Psychiatry, Criminal Responsibility and the Tempering of Punishment

2020 ◽  
pp. 171-200
Author(s):  
David M. Doyle ◽  
Liam O’Callaghan
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
The Way ◽  
Diminished Responsibility

This chapter, concerned mainly with the period between the last execution in Ireland in 1954 and the partial abolition of the death penalty in 1964, examines why hanging fell into disuse in this period. The chapter focuses on one phenomenon in particular: the development in Ireland and beyond of new ideas around criminal responsibility and psychiatry. The arrival, in Irish courtrooms, of the forensic psychiatrist meant that new expertise was brought to bear on judging the sanity otherwise of the accused. This, among other factors, led to an increase in the number of reprieves and called into question the desirability of mandatory death sentences. It was clear that the M’Naghten rules were now dated and that some murderers were of ‘diminished responsibility’ – a term given statutory definition in Britain. In Ireland, by the early 1960s, the commutation of death sentences was now routine and the way was clear for partial abolition of the death penalty.

Varieties of Attack on the Death Penalty

1969 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Greenberg ◽  
Jack Himmelstein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Challenge ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
The Way

The latest execution in the United States occurred on June 2, 1967. Since then, death sentences have been stayed as courts across the country consider a legal challenge to the constitution ality of the death penalty. This paper describes the distorting effect that capital punishment has had on the legal system and the discriminations in the way it has been administered—for example, in rape cases it is applied almost exclusively to Negroes convicted of raping while women. The legal attack focuses on those procedural vices that reflect the arbitrariness and irration ality inherent in capital punishment. Courts are being called on to subject the death penalty to a reasoned examination and to test its validity against the commands of the Constitution, while the number of persons on the nation's death rows continues to grow past the 500 mark. This confrontation on the issue of capital punishment is part of the more general conflict taking place over how society may best cope with its problems without resort to violence.

Criminal insanity and psychiatric diagnoses in Greek penal cases

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. S593-S593
Author(s):  
G. Tzeferakos ◽  
M. Papaliaga ◽  
C. Papageorgiou ◽  
P. Bali ◽  
A. Douzenis
Keyword(s):  
Substance Use ◽  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Substance Use Disorder ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Common Mental Disorder ◽  
Penal Code ◽  
Axis I ◽  
Criminal Insanity ◽  
Court Of Appeal ◽  
Diminished Responsibility

IntroductionTo our knowledge, few studies address the issue of criminal responsibility among psychiatric offenders. In Greece, articles 34 and 36 of the penal code regulate criminal insanity and diminished responsibility, respectively.ObjectivesThe objective of the present study was to provide psychiatric/legal data considering the appeal to articles 34/36 of the Greek penal code.MethodsLegal case files of 100 adult subjects, 90 male/10 female, 88 Greeks/12 foreigners were examined.ResultsAccording to the first degree court, one defendant was found criminally insane, 29 with partial responsibility, while the rest were regarded as fully capable. The decisions of the court of appeal/the supreme court of appeal were 2 criminally insane, 36 partially responsible and 62, fully criminally responsible. The decisions were unanimous in 78% of the cases.The most common diagnoses were schizophrenia spectrum psychosis (18%), antisocial/borderline/mixed personality disorder (15%) and substance use disorder (15%). Court decisions of criminal insanity/diminished responsibility were higher when the perpetrator had an Axis I diagnosis (47.5%), significantly lower in cases of personality disorder (22.2%) and even lower in cases of substance use disorder (16.7%). In patients with prior hospitalizations the percentage of criminal insanity/diminished responsibility was 55.6%, significantly higher than in cases without (24.4%).ConclusionsSchizophrenia is the most common mental disorder correlated with offenders criminally insane/partially responsible, while a history of psychiatric hospitalization is a very strong positive predictive factor for the successful appeal of the aforementioned articles.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

scholarly journals Violencia y masculinidad en México: el caso del homicidio en la juventud (Violence and masculinity in Mexico: the case of homicide in youth)

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 513-534
Author(s):  
Ricardo Rodríguez Luna
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Male Gender ◽  
Preventive Strategies ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
Mexican Government ◽  
Excessive Number ◽  
The Way

