The Psychopath: The Law on the Boundary Line

The background for this section was drawn from: Erikson, K. (1966), Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance, USA: Wiley, 3-29; Gusfield, J.R. (1968), "On Legislating Morals: The Symbolic Process of Designating Deviance", Cal. L. Rev. , 56, 54-73. (This article is derived from Gusfield, J.R. (1963), Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement, USA: Univ. of Illinois Press); Gove, W. (1974), " Societal Reaction as an Explanation of Mental Illness: An Evaluation". In Law, Psychiatry and the Mental Health System (Law casebook, ed. Brooks, A., USA: Little, Brown, 659-73.

Id., Gusfield, J.R. : In this article Gusfield describes the socio-political conflict over the use and prohibition of alcohol. His focus is on the general struggle among groups, whereas this analysis focuses on the norm enforcers.

Livermore, J. , Malmquist, C. and Meehl, P. (1968): "On the Justification for Civil Commitment", U. Pa. L. Rev., 117, 75.

Kitrie, N. (1967): "The Divestment of Criminal Justice and the Coming of the Therapeutic State", Suffolk L. Rev., 1, 43.

Dershowitz, A. (1969): "On Preventive Detention ", N.Y. Rev. of Books, XII, 5, March 13, 44-48. Laws against vagrancy are the best example.

Packer, H. (1968): The Limits of the Criminal Sanction, USA: Stanford Univ. Press, 73-79.

Gusfield, J. , supra, note 1, at 60-61.

Goldstein, A. (1967): The Insanity Defense, USA: Yale Univ. Press, 9-23; see generally: Szasz , T. (1963), Law Liberty and Psychiatry, USA: Macmillan.

Id., Goldstein, A. , at 33-36.

The terms psychopath, sociopath and personality disorder are used interchangeably in the literature.

Weihofen, H. (1954): Mental Disorder as a Criminal Defense, USA: Dennis, p. 27;

Goldstein, A. , supra, note 8, p. 34. Goldstein states the psychopath appears so much like a "normal man" that juries are reluctant to acquit on grounds of insanity.

Id., Weihofen, H. ; Biggs, J. (1955): The Guilty Mind, USA: Harcourt, Brace, p. 163. "Clinically they seem to dwell in a kind of medical-legal limbo-land, perhaps not mentally ill but certainly very far from normal."

Id., Weihofen, H. at 123; Kuh, R. : "The Insanity Defense—An Effort to Combine Law and Reason", U. Pa. L. Rev., 110, 771, 800; Davidson, H. (1954): "Psychiatrists and the Administration of Criminal Justice", J. Crim. L. & C.P. , 45, 13, 16.

ALI (1962): Model Penal Code No. 4.01 Proposed Official Draft.

See Comments to Fourth Draft, p. 160; United States v. Brawner, 471 F. 2d 969, 993 at note 41 (App. D.C. 1972).

Blocker v. United States, 110 U.S.A. App. D.C. 41, 51, 288 F.2d 853, 863 (1961) (Burger, J. concurring); Goldstein, A., supra, note 8, at 87 and 214.

United States v. Currens, 290 F.2d 751, 761 (3rd Cir. 1961).

Kozol, H. (1959): "The Psychopath before the Law", Mass. L. Q., 44, 106, 116 and 117. "It was obvious that the mental hospitals ... looked upon him as a common nuisance and an embarrassment...."

United States v. Chandler, 393 F.2d 920 (4th Cir. 1968); Blake v. United States, 407 F.2d 908 (5th Cir. 1969).

United States v. Smith, 404 F.2d 720, 727-730 (6th Cir. 1968).

United States v. Freeman, 357 F.2d 606 (ed Cir. 1966); United States v. Currens, supra, note 17; United States v. Brawner, supra, note 15, at 969, 994. Brawner makes the caveat paragraph a judge guideline, not a jury instruction.

Lynch v. Overholser, 288 F.2d 388 (D.C. Cir. 1969), rev's. 369 U.S. 705, 1962; (Goldstein, A., supra, note 8 at 186-88.)

Noyes, A. (1927): A Textbook of Psychiatry, USA: Macmillan, 164-170.

