Abstract
Implicit but significant assumptions made in the criminal justice system include beliefs that criminals do not commit crimes to be tried and convicted and that, once arrested, defendants’ primary motives are to avoid or minimize the legal consequences of the charges they face. When those assumptions are not correct, clinicians and legal decision makers are faced with difficult tasks. The authors present three cases of defendants who were not primarily concerned with defending themselves against the charges they faced, but rather with using the criminal justice procedures to further personal goals, and discuss the problems involved for forensic evaluators and courts.
Footnotes
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Dr. Miller is director of forensic training and Dr. Germain is unit chief of the Forensic Assessment Unit at the Mendota Mental Health Institute Forensic Center, 301 Troy Drive, Madison, WI 53704.
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This paper is based on a presentation made at the 17th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, Philadelphia, October 1986.
- Copyright © 1986, The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