En esta investigación se indaga en torno a posibles vínculos entre el género, la edad y la violencia implícita en los homicidios que acontecen en México. En primer lugar, a partir de diversos registros estadísticos, se esboza el grado de responsabilidad penal y de victimización de los hombres jóvenes ante dicho ilícito. En segundo lugar, se analiza la manera como diversas corrientes criminológicas han explicado la problemática antes comentada; es decir, cómo han tenido en cuenta el género masculino y la edad o, más específicamente, las masculinidades y la juventud. Al respecto, se plantea la visión aportada desde el enfoque positivista, el sociológico y de la diferencia sexual. En tercer lugar, y para finalizar, desde esta última perspectiva se cuestionan las estrategias preventivas que el gobierno mexicano ha puesto en marcha para evitar la sobremortalidad masculina en el delito de homicidio de los jóvenes mexicanos. This research analyzes the possible links between gender, age and violence in the homicides that take place in Mexico. Based on statistical records, the degree of criminal responsibility and victimization of young men in this crime is outlined. Secondly, the way in which different criminology perspectives have explained the aforementioned problem is analyzed, specifically, how they have taken into account the male gender and age; about it, three different approaches are presented: the positivist, sociological and sexual difference. To conclude, from this last perspective, the preventive strategies that the Mexican government has set in motion to prevent excessive number of male deaths due to homicide are questioned.

scholarly journals Purposes and Functions of Public Punishment in Roman Law in the Perspective of Justinian's Codification

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Amielańczyk
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Criminal Policy ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Judicial Decisions ◽  
Aulus Gellius ◽  
Seneca The Younger ◽  
Criminal Matters

The objectives and functions of the punishment for a public offence (crimen) had already been discussed by M. Tullius Cicero, Seneca the Younger, or Aulus Gellius many centuries before Emperor Justinian. According to their statements, the Romans distinguished in principle all the types of punitive functions known today: deterrence (special and general prevention), reprisal (retaliation), elimination (protection of society against the perpetrator), and even the rehabilitation (educative) function. The emergence of the imperial judiciary extra ordinem in criminal matters could have been conducive to performance of various functions assigned to various penalties, along with the possibilities offered by the discretionary power of judicial decisions. However, when reading Emperor Justinian’s Constitutio Tanta and the numerous accounts from the Roman jurists included in his codification, contained in Book 48 of the Digest, one may be convinced that the function of paramount importance for the emperor was to deter potential perpetrators by means of severe penalties, including notably the death penalty. The educational function was rather marginal. The primary objective of the imperial criminal policy was the ruthlessly severe punishing for criminal offences (severitas, atrocitas) and the implementation of the postulate of inevitability of criminal responsibility.

Intelligent and Civilized Sentiments

Lethal State ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 111-152
Author(s):  
Seth Kotch
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
State Law ◽  
Death Row ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Death Row Inmates ◽  
History Of ◽  
Tangible Result

This chapter tells the history of some of the elements that contributed to the declining use of the death penalty in North Carolina. Journalist Nell Battle Lewis railed against the practice as racist, un-Christian, and barbaric. Paul Green echoed those sentiments as he campaigned to save death row inmates from death. Yet their activism had little tangible result. More significant was a change in state law that allowed juries to formally recommend mercy following a conviction, meaning that judges were no longer required to deliver mandatory death sentences. The end of the mandatory death sentences ended executions, which ceased in 1961 and would not resume until 1984.

Moral and Criminal Responsibility

2019 ◽  
pp. 165-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Duff
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
Legal Contexts ◽  
The Right ◽  
David Shoemaker ◽  
The Way

Drawing on Gary Watson’s seminal work on responsibility, this chapter focuses on what he calls accountability. It distinguishes (in section 8.1), answerability from liability, and then concentrates on answerability, which operates, it argues (contra David Shoemaker), analogously in both moral and legal contexts. It discusses (in section 8.2) the way in which answerability requires us to attend to the capacities of the person whom we hold responsible, not just at the time of the conduct for which he is now being held responsible, but at the time of the holding. In section 8.3, it then attends to some implications of the requirement that when we hold someone answerable, we must be ready to listen to their answer. Finally, in section 8.4, it tackles the issue of standing: what gives us the right to call another person to account; and what can undermine that standing—with what implications?

