Legal Use of the Term 'Insane' Not Restricted
To Not-Guilty-by-Reason-of-Insanity (NGRI-- K.R.S. 504.020)
But Also to Non-Criminal, I.E. 'Civil' Use
With some vigor in the last entry to this Web-log, I tendered the accurate information that Kentucky Constitution 145 (3) CATEGORICALLY PROHIBITS "insane" folk from the franchisement-of-suffrage, the right-to-vote. The question in so many words has come to me: Yes, 'insanity' is a legal-term atop psychiatric determination; what does it mean-- by linguistic pragmatics-- in the legal sense-- in case-law and other policy determinations?
To the end of accurately-- and only with balance and accuracy-- addressing this particular question-- I went to the U/L Law Library on the afternoon of February 24 to check exactly what I point-at here-- the legal contextual definition in 2008 for "insanity". To wit, I went to Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS) 2007-- which is kind of a legal-definition encyclopedia (multi-volume) and to Kentucky Digest as well as Kentucky Revised Statutes. The "Kentucky" books all point to MH definitions for the non-criminal use of the insanity term, as well as to the not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity term (NGRI, under 504.020.) The main law lexicon universally in this land is CJS; this discouraging use under the "mental health" section of volume 56 includes the following wording at exactitude:
"The word 'insane' ordinarily implies every degree of unsoundness of mind [Application of Jordan 270 Misc. 734, 10 N.Y.S. 2d 911 Sup. 1939-- says my corrupt CC!] Generally speaking an insane
person is one who is of unsound mind [Oklahoma Natural Gas Corporation v. Lay, 1935 OK 868. 175 Okla., 51 P.2d 580 (1935)]; one who once had a sound mind but has lost it through injury or disease [In re Hendrickson 12 Wash. 2d 600, 123 P. 2d 322 (1942)] According to some authority a person is legally insane if the person lacks the substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his or her conduct or the substantial capacity to conform his or her conduct to the requirements of the law [ People v. Foster, 138 Mich. App. 734, 367 N.W. 2d 349 (1984)], although mere weakness of mentality or subnormal intelligence does not itself constitute insanity [State v. Bennett, 345 So. 2d 1129 (La. 1977)]."
CJS 56 "Mental Health" Section # 1, page 530.
Up to use in 1988, as a former exact employee in forensic psychiatry who wrote a patients' rights legal thesis at Kent, I can say that it would appear that most of the usage of the term "insanity" went for NGRI under K.R.S. 504.020; there was some usage under the civil incompetency-- "testamentary capacity" provisions-- with use conservatively-interpreted-in-generous-favor toward the alleged-incompetent. My proposal-- and I think it a modest proposal-- would be to draft legislation and enact same to the specification that "insanity" in Kentucky only be defined under the provisions of K.R.S. 504.020 and to use "incapacity" in every other sense previously used for this expression outside of criminology.
Stricter interpretation of insanity-- precisely consistent with the used CJS terminology-- could mean, with my having ~ 17 invols in which "I was a danger to myself by reason of mental illness"-- be defined OUT OF the franchise to vote. That the practice is now leniently interpreted in 2008-- as opposed to older strict practice-- would not imply necessarily that in 2030-- about my maximum predictable lifespan-- the standard could not be practiced more-restrictively. That I have voted all my adult life, all through the time since first psychosis in 1977-- MAY not mean that in tuffer times this condition will always prevail.
For that reason, I am speaking for the restriction to 504.020 use of "insanity," and thence to replace the term with evidence-based operational definitions altogether. A promising "replacement-term" for "insanity" in the civil-diminishment-sense looms with the term-- also a legal expression-- "incapacity." But there is absolutely no reason-- given the state of mental health recovery now-- yea unto virtual-if-not-total-remission-of-symptoms with treatment-MENTAL HEALTH CARE IS EFFECTIVE TO EVERY PRACTICAL EXTENT!!! In fine: this "fossil" on the Kentucky Constitution 145(3) is a spot/blemish that this 21st century mental health consumer finds disconcerting and would like to "petition the government for redress." For these and other equal-protection/due-process considerations I do define the mental health empowerment movement as a civil/human-rights endeavor. One would think that after the franchise to vote was extended to blacks with the 14th Amendment and the suffrage of women in the 19th Amendment there could be something/somewhere to eliminate a disenfranchisement of "the insane" as uncomfortably defined in CJS.
I was not-- incidentally-- direct-selling the idea that anyone would be of necessity obliged to agree with me on this civil-rights angle. I shall beat a drum for it... I have been a cry-in-the-dark all my life and can continue thus. But of the issues-- "the hot buttons"-- that turn-me-on-- you may include this one..."am willing to pay the necessary price."
--Vernon Lynn Stephens, MSSW
D.S.M. IV-TR #296.44
Telephone: 1 (502) 561-5419 anytime for MH social-justice/civil-rights.
Email: freethink@insightbb.com anytime for MH social-justice/civil-rights.
posted by Louisville Hermitage @ 4:55 PM
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