The “New Syndrome Excuse Syndrome”

Criminal Justice Ethics

Volumn 14, Issue 1, 1995, Pages 3-15

  Morse, Stephen J ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0041431706     PISSN: 0731129X     EISSN: 19375948     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0731129X.1995.9991984     Document Type: Article

References (37)

1. Am. Psychiatric A., Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders—fourth Edition (1994) [hereinafter cited as DSM-IV].
2. id., at 645.
3. id., at 424.
4. id., at 609.
5. id., at 615.
6. id., at 703.
7. id., at 704.
8. id., at 708.
9. id., at 715.
10. E.g., L. Walker, The Battered Woman (1979)
11. Terrifying Love (1989);
12. State v. Kelly, 478 A.2d 364 (N.J. 1984).
13. E.g., Reaves v. State, 639 So.2d 1 (Fla. 1994).
14. E.g., State v. White, 1994 WL 455805 (Utah App.).
15. E.g., Werner v. State, 711 S.W.2d 639 (Tex. Crim. App. 1986).
16. Milloy, Self-Defense Goes Insane In the City, Washington Post, METRO D1, May 18, 1994 (reporting its use in a case in Fort Worth, Texas).
17. E.g., Bazelon, The Morality of the Criminal Law, 49 S. CAL. L. REV. 385, 403 (1976).
18. See, Duggan, We're Being Killed by—Victims,” Newsday, FANFARE 43, Aug. 21, 1994 (reporting its planned use to support the insanity defense in the trial of serial killer, Joel Rifkin).
19. See, G. Fletcher, With Justice For Some 141-47 (1995).
20. I discuss this issue in much greater detail in an earlier article. Morse, Undiminished Confusion in Diminshed Capacity, 75 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 1, 36-45 (1984).
21. People v. Wetmore, 538 P.2d 1308 (Cal. 1978).
22. R. v. Clarke, 1 All ER 219 (1972).
23. Appelbaum, Jick, Grisso, Givelber, Silver, & Steadman, Use of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder to Support an Insanity Defense, 150 AM. J. PSYCHIATRY 229 (1993) (0.3% of insanity defendants were diagnosed as suffering from PTSD, and such defendants were not more likely to succeed with the insanity defense than defendants with other diagnoses).
24. Maguigan, Battered Women and Self Defense: Myths and Misconceptions in Current Reform Proposals, 140 U. PA. L. REV. 379, 391-97 (1991).
25. Greenawalt, The Perplexing Distinction Between Justification and Excuse, 84 COLUM. L. REV. 1897 (1984).
26. For a more complete discussion, see Dressier, Justifications and Excuses: A Brief Review of the Literature, 11 WAYNE L. REV. 1155, 1157-61 (1987).
27. For more thorough discussions of this issue, see Moore, Causation and the Excuses, 73 CAL. L. REV. 1091 (1985);
28. Morse, Psychology, Determinism, and Legal Responsibility, in The Law As A Behavioral Instrument 35 (G. Melton, ed. 1986).
29. Strawson, Freedom and Resentment, in Free Will 59, 80 (G. Watson, ed. 1982) (referring to libertarian metaphysics).
30. I explore these false starts in much greater depth elsewhere. See Morse, Culpability and Control, 142 U. PA. L. REV. 1587, 1590-1605 (1994).
31. For the most thorough, sophisticated jurisprudential analysis of the “will,” see M. Moore, Act And Crime: The Philosophy Of Action And Its Implications For Criminal Law 113-65 (1993).
32. H.L.A. Hart, Punishment And Responsibility 152-54 (1968).
33. Faigman, The Battered Woman Syndrome and Self-Defense: A Legal and Empirical Dissent, 72 VA. L. REV. 619 (1986).
34. L. Walker, Terrifying Love, supra note 11, at 50 (basing her assertions largely on Seligman's “learned helplessness” theory).
35. Schulhofer, The Gender Question in Criminal Law, 7 Soc. PHIL. & POL. 105, 115-16, 137 (1990).
36. L. Walker, Terrifying Love, supranote 11, at 187.
37. Coughlin, Excusing Women, 82 CAL. L. REV. 1, 53-56 (1994) (collecting and analyzing various sources, but especially the work of Lenore Walker).