This Article stresses the extraordinary importance of anticipating the full range of problems accompanying the elaboration of any basic plan. Additionally, it develops a general approach for perceiving contingencies and eliminating oversights. The result, however, is not a “how to do it” manual for recognizing planning complexities. Although a planner is apt to encounter many of the problems raised in Part One, and might find direction from their discussion, the…
This Article provides an history of the evolution of various tests for an insanity defense in Washington, D.C., focusing on the most important case precedent in the field.
This Article will not be a legal analysis, but will address the issues raised in United States v. Brawner from the perspective of the expert witness, and will hopefully convey an understanding of the decision that other people (experts) of similar persuasion would maintain and articulate if they had the opportunity to comment publicly on this case.
Following a discussion of the recommendations made by the amici concerning the insanity defense and issues surrounding it, the author will consider a proposal rejected by the Brawner court: abolition of the insanity defense.
The purpose of this Article is to describe the problems of the insanity defense and criminal commitment as they appear to a psychiatrist in a hospital for the criminally insane. Viewed from this vantage point, the terrain seems to look quite different from the way it appeared to the Court of Appeals in United States v. Brawner.
I think it is fair to say that when Judge Bazelon revitalized the New Hampshire rule of 1869-1871 through Durham, he was hopeful of also revitalizing the cooperative, understanding, and progressive relationship between psychiatry and the law which those early New Hampshire decisions represented. Evidently Judge Bazelon was convinced that revision of the legal rules of insanity made in accord with the best available psychiatric advice and offering encouragement to…
This Article will focus primarily on two matters in the Brawner court’s opinion: 1) its decision not to abolish the insanity defense; and 2) its decision to permit the introduction of evidence concerning a defendant’s abnormal mental condition if relevant to establishing or negating the specific intent element of certain crimes.
I will share with you a few thoughts on how the Solicitor General discharges his general statutory duty to “attend to the interests of the United States”‘ in the federal courts. More specifically, I would like to discuss how the Solicitor General gets along with his client-the United States-and how he ascertains the “interests” of that client.
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