Minds on Trial

Insanity

Murder, Madness, and the Law

Charles Patrick Ewing

The insanity defense is one of the oldest fixtures of the Anglo-American legal tradition. Though it is available to people charged with virtually any crime, and is often employed without controversy, homicide defendants who raise the insanity defense are often viewed by the public and even the legal system as trying to get away with murder. Often it seems that legal result of an insanity defense is unpredictable, and is determined not by the defendants mental state, but by their lawyers and psychologists influence. From the thousands of murder cases in which defendants have claimed insanity, Doctor Ewing has chosen ten of the most influential and widely varied. Some were successful in their insanity plea, while others were rejected. Some of the defendants remain household names years after the fact, like Jack Ruby, while others were never nationally publicized. Regardless of the circumstances, each case considered here was extremely controversial, hotly contested, and relied heavily on lengthy testimony by expert psychologists and psychiatrists. Several of them played a major role in shaping the criminal justice system as we know it today. In this book, Ewing skillfully conveys the psychological and legal drama of each case, while providing important and fresh professional insights. For the legal or psychological professional, as well as the interested reader, Insanity will take you into the minds of some of the most incomprehensible murderers of our age.

Kids who Kill

Charles Patrick Ewing

Who are the Kids Who Kill? Charles Ewing takes readers behind the headlines and reveals a side of contemporary life that is horrifying--a landscape of abuse, violence and neglect, revealing what is currently known about the psychology and personal histories of these kids, but raising the hardest question of all: how should society deal with this problem? Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Justice Perverted

Sex Offense Law, Psychology, and Public Policy

Charles Patrick Ewing

Over the past quarter century Congress, state legislatures and the courts have radically reshaped America's laws dealing with sex offenders in an effort to reduce the prevalence of sex offenses. Most convicted sex offenders must now register with the authorities, who then make information about them available to the public. Possession of child pornography has been made an extremely serious crime often punishable by prison sentences that dwarf those meted out to child molesters, rapists, robbers, and even killers. Federal law now imposes a minimum sentence of ten years in prison for those convicted of using the internet to attempt to lure minors for sex. And the federal government and 20 states have "sexually violent predator" laws that allow the indefinite civil commitment of convicted sex offenders to secure institutions for treatment after they have served their full criminal sentences.All of these changes in sex offender law, as well as numerous others, have been based at least in part on input from psychology, psychiatry and the social sciences. Moreover, enforcement and administration of many of these laws relies to a large extent on the efforts of mental health professionals. However, many questions about this involvement remain largely unanswered. Are these laws supported by empirical evidence, or even by well-reasoned psychological theories? Do these laws actually work? Are mental health professionals capable of reliably determining an offender's future behavior, and how best to manage it? Finally, are experts capable of providing effective treatment for sex offenders -- i.e., treatment that actually reduces the likelihood that an identified sex offender will re-offend?In Justice Perverted, Charles Patrick Ewing poses these difficult questions and others that few in either law or psychology have asked, much less tried to answer. Drawing on research from across the social and behavioral sciences, he weighs the evidence for the spectrum of sex offense laws, to occasionally surprising results. A rational look at an intensely emotional subject, Justice Perverted is an essential book for anyone interested in the science behind public practice.

Battered Women who Kill

Psychological Self-defense as Legal Justification

Charles Patrick Ewing

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When Children Kill

The Dynamics of Juvenile Homicide

Charles Patrick Ewing

Each year between 1,000 and 1,500 youngsters are arrested on charges of murder or manslaughter in the United States. This book examines the children behind the crimes, why they kill, and how the American legal system deals with juvenile killers.

Minds on Trial

Great Cases in Law and Psychology

Charles Patrick Ewing, Joseph T. McCann

Minds on Trial: Great Cases in Law and Psychology gives you an inside view of 20 of the highest profile legal cases of the last 50 years. The authors skillfully convey the psychological and legal drama of each case, while providing important and fresh professional insights. Mental health and legal professionals, as well as others with an interest in psychology and the law will have a hard time putting this scholarly, yet readable book down.

Explorations in Criminal Psychopathology

Clinical Syndromes with Forensic Implications

Louis B. Schlesinger

When Explorations in Criminal Psychopathology: Clinical Syndromes With Forensic Implications was first published in 1996, the purpose was, in part, to correct an imbalance in the field, specifically with regard to the coverage of the important topic of psychopathology and its relationship to crime. The second edition of this book continues to address the complex approach to this very specific and important aspect of human behavior. Emphasizing on psychopathology from a clinical phenomenological perspective, with legal issues and implications playing a secondary role, an impressive group of contributors explores various disorders that have significant forensic implications. Each deals with a specific disorder or pathological process in terms of its potential relevance to criminal forensic practice. Updated and expanded articles approach these complexities largely from a psychodynamic perspective that also addresses the biological, psychological and environmental aspects of behavior. The book is divided into three parts: Part I includes five different types of psychopathology that lead to distinct overt types of behavior. Part II provides discussions of various disorders of thought resulting in criminal conduct, but not disordered thinking indicative of a formal thought disorder per se. Part III concerns borderline and psychotic-like conditions as well as malingering and deception, which are important topics in forensic practice. This book meets a need in scientific literature as a significant resource for clinicians that are confronted with rare, unusual, or novel disorders whose potential implications have been less well studied and are therefore less apparent and familiar.

