• Used to be on state until Hinckley
• Hinkley
• Background
• Crime
• Expert Testimony
• Verdict
• Reasons for this verdict?

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Insanity defense concluded

• Public tends to hysteria butmostly due to high
  profile cases e.g. Menendez
• Reality Very few successful NGRI pleas
• lt 1 attempt plea, of these lt 25 successful
• Time imprisoned about the same as prison
  offenders
• Recidivism less than prison offenders
• More serious the crime, the more difficult to
  plead successfully
• Mental institution periodic reviews of detainee
  to balance individual rights/public safety
• Is the defense objective in practice?

17
References

• Reznek, L. (1997). Evil or Ill justifying the
  insanity defense. London Routledge.
• Slovenko, R. (1995). Psychiatry and Criminal
  Culpability. New York John Wiley Sons