The History of Mitigation in Death Penalty Cases

2020 ◽  
pp. 34-45
Author(s):  
Russell Stetler
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Eighth Amendment ◽  
Mitigating Factors ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Effective Representation ◽  
The U.S

This chapter discusses how the theory and practice of mitigation have evolved over more than four decades, thereby helping to define the modern death penalty era in the United States. Prior to 1976, juries generally made death penalty decisions in a unitary proceeding. Juries then had unfettered discretion to impose death sentences, and the results were so arbitrary that in 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all the existing death penalty statutes. In 1976, the Court approved new statutes that guided jurors’ discretion. The Court required individualized sentencing in which jurors could consider mitigating factors based on the diverse frailties of humankind. This broad definition of what might inspire juries to reject death was elaborated in succeeding decades in a series of decisions relying on the Eighth Amendment. Social workers and other nonlawyers became critical members of multidisciplinary capital defense teams providing effective representation under the Sixth Amendment.

Death and Dignity in American Law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Kaufman
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Basic Question ◽  
Legal Cases ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Core Feature ◽  
American Law ◽  
Relational Concept ◽  
The Law

Dignity serves many purposes in American law, but the concept is perhaps most vital in decisions on the death penalty. Since 1972, when the Supreme Court briefly banned capital punishment, American jurists have debated whether death sentences violate “the dignity of man.” These legal debates describe dignity as an innately human attribute and a core feature of human nature. In practice, however, courts employ dignity to instantiate a particular model of democratic governance. Legal cases on the death penalty treat dignity as a fundamentally relational concept, less a characteristic of personhood than a state of existing in dialogue with the law. This vision of dignity is more institutional and alienable than conceptions that emphasize unwavering worth. Ultimately, the approach to dignity in death penalty cases displaces an individuated account of the term and raises a basic question about whether dignity can exist in the absence of the law.

The Pugh Claim

1934 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-138
Author(s):  
E. Russell Lutz
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
British Government ◽  
Police Station ◽  
Judicial Investigation ◽  
The Government ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way

In June, 1929, James Pugh, an Irish seaman, was arrested in a bar in the city of Colon, Republic of Panama, because of his belligerent attitude toward two policemen and his refusal to pay a bill. On the way to the police station a serious fight occurred, the circumstances of which were in dispute. Pugh died shortly thereafter. The Panamanian judicial investigation of the affair acquitted the two policemen of criminal responsibility for Pugh’s death, a result which apparently was not satisfactory to the British Government, for in July, 1930, a formal request was made upon the Government of Panama by the British Government for an indemnity of ®1,000 on behalf of the children of the deceased, based upon the allegation that his death had been caused by unjustified acts of Panamanian policemen in beating him and dissatisfaction with the manner in which the police agents had been tried.

Anders Celsius’ Contributions to Meridian Arc Measurements and the Establishment of an Astronomical Observatory in Uppsala

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
H. C. Stempels
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Astronomical Observatory ◽  
Far North ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
The Earth ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Extensive Collection ◽  
Modern Astronomy ◽  
Early 18Th Century ◽  
The Way

AbstractAstronomy has been on the curriculum of Uppsala University from at least the middle of the 15th century. However, since Uppsala also was the ecclesiastical centre of Sweden, the acceptance of new ideas, such as the Copernican heliocentric system, was slow. At the same time, more peripheral universities in the Swedish empire, including Dorpat/Tartu, enjoyed a larger freedom. It was not until the early 18th century that a ‘modern’ astronomy emerged in Uppsala. This effort was to a large extent led by Anders Celsius (1701-1744), who was able to establish good international contacts with astronomers in continental Europe. Celsius participated in De Maupertuis’ expedition to the far north of Sweden, in order to measure the meridian arc and determine the shape of the Earth. This paper explores how Celsius became involved in De Maupertuis’ expedition, and how this effort paved the way to the establishment of a fully equipped astronomical observatory, including an extensive collection of books and instruments, most of which survives up to this day.

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