Insanity and Adultery: Forensic Implications of a Divorce Case
| Autor: | Geoffrey R. McKee |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 1995 |
| Předmět: |
Adult
Male medicine.medical_specialty media_common.quotation_subject 050109 social psychology Mens rea Automatism (medicine) Actus reus State supreme court Insanity Divorce medicine Humans Mental Competency 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences Psychiatry Expert Testimony General Psychology media_common Dissociative Identity Disorder 05 social sciences 050301 education Liability Legal Mental illness medicine.disease Insanity defense Extramarital Relations Insanity Defense Criminal law Female medicine.symptom Psychology 0503 education |
| Zdroj: | Psychological Reports. 76:427-434 |
| ISSN: | 1558-691X 0033-2941 |
| Popis: | Summary.-Legal responsibility For acts presumes that a person's behavior is rationally intentional and under voluntary control. Automatism, a type of insanity defense, contends that the person's conscious, voluntary control of behavior has been impaired by a mental disorder. In a recent case in South Carolina, automatism was offered as a defense to adultery, an at-fault grounds for divorce. On appeal, the State Supreme Court recognized the novel application of mental impairment defenses in domestic litigation and remanded the case for rehearing Implications of the ruling for clinical and Forensic practice in family court are discussed. Under American common law, a person is presumed to be legally responsible for his or her acts if, at the time of the act, the person was capable of voluntarily performing the act, actus reus, and capable of forming the intention to act, mens yea (Loewy, 1975). A person may be excused from punishment or legal consequences if either actus reus or mens yea are sufficiently impaired by a mental illness, mental defect, or other condition beyond the control of the individual. Generally in criminal law, disorders such as psychosis, manic-depressive Illness, and mental retardation are considered to affect mens yea. For example, a person suffering from schizophrenia, paranoid type, may have a delusion that a neighbor is attempting to kill him and as a result assaults the neighbor without provocation. Testimony showing that the assault was initiated by the persecutory delusion would hkely result in a verdict of Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI) or Guilty but Mentally ILl (GBMI). Some mental dsorders, however, are considered to affect actus reus, the person's voluntary control over behavior. In such cases, the legal defense of automatism may be argued; the incapacitating conditions may include sleepwalking disorder, epilepsy, postconcussion syndrome, anoxia, and certain dissociative disorders of psychogenic fugue and multiple personahty dsorder (Melton, Petrila, Poythress, & Slobogin, 1987). For example, if a guest takes his host's jewelry during a sleepwallung episode, testimony that the act was not under the defendant's voluntary, conscious control would be the basis of the defense. Automatism is rarely employed in the United States, perhaps 'Address enquiries to G. R. McKee, Ph.D., William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute, 1800 Colonial Drive, POB 202, Columbia, SC 29202. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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