Summary
Contents
Subject index
The 20 chapters in Courts, Law, and Justice cover a wide range of sharply contested topics, including drug and gun control laws as well as the ins and outs of the criminal justice system as encountered by arrested suspects, during the trial process, and during the sentencing phase. This volume looks closely at Miranda rights and the impact of polygraphs and DNA testing; legal and procedural issues during prosecution, including exclusionary rules and double jeopardy; and sentencing and punishment for crimes, including for offenses such as DUI and sex offenses. The role of the victim during the prosecutorial process is also examined. Addressing such engaging topics as asset forfeiture, DNA evidence, double jeopardy, expert witnesses and “hired guns,” eyewitness testimony and accuracy, insanity defense, the jury system, mandatory sentencing, plea bargaining, polygraphs, three-strikes laws, and more, the authors of this volume all closely examine the development of the justice system and consider the key opinions supporting or contesting the laws and policies used during investigation, prosecution, and sentencing. The SeriesThe five brief, issues-based books in SAGE Reference’s Key Issues in Crime & Punishment Series offer examinations of controversial programs, practices, problems or issues from varied perspectives. Volumes correspond to the five central subfields in the Criminal Justice curriculum: Crime & Criminal Behavior, Policing, The Courts, Corrections, and Juvenile Justice. Each volume consists of approximately 20 chapters offering succinct pro/con examinations, and Recommended Readings conclude each chapter, highlighting different approaches to or perspectives on the issue at hand. As a set, these volumes provide perfect reference support for students writing position papers in undergraduate courses spanning the Criminal Justice curriculum. Each title is approximately 350 pages in length.
Insanity Defense
Insanity Defense
Controversy is endemic to the insanity defense. The term insanity routinely attracts widespread public attention that is far out of proportion to the defense's impact on criminal justice. Part of this public fascination results from a few truly gruesome and highly bizarre crimes that tend to be sensationalized in the mass media. For example, in the 1990s, the Wisconsin case of Jeffrey Dahmer attracted widespread media and public attention.
Dahmer murdered 17 young men from 1978 to 1991. Commonly, he would drug his victims, sometimes torturing them before killing them, often by strangulation. He dismembered his victims' bodies and attempted to have sexual relations with their corpses. He kept part of the corpses, particularly the skulls, in his apartment. When charged with murder, ...
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