Noyes, A. and Kolb, L. (1963): Modern Clinical Psychiatry, U.S.A.: Saunders, 458 and 460.

Blocker v. United States, supra, note 16, at 860-61.

United States v. Brawner, supra, note 15, at note 7, at 978.

See generally Kozol, H., supra, note 18; Blocker v. United States, supra, note 16, at 853, 860-62. Blocker states that treating the psychopath involves changing the entire personality "something few psychiatrists feel they can do".

Biggs, J. , supra, note 12, at 164.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, U.S.A.: Amer. Psychiat. Ass. (2d ed 1968) (hereinafter cited as DSM 11).

Jenkins, R. ( 1960): "The Psychopathis or Antisocial Personality", J. Nerv. & Ment. Dis., 131, 318-334. The three classes are: the personality pattern disturbances, paranoid, cyclothymic, schizoid and inadequate group; the personality trait disturbances, compulsive, emotionally unstable and passive-aggressive group; and the sociopath, which in the second and most recent edition would be No. 301.7 anti-social personality.

DSM 11, supra, note 29, at 43.

Id., No. 316.3, Dyssocial Behavior, at 52.

Cleckley, H. (1964): The Mask of Sanity (4th ed.), USA: Mosby, 276-282.

Weihofen, H., supra, note 11, at 14-16.

Jenkins, R., supra, note 30, at 321.

Cleckley, H., supra, note 33, at 442-454. Note that status is used in this article in the same manner it is used in Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962).

Id., Cleckley, 447.

Kozol, H. , supra, note 18, at 109, 116-17; Kolb, L. (1970) Modern Clinical Psychiatry , USA: Saunders, 500-502. See also, Jenkins, R. , supra, note 30; Maddocks, P. (1970): "A Five-Year-Follow-up of Untreated Psychopaths", Brit. J. Psychiat., 116, 511-15; Whiteley, J. (1970): "The Response of Psychopaths to a Therapeutic Community", Brit. J. Psychiat., 116, 517-29.

The author's observations of a civil commitment hearing at St. Elizabeth's on October 24, 1974.

Whiteley, J. , supra, note 38.

Jenkins, R. , supra, note 30, at 330.

Whiteley, J. , supra, note 38, at 526.

Goffman, E. (1960): "Characteristics of Total Institutions". In Identity and Anxiety, ed. Stein, M. , Vidich, A. and White, D. M. , USA: Free Press Glencoe, p. 658.

Stürup, G. (1968): Treating the Untreatable, USA: Hookins; also, "The Treatment of Chronic Criminals", Bull. Menninger Clinic, 28, 5, 229-43; Schmideberg, M. (1967): "Dare we Release Them?-A Report on a Lecture by G. K. Stürup", This Journal, 11, 73-76.

Id., "The Treatment of Chronic Criminals", 242.

Maddocks, P. , supra, note 38.

Keith, C. and Stamm, R. (1964): "The Use of the Prison Code as a Defense", Bull. Menninger Clinic, 28, 5, 251-59.

Id., at 256.

Whiteley, J. , supra, note 38, at 526.

Cleckley, H. , supra, note 33, at 456-57.

Cowen, E. and Zax, M. (1972): Abnormal Psychology: Changing Conceptions, USA: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 413-30.

Cleckley, H. , supra, note 33, at 457.

Goldstein, A. , supra, note 52, quoted at note 8.

Tofller, A. (1970): Future Shock, USA: Random House , 95-121 and 251. Toffler describes the new business elite; see Cleckley, H. , supra, note 33, at a Clinical Profile, pp. 364-78.

Kolb, L. , supra, note 38, at 494-95.

Television Special on Problems in Labor Organizations, ABC, Dec. 3, 1974.

Goldstein, A. , supra, note 8 at 90, 91 and 221-26

; Packer, H. , supra, note 6

; Weihofen, H. , supra, note 11

; Morris, N. (1966): "Impediments to Penal Reform", U. Chi. L. Rev., 33, 627, 537-44

; Szasz, T. (1961): "Criminal Responsibility and Psychiatry". In Legal and Criminal Psychology, ed. Toch, H. , USA: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 146.