Sociology of Deviant Behavior

Marshall Barron Clinard, Robert Frank Meier

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The Felon

John Irwin

Since its first publication , 'The Felon' has become a classic of criminal sociology. Based on in-depth interviews and two years of participant observation, this book traces the career path of the felon - from early environment to crime to prison to parole - from the point of view of the offender. Engaging and readable, Irwins description of the life of felons, and his conclusions about the role of prisons in our society remain convincing and topical.

The New Evil

Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime

Michael H. Stone, Gary Brucato

This follow-up volume to Dr. Stone's The Anatomy of Evil presents compelling evidence that, since a cultural tipping-point in the 1960s, certain types of violent crime have emerged that in earlier decades never or very rarely occurred. The authors examine the biological and psychiatric factors behind serial killing, serial rape, torture, mass and spree murders, and other severe forms of violence. In addition, they persuasively argue that, in at least some cases, a collapse of moral faculties contributes to the commission of such heinous crimes, such that "evil" should be considered not only a valid area of inquiry, but sometimes an imperative one. Returning to his groundbreaking scale for the ranking of degrees of evil, Dr. Stone and Dr. Brucato, a fellow violence and serious psychopathology expert, provide more detail than ever before, using dozens of cases associated with the twenty-two categories along the continuum. They also consider the effects of new technologies, as well as sociological, cultural, and historical factors since the 1960s that may have set the stage for new forms of violence. Further, they explain how personality, psychosis, and other qualities can meaningfully contribute to particular crimes, making for many different motives. Relying on their extensive clinical experience, and examination of writings and artwork by infamous serial killers, these experts offer many insights into the logic that drives horrible criminal behavior, and they discuss the hope that in the future such violence may be prevented.

Law and Mental Health

A Case-Based Approach

Robert G. Meyer, Christopher M. Weaver

This book has been replaced by Law and Mental Health, Second Edition, ISBN 978-1-4625-4047-1.

True And False Allegations Of Child Sexual Abuse

Assessment & Case Management

Tara Ney

It is important for society that the backlash does not result in the reburial of the problem of child sexual abuse. ‘True and False Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse’ represents an important contribution to that effort. This book is about conducting evaluations of allegations of child sexual abuse that take into account research knowledge and practice wisdom. It is not a cookbook about how to do evaluations. Rather, it provides a great deal of food for thought and is aimed at child abuse professionals who can critically read and test the material against their experiences in the field. It includes a wide spectrum of information, approaches, and opinions about child sexual abuse evaluation.

Analyzing Criminal Minds

Forensic Investigative Science for the 21st Century

Don Jacobs

An insightful book presenting cutting-edge information on the newest, most remarkable forensic science and methods used for understanding the criminal mind. Analyzing Criminal Minds: Forensic Investigative Science for the 21st Century explores new and emerging approaches to a perennially fascinating subject. Author Don Jacobs looks at 10 tools and products that have revolutionized the discipline, explaining how modern criminal mind analysis incorporates advances in criminal and forensic psychology, forensic neuropsychology, brain imaging, adolescent neurobiology, criminal profiling, and brain fingerprinting, as well as research into the paralimbic brain system and the impact of the "DANE" brain upon adolescent and young adult behavior. Twenty-three characteristics shared by jailed violent criminals are analyzed and considered in terms of neuropsychology and developmental psychology. The book also probes psychopathy in its various degrees, in children, adolescents, and adults, and explains a controversial but increasingly accepted theory that psychopathy is a "natural" outgrowth of evolution, describing how this "natural" psychopathy can become a condition typified by violent, sadistic, and irreversible personality disorder.

United States Digest of Decisions in Criminal Cases

John Lawyer Hanes

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Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia

West Virginia. Supreme Court of Appeals

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Proceedings of the Joint Sessions of the Bar Associations of Arkansas and Texas and of the Separate Sessions of the Bar Association of Arkansas and of the Texas Bar Association

Bar Association of Arkansas

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Cases Argued and Decided in the Supreme Court of the United States

United States. Supreme Court

First series, books 1-43, includes "Notes on U.S. reports" by Walter Malins Rose.

Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Alabama

Alabama. Supreme Court

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