See McSherryBernadette, ‘Mental Impairment and Criminal Responsibility: Recent Australian Legislative Reforms’, (1999) 23Criminal Law Journal, pp.135–45, for an overview of the various formulations.
2.
GiannangeloStephen J., The Psychopathology of Serial Murder: A Theory of Violence, Praeger, Conneticut, 1996, p.5.
3.
Giannangelo, above, ref 2, pp.29, 33, 41, 91.
4.
GerberthVernon J.TurcoRonald N., ‘Antisocial Personality Disorder, Sexual Sadism, Malignant Narcissism, and Serial Murder’, (1997) 42(1) Journal of Forensic Sciences2–3 (page numbers refer to a version printed from the Proquest 5000 database).
5.
Giannangelo, above, ref 2, pp.35, 37, 81, 86.
6.
HareRobert D., Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us, Pocket Books, New York, 1993, p.34.
7.
MurphyJennifer M., ‘The Role of the Amygdalar Circuit in Adolescent Antisocial Behaviour’, Dissertation, 2001, p.14.
8.
Hare, above, ref 6, p.178.
9.
Giannangelo, above, ref 2, pp.15–16.
10.
Giannangelo, above, ref 2, p.83.
11.
HoltSusan EMeloyReidJ.StackStephen, ‘Sadism and Psychopathy in Violent and Sexually Violent Offenders’, (1999) 27(2) Journal of the American Adademy of Psychiatry and the Law30.
12.
Holt and others, above, ref 11, p.29.
13.
GerberthTurco, above, ref 4, pp.7–8. These researchers initially located records about 387 people who had killed three or more people. Of those records, 248 actually documented evidence that the crime was sexually motivated. They then eliminated four cases where the killers were female. Of the remaining cases, there were only 68 where there was sufficient data to analyse for the purpose of their study.
DamasioAntonio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain, (1996) Macmillan Publishers Ltd, London, pp.70, 84, 96.
29.
DamasioAntonio, above, ref 28, pp.35–6, 41–9, 53–8. Damasio himself (p.177) notes that psychopaths suffer from similar emotional–cognitive deficits as his pre-frontal patients.
30.
Damasio, ref 28 above, pp.130–37.
31.
Hare, above, ref 6, pp.53, 59–60.
32.
Damasio, above, ref 28, pp.207–9.
33.
Damasio, above, ref 28, pp.169–72.
34.
Damasio, above, ref 28, pp.212–15.
35.
Damasio, above, ref 28, p.219.
36.
Damasio, above, ref 28, pp.217–18.
37.
Damasio, above, ref 28, pp.173–174, 181–83.
38.
Damasio, above, ref 28, pp.175, 218–19.
39.
Murphy, above, ref 7, p.101.
40.
Hare, above, ref 6, pp.39, 59, 77.
41.
Hare, above, ref 6, p.169, and see his footnote 13 to comments on that page. He notes that although studies have not revealed any actual damage to the frontal lobes in psychopaths, it may be the case that there are abnormalities in the connections between populations of neurons throughout the frontal lobes or between the frontal lobes and other parts of the brain that cannot yet be detected by current brain imaging techniques. Quite frankly, neuroscientists are only beginning to scratch the surface in their attempts to understand how the normal brain is ‘wired up’, and it is becoming increasingly clear that this is as crucial as the actual structural features of the neuronal populations in the various subsystems of the brain.
42.
Damasio, above, ref 28, ch 3. Damasio only provides information about the personality of one of his patients and there appears to be no evidence of antisocial behaviour. He does however (at pp.57–8) discuss a case study of a person who suffered damage to the frontal lobe as an infant. In this case, the history described very much resembles that of the psychopath, with episodes of stealing, disorderly behaviour as well as the emotional and cognitive deficits characteristic of the subjects in Damasio's primary study.
