George E. Hall

The Insanity Defense

As early as the 13th century, it was felt that insane defendants should not be blamed for the consequences of their acts. The basic outline of the insanity defense excludes from the ranks of criminals all persons who are mentally diseased and who cannot reasonably be used to serve the purposes of the criminal law. The purposes of the criminal law seem to change from time to time, however. At first, its purposes were primarily retributive in nature. Then retribution was put aside in favor of deterrence. Lately the trend has been a shift from deterrence to rehabilitation. As the functions of the criminal law changed, so did the insanity defense. Today, in fact, it has become almost no defense at all. An acquittal in most instances brings no freedom, because the defendant is usually committed to a mental hospital. The purpose of the commitment is to determine whether he

Law for the Physician

The last six years have produced nearly as many worthwhile text-books on the general subject of law and medicine as were produced in the preceding quarter of a century. Consequently, it is becoming more and more difficult to find something different in each succeeding offering. Nearly all of them provide a physician with a good basic understanding of medical licensure, malpractice, expert testimony, and civil procedure. But this book has several additional merits. It is new enough to include some of the medicolegal problems connected with the Medicare law. It contains a more extensive discussion of the medicolegal problems of organ transplants than any of the other recent books. The chapter on organ transplants contains suggested medicolegal forms for a physician to use when requesting a kidney transplant, removing a kidney for transplantation, or performing an autopsy and when requesting removal of specific organs after death for scientific purposes. Dr.

The Addict and the Law

In 1925, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a decision which recognized the view that narcotic addiction is a disease and that physicians can give an addict moderate amounts to relieve withdrawal distress. This decision has been little proclaimed and is, even today, little appreciated by physicians. On the basis of earlier decisions, however, physicians have been frightened out of the treatment of addicts. As a result, addicts have been treated as criminals— often they have had to become criminals in order to obtain drugs for their own use—and have been denied proper medical assistance in the treatment of their addiction. The history of addiction, therefore, has been an interesting one in the US—the view that addiction is a crime always competing with the view that addiction is a disease. The author, professor of sociology at Indiana University and a student and writer in the field of

Law, Medicine, Science—and Justice

Lawyers and doctors at times will not hestitate to argue quite forcefully with each other about various legal issues, for example, those related to insanity. The lawyer, however, may know next to nothing about psychiatry and the doctor nothing at all about the aims and purposes of the overall rule of law under which he lives. Most doctors or lawyers are too little aware of the involvement which forensic medicine has with the criminal law, the civil law, psychiatry, broad mental health programming, public health, government medical care, rehabilitation, narcotics, juvenile delinquency, constitutional law, supply and use of human parts, abortion, suicide, sterilization, contraception, euthanasia, artificial insemination, and many other areas. This book discusses many of these topics in a practical, yet penetrating and thoughtful, manner. It cannot take the place of a textbook, but few current books will provide a better base for the preparation of a lawyer, doctor,