Mental Disorder and Criminal Law: Responsibility, Punishment and Competence

Robert Schopp · Richard L. Wiener · Brian H. Bornstein · Steven L. Willborn

Oct 2008 · Springer Science & Business Media

About this ebook

Robert F. Schopp Recent Supreme Court decisions categorically preclude the application of capital punishment to convicted offenders who were below the age of eighteen or mentally 1 retarded at the time they committed the crimes for which they were sentenced. Neither opinion suggests that offenders in these categories cannot be criminally responsible for their offenses, and the Atkins opinion explicitly recognizes that some mentally 2 retarded offenders can qualify as criminally responsible for their offenses. In each case, part of the reasoning in support of the exemption from capital sentences purports to show that capital punishment of these offenders would serve neither the retributive 3 nor the deterrent functions of criminal punishment. Both opinions focus substantial attention on the retributive rationale, contending that these offenders lack sufficient 4 culpability, blameworthiness, or depravity to merit capital punishment. The opinions recognize that a categorical bar for all offenders below a specified age or level of intelligence might exempt some individuals who do not lack culpability sufficient to justify capital sentences. The opinions draw categorical rules, however, to avoid the risk that some individuals who lack sufficient culpability to deserve capital punish- 5 ment will be misidentified as sufficiently culpable to merit capital sentences. The dissenting opinions in each case recognize that offenders in these categories have limitations that render them less culpable on average than unimpaired offenders who commit similar crimes.

About the author

Robert Schopp practiced clinical psychology before turning to the study of law and philosophy in an attempt to understand some perplexing issues that he encountered during ten years of clinical practice. So far, he remains perplexed, but he likes to think that he is perplexed in a deeper and more comprehensive manner. He joined the University of Nebraska -College of Law in 1989 after completing the concurrent law/philosophy program at the University of Arizona. His primary areas of interest involve questions that lie at the intersection of law, psychology and philosophy. These issues tend to arise in criminal law, mental health law, jurisprudence and professional ethics.

Richard Wiener received his Ph.D. from the University of Houston and his Masters Degree in Legal Studies at UNL. He was professor of Psychology at Saint Louis University (1982- 2000) and most recently chair of the Department of Psychology at Baruch College, City University of New York. In 2002 Dr. Wiener joined the Law-Psychology Program (as director) and the Social Psychology Program at UNL. He currently serves as the editor of Law and Human Behavior, the official journal of the American Psychology/Law Society (Division 41 of the APA). Dr. Wiener’s research applies theories of social cognition to problems in legal decision-making. Among the topic areas he has investigated are perceptions of sexual harassment, judgments of medical malpractice, and sociolegal jurisprudence. Currently Dr. Wiener applies dual process models developed in social psychology to explain juror performance in capital murder trials and to understand workers’ evaluations of sexual harassment claims. Other lines of research examine the way in which affirmative action laws influence perceptions of workforce quality, test the distinction between generic and specific prejudice in jury decision-making, test the role of implicit morality judgments in judges’ decisions in child neglect and abuse cases, and examine the role of emotion in judgments made by consumers who have filed bankruptcy. Dr. Wiener teaches courses at UNL on behavioral sciences and the law and legal decision making.

Brian Bornstein has been an Associate Professor at UNL since joining the psychology department in 2000. He is a member of the law/psychology and cognitive psychology programs, as well as Associate Director of the law/psychology program. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991,and a Master of Legal Studies from the University of Nebraska in 2001. Dr. Bornstein's research efforts focus primarily on how juries, especially in civil cases, make decisions, and the reliability of eyewitness memory. Additional areas of focus are in applying decision-making principles to everyday judgment tasks, as in medical decision making and distributive justice. He teaches courses on human memory, psychology and law, decision making, and history of psychology at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Steven Willborn joined the faculty of University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1979. He received his B.A. degree in 1974 from Northland College and his M.S. and J.D. (cum laude, Order of the Coif) degrees in 1976 from the University of Wisconsin. While in law school, he served as a member and editor of the Wisconsin Law Review. Professor Willborn was in private practice from 1976 to 1979. He has been a Fulbright Scholar at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London (1985-86); a Visiting Scholar at the Australian National University in Canberra (1988), the University of Toronto (1991), and Lincoln College, Oxford University (1993); and a Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan Law School (1992). Professor Willborn has been licensed to practice law in Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin and to make cheese in Wisconsin. He teaches Employment Law, Labor Law, Legal Control of Discrimination, and Pension & Employee Benefits Law.