Asylumrejects.com for mental instanity5/21/2023 None proved more fascinating than the story of Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty king of Babylon, the man who captured Jerusalem and destroyed its Temple, carrying the Jews off into captivity all apparently without incurring divine wrath. From Saul, the first king of the Israelites (made mad by Yahweh for failing to carry out to the letter the Lord’s command to slay every man, woman, and child of the Amalekite tribe, and all their animals, too), to the man in the country of the Gaderenes “with an unclean spirit” (maddened, naked, and violent, whose demons Christ casts out and causes to enter a herd of swine, who forthwith rush over a cliff into the sea to drown), here are stories recited for centuries by believers, and often transformed into pictorial form. The sacred books of the Judeo-Christian tradition are shot through with stories of madness caused by possession by devils or divine displeasure. Western culture throughout its long and tangled history provides us with a rich array of images, a remarkable set of windows into both popular and latterly professional beliefs about insanity. Madness indeed has its meanings, elusive and evanescent as our attempts to capture them have been. The social and cultural dimensions of mental disorders, so indispensable a part of the story of madness and civilization over the centuries, are unlikely to melt away, or to prove no more than an epiphenomenal feature of so universal a feature of human existence. Modern psychiatry seems determined to rob madness of its meanings, insisting that its depredations can be reduced to biology and nothing but biology. Those found not criminally responsible and dangerous are committed for an indefinite amount of time, until they no longer require inpatient hospitalization, according to the department of health.Nebuchadnezzar turned into an animal, 1410. Finan, Spring Grove and Springfield hospital centers, Fowler said. Perkins Hospital Center, the state’s maximum security forensic hospital with the rest at four other hospitals - Eastern Shore Hospital, Thomas B. If either a judge or jury decides that the defendant is guilty and not criminally responsible, the defendant is turned over to the custody of the health department.Īs of April 24, 2019, there were about 400 people at health department hospitals after being found not criminally responsible, said Brittany Fowler, spokeswoman for the department, noting it varies daily based on discharges and admissions.Īt that time, approximately 150 of the 400 individuals were in Clifton T. The judge has some discretion to approve or deny either side’s request to split the trial in two.Ī trial split into two would first address innocence or guilt and the second criminal responsibility.ĭetermining criminal responsibility often becomes a challenge of the credentials of each side’s mental health experts, as opposed to the legitimacy of their evaluation of the defendant, Cox explained. To split the trial or notĬox said it’s presumed that in a case involving a not criminally responsible plea there will be one trial, unless defense attorneys or prosecutors ask the trial to be split into two - a bifurcated trial. Most people that pleaded NCR, the report details, were diagnosed with severe forms of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. State-employed doctors found less than one-third of the 368 defendants evaluated for criminal responsibility in 2006 met the criteria for the insanity defense, according to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Administration report.Įighty-two of the 368 criminal responsibility evaluations in 2006 involved defendants charged with “major violent felonies” and just 13 of those defendants were found not criminally responsible and committed to the department of health, according to the report. It’s rare for prosecutors to challenge the findings of a health department expert, said John Cox, deputy state’s attorney for Baltimore County, “because these are doctors we rely upon, or don’t have reason to question their integrity or abilities.”
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