Forensic psychiatry expertise may be useful to criminal courts in several ways, including evaluating competence (e.g., to stand trial, waive Miranda rights, confess, plead, represent oneself, or be sentenced), assessing responsibility for alleged criminal behavior, and clarifying mental or psychosocial factors that may mitigate criminal charges or the form and severity of punishment. This colum...

This article reviews the application of clinical neuropsychology to criminal court proceedings, a complex, underserved, yet growing area of neuropsychological practice. The authors write from the perspective that the audience is primarily neurorehabilitation clinicians with limited experience in criminal matters. Discussions on the theoretical differences between clinical and forensic work, the...

A growing body of literature suggests that violent behavior, especially when it is episodic, explosive, and out of all proportion to the provocation, can be a manifestation of what is currently termed the episodic dyscontrol syndrome. As elaborated by Monroe (1970, 1978), it represents a subgroup of the more general category of episodic (vs. continual) behavior disorders, and is defined as an "...

There is now substantial evidence that heritable biological factors play a role in the genesis of repetitive antisocial behavior. The differing conceptual frameworks of behavioral genetics and the law are described, and the implications that current research in behavioral genetics may have for assigning responsibility for unlawful behavior are discussed.

Imagine a defendant who has been charged with murder, the intentional homicide of a victim he was robbing with a weapon. He has a history of three previous convictions and imprisonments for armed robbery. Prior to being released from the third term, he publicly threatened to kill any future armed robbery victims who might be able to identify him. When the current victim looked our armed robber ...