Fitness to Plead and Insanity in the District Court

2001

The journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 2007

This brief commentary compares the law relating unfitness to plead in England and Wales with that of competency to stand trial, as reflected in the AAPL Practice Guideline. In so doing, it presents the argument that English law, with its adherence to a test of unfitness that goes back to the first half of the 19th century, may no longer be fit for the purpose. Unlike the test for incompetency to stand trial adopted by most of the United States, English law fails to incorporate decisional competence and consequently may be failing to protect vulnerable defendants. The commentary concludes that, despite the differences in law and practice between our respective countries, the AAPL Guideline contains much of value for psychiatrists and lawyers who have to deal with unfitness to plead, an area of the law that surely ought to be the subject of consideration for reform.

1987

The following article is an expanded version of a paper given during the 1986 W.G. Hart Legal Workshop at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London entitled "Craziness and Codification-Revising the Automatism and Insanity Defences," see pp. 109-121 of Criminal Law and Justice (Sweet & Maxwell, England 1987) ed. l.H. Dennis. Much of the expansion resulted from an informal faculty presentation given at the University of Arizona College of Law in February 1987. 1 wish to acknowledge my gratitude to the Fulbright Commission for their continued support during my visit to the U.S.A. and to the Dickinson School of Law, both faculty and students, for providing me with such an excellent and intellectually stimulating working environment. I also wish to express my special thanks to my research assistant Kathleen Harrington whose comments and intellectual support have been of immeasurable value. 1. 672 F.2d 115 (D.C. Cir. 1982). For detailed analysis see P.W. Low, J.C. JEFFRIES AND R.J. BONNIE, THE TRIAL OF JOHN W. HINCKLEY, JR.: A CASE STUDY IN THE INSANITY DEFENSE, (1986). 2. CODIFICATION OF THE CRIMINAL LAW: A REPORT TO THE LAW COMMISSION (Law Comm'n No. 143) (1985). The Law Commission was established by the Law Commissions Act 1965 (1965 c.22) "for the purpose of promoting the reform of the law" and consists of a chairman and four other Commissioners appointed by the Lord Chancellor. In the case of this particular report, however, the work was "subcontracted" to four academic lawyers. 3. The Criminal Statistics: England and Wales consistently reveal that the insanity defense is only pleaded successfully in one or two cases each year, see e.g. the 1983 Statistics (Cmd. 9349). 4. See H. Steadman, Empirical Research on the Insanity Defense, 477 ANNALS 58-71 (1985), which reveals that the defense is raised in less than 2% of federal and state trials with approximately a 30% success rate. See further, B.D.