Research Catalog

Title

Insanity : murder, madness, and the law / Charles Patrick Ewing.

Author

Ewing, Charles Patrick, 1949-

Publication

New York : Oxford University Press, 2008.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xxv, 188 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

Synopsis: 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.

Uniform Title

University press scholarship online.

Subject

• Insanity defense > United States
• Insanity (Law) > United States
• Mentally ill > Commitment and detention > United States

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Acknowledgments -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1: Jacob Rubenstein -- 2: Robert Torsney -- 3: David Berkowitz -- 4: John Wayne Gacy, Jr -- 5: Arthur Shawcross -- 6: Scott Panetti -- 7: Eric Smith -- 8: Andrew Goldstein -- 9: Eric Michael Clark -- 10: Andrea Yates -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Index.

ISBN

9780195326130 (cloth : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2007051123

OCLC

185026559

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library