Mental Disorders and the Legal System

There are many ethical decisions made daily in the psychology field. Whether these decisions are made to protect patients or others, to keep a mentally ill person from receiving a prison sentence and getting them the mental help they need, helping those with cultural differences, or making sure that a potential patient or study participant has given informed consent, making the correct ethical decisions can be difficult for mental health professionals. Because of this, many laws have been created to put some of these ethical decisions into stone thus relieving some of the difficult decisions that a mental health professional may face.

Psychology and the law spans a number of areas including that of prosecuting of those with mental illness. There have been many legal cases where the defendant had a mental illness that caused them to hurt or murder others. Because of these legal cases and ethics in psychology, a number of laws have been created in order to protect both those with mental health problems and the general public. For example, if someone is declared to have been "legally insane" while the person commits a crime, the crime can be considered as an accident. Instead of the person going to prison, he or she is instead sent to a mental health care facility to be treated. This law protects the mentally ill who, had he or she not been stricken with mental illness, may not have committed the crime.

The laws surrounding prosecuting the mentally ill bring up a number of questions. Deciding whether or not a particular defendant is to be found innocent or guilty of their crimes based on their psychological state when the crime was committed is a difficult choice for mental heal care professionals, judges, and juries. These decisions not only weigh heavily on the defendant's future life, but also can weigh on the lives of judges and juries as these decisions can have mental consequences. Furthermore, these decisions an also have a consequence on the general public either by protecting them from future harm or by creating a legal precedent that can make changes in human rights.

As there is some gray area in these laws, the laws are constantly changing to keep up with the changes in the mental health field. As the mental health field grows, many laws change to reflect this so that patients, professionals, and the public can receive the full rights and protection they deserve.
About this Author

Melanie writes articles on HubPages on topics such as cultural psychology and informed consent in research and a number of other topics.

Criminal Defense Attorneys and Court Appointed Attorneys

Quite frankly the top criminal defense attorneys and court appointed attorneys are the ones that win the most cases and get the most satisfying results for their clients. Court appointed attorneys do not publish their case results so their success in court is obscure. You should choose a criminal defense attorney that gets the best case results for their clients, not an attorney that gets the highest opinion or recommendation of a judge or other attorneys. The opinions of judges or other attorneys can always be swayed by personal meetings and relationships. It makes complete logical sense to choose a criminal defense attorney that wins the most cases or gets the best results for their clients in the same way that a top boxer or athlete is the one that wins the most.

Many articles have been written on choosing between hiring a criminal ddfense attorney and getting a free court appointed attorney. A misconception is that a court appointed attorney will fiercely fight for you and give effective counsel. Court appointed attorneys have heavy case loads and very limited time to work on your case. The limited time they have to work on your case will affect the success or failure of your case results and ultimately your life.

A private criminal defense attorney that works on a team of criminal lawyers and experts that communicate thoroughly with you and have the resources and time dedicated to your case is going to maximize the potential of a good outcome. Providing you with the best legal counsel to win your case is the responsibility and probably the intention of every criminal defense attorney, whether public or not. However, governmental budget restraints and an overloaded judicial criminal court system is the reality that a public defender and defendants that choose them must accept.

If you decide to get a court appointed attorney you are also taking a risk because that particular one may not specialize in the type of criminal law that you have been charged with or have meager or no experience at all. Court appointed attorneys that have insufficient experience defending criminal cases are not likely to have a comprehensive understanding of the rules of evidence, especially if they have no experience with the criminal charges you are facing. Attorneys deficient in experience will also have difficulty identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your case, trying your case in the court room, and will also have little credibility negotiating a good deal for you.

There are also court appointed attorneys and law students who have no experience at all and that is why they're working in the public defenders' office; to gain experience. As you can expect this is the worst possible scenario as law schools are not what the real world is like, and the criminal law courtroom is extremely different than a classroom. A court appointed attorney may be a law student or brand new attorney standing up in court for the very first time. He may be more scared than you are and be intimidated by a prosecutor with years of experience in criminal law, the courtroom, with trials and plea bargains. This is not the situation that you want to find yourself in when you're life and liberty is on the line.

A criminal defense attorney having experience in criminal law and the criminal charges that you are facing is extremely valuable when deciding on whether or not your case goes to trial and plea bargaining. A criminal defense attorney that has thoroughly reviewed your case with other criminal lawyers and experts in the field will pool their experiences and expertise giving you the advantage of a very knowledgeable criminal defense team fighting for you. A good criminal defense attorney will also have your case investigated by experts to assure that he or she is making the appropriate decision on whether or not your case has enough probable and sufficient evidence to seek the advantages of going to trial or the alternative decision to take a plea bargain. Either way knowing your case from the inside out and all possible scenarios will enable your attorney to effectively represent you in criminal court and get you the best case results.

You may get very lucky with a court appointed attorney with a light work load, but chances of this happening are not likely. Problems of low salaries and excessive case loads commonly plague many state public defenders' offices. Some court appointed attorneys juggle over two hundred cases. In Los Angeles County it is very common to have one public defense attorney handle over 300 cases, which is well over the maximum caseload size of one hundred recommended by the American Bar Association for a full-time practicing attorney. Even the most well-intentioned and passionate court appointed attorney may be overwhelmed and jeopardize their client's constitutional right to effective counsel.

Gambling your life on an already overburdened criminal court system could land you in jail with heavy fines and few answers. You may even find yourself with a severely jeopardized future or no future at all. You owe it to yourself to retain a criminal defense attorney that is meticulously dedicated in representing you so that you may go on living your life.
About this Author

An expert on criminal defense from LibertyBellLaw.com wrote this article. Read about our criminal defense attorneys, their case results, recent case wins in the news, and our criminal law areas of distinction.