Abstract
The authors examined the cohort of all defendants pleading not guilty by reason of insanity over a 12-month period in Baltimore City’s superior trial court. During that time, 143 of the 11,497 defendants indicted (1.2%) pled not criminally responsible. Fourteen of those defendants (10%) were subsequently found not guilty by reason of insanity. The authors found marked agreement between the prosecution and defense with only two cases leading to full trials where the issue of insanity was argued. The evaluating physician’s opinion as to criminal responsibility and Axis I diagnosis, and the most serious underlying charge discriminated between those defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity and those defendants found guilty or not guilty by the court. Other demographic factors such as age, number of dependents, educational level, severity of illness, and criminal background did not discriminate between the two groups.
Footnotes
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Dr. Janofsky is assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Vandewalle is chief, Mental Hygiene Clinic, Munson Army Community Hospital and United States Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Dr. Rappeport is chief medical officer, Circuit Court for Baltimore City; professor of psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine; associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral science, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
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This article was presented at the 19th annual meeting of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, San Francisco, CA, October 1988.
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Address reprint requests to Jeffrey Janofsky, M.D., Meyer 144, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD 21205.
- Copyright © 1989, The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
