Manifest Madness: Mental Incapacity in the Criminal Law (Oxford Monographs on Criminal Law and Justice)

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Whether it is a question of the age below which a child cannot be held liable for their actions, or the attribution of responsibility to defendants with mental illnesses, mental incapacity is a central concern for legal actors, policy makers, and legislators when it comes to crime and justice. Understanding the terrain of mental incapacity in criminal law is notoriously difficult; it involves tracing overlapping and interlocking legal doctrines, current and past practices including those of evidence and proof, and also medical and social understanding of mental order and incapacity. Bringing together previously disparate discussions on criminal responsibility from law, psychology, and philosophy, this book provides a close study of mental incapacity defences, analysing their development through historical cases to the modern era. It maps the shifting boundaries between normality and abnormality as constructed in law, arguing that 'manifest madness' - the distinct character of mental incapacity revealed by this interdisciplinary approach - has a broad significance for understanding the criminal law as a whole. Cover Contents Table of Cases Table of Old Bailey Proceedings Table of Legislation List of Abbreviations PART I 1. The Terrain of Mental Incapacity in Criminal Law Why Examine Mental Incapacity? Carving Out a Useful Approach to Mental Incapacity in Criminal Law Overview of the Book 2. Putting Mental Incapacity Together Again Reconstructing Mental Incapacity in Criminal Law The Category of Mental Incapacity Doctrines in Criminal Law Difference within Criminal Law 3. ‘Manifest Madness’: The Intersection of ‘Madness’ and Crime The Terrain of Mental Incapacity in Criminal Law The Ontology of ‘Madness’ at the Point of Intersection with Crime The Epistemology of ‘Madness’ at the Point of Intersection with Crime PART II 4. Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion: Unfitness to Plead and Infancy Informal Legal Practices and the Emergence of the Doctrines Formalization of Unfitness to Plead and Infancy I: Dangerousness and Disposal Formalization of Unfitness to Plead and Infancy II: Fairness and Special Treatment Formalization of Unfitness to Plead and Infancy III: the Rise of a Dynamic of Exclusion 5. Incapacity and Disability: the Exculpatory Doctrines of Insanity and Automatism Of Unsound Minds and Wild Beasts: Insanity before M’Naghten The Cleaving Apart of Insanity and Automatism A ‘fierce and fearful delusion’: Daniel M’Naghten and the Creation of the M’Naghten Rules Insanity As We Know It: the M’Naghten Rules The Appearance of a Discrete Automatism Doctrine and the Rise of Disability as a Basis for Insanity The Persistence of Incapacity: the Requirements of the Doctrine of Automatism On the Eve of Reform? 6. Knowing and Proving Exculpatory Mental Incapacity The Naturalization of ‘Madness’ and the Role of Common Knowledge of ‘Madness’ ‘As a medical man, I have no hesitation in saying so’: Expert Knowledges of ‘Madness’ ‘I have seen a great many insane persons, and I should put him down as such’: the Significance of Prudential Knowledge and the Ongoing Role of Lay Knowledge Knowing More Than They Can Say: Experts (and Non-Experts) in the Current Era Proving Exculpatory ‘Madness’: Reconstruction and Due Process PART III 7. ‘Since the days of Noah’: the Law of Intoxicated Offending The Emergence of an Informal Intoxication Plea ‘The nature of her mania was madness from drink’: the Development of Expertise on Intoxication The Formalization of the Law of Intoxicated Offending The Apogee of Formalization?: DPP v Majewski Beyond the Bounds of Majewski: Amoral Intoxication Lay Knowledge of Intoxication in Criminal Law The Janus-face of the Law of Intoxicated Offending 8. Gender, ‘Madness’, and Crime: the Doctrine of Infanticide Proscribing Infanticide: ‘Lewd Women’ and ‘Bastard’ Children ‘Out of her usual senses’: Infanticide and Incapacity Liability, Responsibility, and the ‘Infanticidal’ type Of Imbalance and Disturbance: the Current Law of Infanticide ‘[T]his sad case’: What Legal Actors Know about Infanticide 9. Differences of Degree and Differences of Kind: Diminished Responsibility ‘Without being insane in the legal sense’: the Development of Diminished Responsibility in Scotland ‘In the light of modern knowledge’: the Introduction of Diminished Responsibility in England and Wales The Current Doctrine of Diminished Responsibility Professional Actors and Expert Knowledge: Deciding Diminished Responsibility The Difference Diminished Responsibility Makes Bibliography Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Z This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Whether it is a question of the age below which a child cannot be held liable for their actions, or the attribution of responsibility to defendants with mental illnesses, mental incapacity is a central concern for legal actors, policy makers, and legislators when it comes to crime and justice. Understanding mental incapacity in criminal law is notoriously difficult; it involves tracing overlapping and interlocking legal doctrines, current and past practices of evidence and proof, and also medical and social understandings of mental illness and incapacity. With its focus on the complex interaction of legal doctrines and practices relating to mental incapacity and knowledge - both expert and non-expert - of it, this book offers a fresh perspective on this topic. Bringing together previously disparate discussions on mental incapacity from law, psychology, and philosophy, this book provides a close study of this terrain of criminal law, analysing the development of mental incapacity doctrines through historical cases to the modern era. It maps the shifting boundaries around abnormality as constructed in law, arguing that the mental incapacity terrain has a distinct character -'manifest madness'.
Whether it is a question of the age below which a child cannot be held liable for their actions, or the attribution of responsibility to defendants with mental illnesses, mental incapacity is a central concern for legal actors, policy makers, and legislators when it comes to crime and justice.

Understanding the terrain of mental incapacity in criminal law is notoriously difficult; it involves tracing overlapping and interlocking legal doctrines, current and past practices including those of evidence and proof, and also medical and social understanding of mental order and incapacity. Bringing together previously disparate discussions on criminal responsibility from law, psychology, and philosophy, this book provides a close study of mental incapacity defences, analysing their development through historical cases to the modern era. It maps the shifting boundaries between normality and abnormality as constructed in law, arguing that 'manifest madness' - the distinct character of mental incapacity revealed by this interdisciplinary approach - has a broad significance for understanding the criminal law as a whole.