This new book written by ABA Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law Director, John Parry, J.D. and forensic psychologist, Eric Y. Drogin, J.D., Ph.D., Manual has been formatted and written to guide lawyers, judges, law students, and forensic and other mental disability professionals through the maze of civil and criminal laws, standards, and evidentiary pitfalls, and forensic practices that characterize this area of the law. Moreover, it summarizes what empirical evidence exists to support or raise concerns about these legal standards and forensic practices when they are introduced in the courtroom.

This casebook covers all of constitutional "civil" mental health law, including involuntary civil commitment, the right to refuse treatment, and the rights of persons with mental disabilities in community settings. Perlin also addresses federal statutory rights, including, but not limited to, the Americans with Disabilities Act; other civil mental health issues, including tort law; and the criminal trial process, including all aspects of competency, the insanity defense, self-incrimination, confessions, the death penalty, and sentencing and post-sentencing issues. Important Supreme Court decisions that have been handed down since the first edition (Olmstead v. L.C., Tennessee v. Lane, Kansas v. Crane, Sell v. United States, and Atkins v. Virginia) are all given extensive attention. Mental Disability Law not only teaches students the relevant doctrine and theory, but also gives them an understanding of why the cases were decided as they were. Questions are provided after all major sections that encourage the teacher to direct students to think about the social, political, and behavioral forces that led to many of the decisions in question.

Examining the mistreatment of persons with mental disabilities around the world, Michael Perlin identifies universal factors that contaminate mental disability law, including lack of comprehensive legislation and of independent counsel; inadequate care; poor or nonexistent community programming; and inhumane forensic systems.

Examining the treatment of persons with mental disabilities in the criminal justice system, this book offers new perspectives that are crucial to an understanding of the ways in which society projects onto criminal defendants prejudices and attitudes about responsibility, free will, autonomy, choice, public safety, and the meaning and purpose of punishment, all with a focus on ways to enhance dignity in the criminal trial process. It is a detailed exploration of issues of adequacy of counsel; the impact of international human rights law, following the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD); the role of mental health courts; and the influence of therapeutic jurisprudence, procedural justice, and restorative justice on the legal process. It considers all of these perspectives in the context of criminal justice system issues such as competency findings, the insanity defense, and sentencing. Demonstrating how the question of treatment of persons with mental disabilities in the criminal justice system is not only a vital one for both scholars and practitioners, but also a central facet of international human rights law, this book suggests policy development, further scholarly inquiries, and newly invigorated thinking and action to place dignity at the core of the criminal justice system.