A therapeutic jurisprudence analysis of compentency evaluation requests: The defense attorney's Dilemma

Fonte: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6V7W-44WR3R2-7-...
Acesso em: 10 nov. 2009.

In recent mental health law articles, commentators attribute the rejuvenation
of the discipline?s scholarship to new challenges to attitudinal doctrine predicated
upon the use of empirical data, rather that the re-examination of increasingly
stale or attenuated constitutional theories.? Therapeutic jurisprudence
offers scholars and practitioners a new spin on mental health law by forcing us
to consider and investigate the role of law as a therapeutic agent. To do so, we
must consider the ?holistic?? effects of legal procedure as well as the intended
and unintended outcome of the legal process upon courtroom participants,
most notably, for purposes of this article, criminal defendants. Nowhere is
there as great a need for such research as in the murky intersection of criminal
procedure and mental health law.