Doing away with the "only one-fourth of one percent" solution.

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Law & Justice

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Doing away with the "only one-fourth of one percent" solution.

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"Psychiatrists engage in many phony practices but none phonier than the insanity defense."

OF ALL OF THE fatuous arguments supporting insanity pleas, the most effective is that "only one-fourth of one percent of those tried in criminal cases successfully plead insane." The significant word here is "only," because it implies that such an outcome, however fraudulent, should not be upsetting to the average citizen. As one "consulting psychologist," Laurence Miller, wrote prototypically in "The Doe Report" published by Medical Legal Art, "This is hardly an epidemic."

First of all, the st...

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