 |
Michael L. Perlin is an American lawyer and professor at the New York Law School. He is an internationally recognized expert on "mental disability law" and how the legal system deals with individuals with mental disorders or intellectual disability. He has authored over 23 books and nearly 300 scholarly articles on the subject.
Perlin started practicing law in New Jersey, US as a public criminal defense lawyer and mental health advocate for people with mental disabilities,[ citation needed ] and joined the New York Law School faculty in 1984. [1] In 1985 he filed an amicus brief in Ake v. Oklahoma, in which the Supreme Court ruled that a person who is indigent has a right to receive a psychiatric evaluation, provided by the state, in cases where the insanity defense is being used. [2]
Perlin has written extensively about "sanism", a concept created from the term "sane" by lawyer-physician Morton Birnbaum. [3] Perlin refers to the widespread prejudice and discrimination that "permeates all aspects of mental disability law and affects all participants in the mental disability law system: litigants, fact finders, counsel, and expert and lay witnesses." [4]
In 1996 Perlin wrote an article criticizing the Supreme Court decision Godinez v. Moran, as its repercussions were evident in what was widely considered a "charade" trial of mass murderer Colin Ferguson. Perlin entitled his paper "Dignity was the First to Leave" and since then has used Bob Dylan lyrics to name all of his scholarly law articles. [5] [6]
Perlin has said that he sums up the essence of his attempt to educate society about the manner in which sanist bias prevents equal justice in his ninth book The Hidden Prejudice: Mental Disability on Trial (2001). [1] Professor of psychiatry Harvey Bluestone concluded in review that all psychiatrists should read Perlin, even though he sometimes presents them as responsible for alleged sanism. [7]
Perlin sat on the board of the International Academy of Law and Mental Health for 20 years [1] and worked extensively with Mental Disability Rights International, providing training and workshops in nations such as Hungary and Latvia. [8] Since the receipt of funding in 2008, and as part of his work with the Justice Action Center, Perlin has been collaborating with advocates from Japan, Australia, and the Pacific Rim to create the Disability Rights Tribunal for Asia and the Pacific (DRTAP). [1] [9]
Perlin has played clarinet for the Lawrence Township Community Band, and is a fan of baseball and opera. [8] Perlin is also a huge fan of Bob Dylan, having seen him many times live and titling many of his law review articles with Dylan lyrics.
The insanity defense, also known as the mental disorder defense, is an affirmative defense by excuse in a criminal case, arguing that the defendant is not responsible for their actions due to a psychiatric disease at the time of the criminal act. This is contrasted with an excuse of provocation, in which the defendant is responsible, but the responsibility is lessened due to a temporary mental state. It is also contrasted with the justification of self defense or with the mitigation of imperfect self-defense. The insanity defense is also contrasted with a finding that a defendant cannot stand trial in a criminal case because a mental disease prevents them from effectively assisting counsel, from a civil finding in trusts and estates where a will is nullified because it was made when a mental disorder prevented a testator from recognizing the natural objects of their bounty, and from involuntary civil commitment to a mental institution, when anyone is found to be gravely disabled or to be a danger to themself or to others.
The M'Naghten rule(s) (pronounced, and sometimes spelled, McNaughton) is a legal test defining the defence of insanity, first formulated by the House of Lords in 1843. It is the established standard in UK criminal law. Versions have been adopted in some US states, currently or formerly, and other jurisdictions, either as case law or by statute. Its original wording is a proposed jury instruction:
that every man is to be presumed to be sane, and ... that to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.
Insanity, madness, lunacy, and craziness are behaviors caused by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity can manifest as violations of societal norms, including a person or persons becoming a danger to themselves or to other people. Conceptually, mental insanity also is associated with the biological phenomenon of contagion as in the case of copycat suicides. In contemporary usage, the term insanity is an informal, un-scientific term denoting "mental instability"; thus, the term insanity defense is the legal definition of mental instability. In medicine, the general term psychosis is used to include the presence of delusions and/or hallucinations in a patient; and psychiatric illness is "psychopathology", not mental insanity.
The term imbecile was once used by psychiatrists to denote a category of people with moderate to severe intellectual disability, as well as a type of criminal. The word arises from the Latin word imbecillus, meaning weak, or weak-minded. It originally referred to people of the second order in a former and discarded classification of intellectual disability, with a mental age of three to seven years and an IQ of 25–50, above "idiot" and below "moron". In the obsolete medical classification, these people were said to have "moderate mental retardation" or "moderate mental subnormality" with IQ of 35–49, as they are usually capable of some degree of communication, guarding themselves against danger and performing simple mechanical tasks under supervision.
