Callahan L A, Steadman H J, McGreevy M A, Robbins P C
Russell Sage College, Troy, NY 12180.
Bull Am Acad Psychiatry Law. 1991;19(4):331-8.
The authors document the very complex process involved in identifying insanity defense pleas in eight states. Each state and each study county in each state required an individual approach. Most often, county court dockets were hand searched to identify those pleading insanity, although numerous other methodologies were used. The frequency and rate of insanity pleas and acquittals are presented for the study states as well as descriptive data on the characteristics of persons pleading and acquitted NGRI. Overall, the insanity defense was raised in one percent of all felony cases. Further, only 26 percent of those raising the insanity defense were actually acquitted NGRI. The necessity of obtaining data on insanity pleas to adequately understand and ultimately inform future directions of insanity defense research is discussed.
作者记录了在八个州识别精神错乱辩护请求所涉及的非常复杂的过程。每个州以及每个州内的每个研究县都需要采取独特的方法。最常见的是，通过手工查阅县法院的诉讼记录来识别那些提出精神错乱辩护的人，不过也使用了许多其他方法。文中呈现了研究各州精神错乱辩护请求及无罪裁决的频率和比率，以及关于提出精神错乱辩护和被判定因精神错乱而无罪的人的特征的描述性数据。总体而言，在所有重罪案件中，提出精神错乱辩护的比例为1%。此外，提出精神错乱辩护的人中，只有26%实际上被判定因精神错乱而无罪。文中还讨论了获取关于精神错乱辩护请求的数据对于充分理解并最终为精神错乱辩护研究的未来方向提供信息的必要性。
