Whats to stop defendants from faking an illness or disability?
According to Corvin, it’s relatively easy for a trained psychiatrist to spot what he called “malingering” – mostly because it’s all but impossible for a person without severe mental illness to sustain the ruse over time. Indeed, it seems much less likely that trained psychiatrists and judges could be fooled than an untrained jury. Isn’t this just another effort by death penalty opponents to chip away at capital punishment? There’s no denying that the idea is viewed sympathetically by death penalty opponents, but the current effort in North Carolina is being driven by mental health advocates. As was made plain by the first speaker at yesterday’s hearing, John Tote of the Mental Health Association, such a change is overwhelmingly supported by the mental health community – not just because of the justice it would provide in a small handful of cases, but also because of the broader ramifications of such a change. According to mental health experts and advocates, one of the keys to comprehe