Forensic psychology is the application of scientific knowledge and methods to help answer legal questions arising in criminal, civil, contractual, or other judicial proceedings. Forensic psychology includes research on various psychology-law topics, such as jury selection, reducing systemic racism in criminal law, eyewitness testimony, evaluating competency to stand trial, or assessing military veterans for service-connected disability compensation. The American Psychological Association's Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychologists reference several psychology subdisciplines, such as social, clinical, experimental, counseling, and neuropsychology.
Forensic psychiatry is a subspeciality of psychiatry and is related to criminology. It encompasses the interface between law and psychiatry. According to the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, it is defined as "a subspecialty of psychiatry in which scientific and clinical expertise is applied in legal contexts involving civil, criminal, correctional, regulatory, or legislative matters, and in specialized clinical consultations in areas such as risk assessment or employment." A forensic psychiatrist provides services – such as determination of competency to stand trial – to a court of law to facilitate the adjudicative process and provide treatment, such as medications and psychotherapy, to criminals.
In United States and Canadian law, competence concerns the mental capacity of an individual to participate in legal proceedings or transactions, and the mental condition a person must have to be responsible for his or her decisions or acts. Competence is an attribute that is decision-specific. Depending on various factors which typically revolve around mental function integrity, an individual may or may not be competent to make a particular medical decision, a particular contractual agreement, to execute an effective deed to real property, or to execute a will having certain terms.
R v Swain, [1991] 1 S.C.R. 933 is a leading constitutional decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on certain rights of the mentally ill in their criminal defence. The case concerned a constitutional challenge of the common law rule permitting the Crown to adduce evidence of an accused's insanity and section 542(2) of the Criminal Code, which allowed for the indeterminate detention of an accused who is found not guilty by reason of "insanity". The Court held that both the common law rule and the Code provision were unconstitutional. As a result, the Court created a new common law rule that was constitutional, and Parliament created new laws of what to do with individuals who were found not criminally responsible by reason of a mental disorder. The parties to the case were the appellant, Swain, the respondent, the Crown, and the following interveners: the Attorney General of Canada, the Lieutenant Governor's Board of Review of Ontario, the Canadian Disability Rights Council, the Canadian Mental Health Association, and the Canadian Association for Community Living.
Therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) is an interdisciplinary approach to legal scholarship with the goal of reforming the law so it has a positive impact on the well-being of defendants appearing in court. TJ researchers and practitioners typically make use of social science methods to explore ways in which negative consequences can be reduced, and therapeutic consequences enhanced, without breaching due process requirements. By taking a non-adversarial approach to the administration of justice, judges and lawyers work together to create strategies that help offenders make positive changes in their own lives. Therapeutic jurisprudence has been used successfully in mental health courts and other problem-solving courts, such as drug courts for defendants with addictions.
In the United States criminal justice system, a competency evaluation is an assessment of the ability of a defendant to understand and rationally participate in a court process.
Frendak v. United States, 408 A.2d 364 is a landmark case in which District of Columbia Court of Appeals decided that a judge could not impose an insanity defense over the defendant's objections.
Godinez v. Moran, 509 U.S. 389 (1993), was a landmark decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that if a defendant was competent to stand trial, they were automatically competent to plead guilty, and thereby waive the panoply of trial rights, including the right to counsel.
Indiana v. Edwards, 554 U.S. 164 (2008), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the standard for competency to stand trial was not linked to the standard for competency to represent oneself.
Sanism, saneism, mentalism, or psychophobia refers to the systemic discrimination against or oppression of individuals perceived to have a mental disorder or cognitive impairment. This discrimination and oppression are based on numerous factors such as stereotypes about neurodiversity. Mentalism impacts individuals with autism, learning disorders, ADHD, FASD, bipolar, schizophrenia, personality disorders, stuttering, tics, intellectual disabilities, and other cognitive impairments.
This disability rights timeline lists events relating to the civil rights of people with disabilities in the United States of America, including court decisions, the passage of legislation, activists' actions, significant abuses of people with disabilities, and the founding of various organizations. Although the disability rights movement itself began in the 1960s, advocacy for the rights of people with disabilities started much earlier and continues to the present.
This disability rights timeline lists events outside the United States relating to the civil rights of people with disabilities, including court decisions, the passage of legislation, activists' actions, significant abuses of people with disabilities, and the founding of various organizations. Although the disability rights movement itself began in the 1960s, advocacy for the rights of people with disabilities started much earlier and continues to the present.
A mental health tribunal is a specialist tribunal (hearing) empowered by law to adjudicate disputes about mental health treatment and detention, primarily by conducting independent reviews of patients diagnosed with mental disorders who are detained in psychiatric hospitals, or under outpatient commitment, and who may be subject to involuntary treatment.
Morton Birnbaum was an American lawyer and physician who advocated for the right of psychiatric patients to have adequate, humane care, and who coined the term sanism.
Bernadette McSherry is a lawyer, writer and Emeritus Professor at the University of Melbourne. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and a Commissioner with the Victorian Law Reform Commission.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
