Analysis Of Capital Murder Trial

A psychopath is a person that meets certain traits such as, showing no emotion, display of irresponsibility, and is developed by their sense of nature. In four articles, “What Is a Psychopath” (1) by William Hirstein, “Psychopathy: An Important Forensic Concept for the 21st Century”(2) by multiple authors, “Criminal Minds Are Different From Yours, Brain Scans Reveal” (3) by Clara Moskowitz, and “Jim Fallon: Exploring the mind of a killer” (4) by Jim Fallon, all have a common theme of a person can be deemed as a psychopath if they meet certain criteria for traits. Psychopaths are generally known to be “emotionally shallow” (1) and that they show a “lack [of] emotion” (3) meaning that they don’t appear to wear their hearts on their sleeve and

Individuals with psychopathic personality are characterized by a constellation of traits, including interpersonal-affective features such as superficial charm, manipulation, lack of affect and emotion, and antisocial features such as impulsivity and aggression. (Gao, 2011). These traits in turn have been linked to a disregard for laws and social mores, a disregard for the right of others, a failure to feel remorse or guilt and a tendency to display violent behavior (Kennedy, 1954). Furthermore, their interpersonal behavior has been described as selfish, dominant, manipulative, and superficial; showing a lack of responsibility within relationships; and inability to form long-lasting bonds. Psychopaths are described

The field of forensic psychology is ever-changing as is the world around us. There is a persistent need to evaluate rules and procedures to keep up with the societal needs. A major area that is evolving within forensic psychology is the health care field and the usable technology. This new and advancing technology is allowing for the diagnosis of some very specific mental disorders, including the intriguing diagnosis of psychopathy. Until recently, very little research has provided conclusive evidence in makes a psychopath, a psychopath. Questions have been surfaced regarding the possibility of detecting psychopaths and preventing their trail of destruction

Accordingly, there exists a small group of people who exhibit most-to-all of these specific and peculiar characteristics and behaviours. This particular group of predators presents numerous challenges to morality, safety and policy. For instance, because a "psychopath" may display a general coldness toward others, they are more likely to commit criminal acts, and afterward not respond to punishment or deterrent tactics. Hare’s psychopathy checklist when used as a tool to identify psychopaths prevents harmful exposure of non-psychopaths to this dangerous group of offenders. For this tool to work effectively there must not be significant overlap of the specific characteristics used in the PCL-R to identify psychopaths as in the general population of non-psychopaths. In other words, the psychopath must

Murder on a Sunday Morning, an award-winning documentary, effectively relays the events surrounding a murder trial that took place in 2000 in which 15-year-old Brenton Butler was the defendant. In his hometown, Jacksonville, Florida, this young boy did nothing unusual on the day of the murder; he simply woke up, fed his dog, and went to submit a job application. However, his life was about to be drastically changed. Police had already initiated their pursuit of a black man who had robbed and murdered a white tourist just hours earlier. Without any evidence against Butler besides his skin color, the police drove him to the victim’s husband, Mr. Stephens, who positively identified him as the killer. The investigation and interrogation that ensued were proved in court to have been mishandled by police: detectives threatened and physically injured Butler to obtain the confession they needed. Ultimately, the verdict was not guilty on both charges of armed robbery and murder. What originally appeared to be a solid case against Butler was a façade that defense attorneys Ann Finnell and Patrick McGuinness utterly destroyed. Murder on a Sunday Morning impugns the actions of police officers, displays how race affects a case, and demonstrates the effective use of articulate arguments.

Introduction The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the constructs of psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder. The aim is to highlight whether the terms psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder reflect the same construct or whether they differ. Furthermore, recommendations for treatment of criminal behavior will be explored. For the purposes of this evaluation some definitions need to be highlighted: Criminal offence is an act that breaks a law, which relates how to behave in society. The harm caused by the act is seen to be against society as a whole, not just a specific person. Sometimes it refers to the specific law that was broken (Herring, 2009). Crime is the breach of rules or law for which some authority

The concept of psychopathy originated in the 1800s to describe individuals that consistently failed to conform to societal norms and exhibited antisocial behavior that did not fit the concept of mental illness of the time period. While, psychopathy was a common term used to describe individuals suffering from this disorder other descriptions were coined such as “Pinel’s term “manie sans delvie” meaning mania without delirium in the 1700s, to describe patents whose ‘affective faculties were disordered’” or Pritchard’s term “moral insanity” (Ogloff 520). In the 1930’s Partridge argued that psychopathy was a social rather than a mental disorder and proposed that the concept of sociopathy be introduced as a more accurate description. The American Psychological Association adopted Partridge’s term for their Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel in 1952. However, in 1968 the American Psychological Association changed the diagnostic label from sociopath to “personality disorder, antisocial” for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel – II that continued through to the DSM - III in 1980 and the DSM - III-R in 1987 and the DSM - IV in 1994. Today the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel categorizes antisocial personality disorder as a personality disorder and it is named as such. Unfortunately, not much research has been conducted

Have you ever wondered what goes through the mind of a psychopath, and what some of the symptoms, treatments, and facts about the disease/disorder are? You shall find out in this paper. Psychopathy is a dangerous disorder that an increasing amount of people have, and needs to be taken seriously as it has been responsible for many deaths and negative results throughout its tenure as a mental disease. It can be defined as a mental disorder in which the individual does not know the difference between right and wrong and in some cases they do not care (Hirstein, 2013). There are several symptoms, causes, and treatments for people with this disorder and different ways to approach them. It has also had a large effect on decisions in the court room

There are advantages to the Hare Checklist, specifically identification of the checklist as one of the most reliable tests at detecting psychopathy, if used by trained, professional personnel (Hare, 1990). The checklist is extensive in the identification of psychopathy, containing a 20 items long list as well as an interview and a review of past records and behaviors (Hare, 1990). The benefits of the checklist include determining the most effective care for an individual diagnosed as a psychopath, and responsibility for identifying possible psychopaths in prisons and other institutions who may become repeat offenders of violent crime (Hare, 1990). The checklist is able to predict, in some cases, the probability of another violent behavior occurring (Hare, 1990).

Psychopathy is characterized as persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, egotistical traits. Psychopaths are found in every country, belong to every race, and the majority are men. According to several studies, approxmently1 in 10 people are psychopaths, and they probably exhibited signs of the condition at a young age. There

Psychopathy Checklist–Revised’s (PCL-R) Facet 4 parcels, Parcel G (General Acting Out), was the only PCL-R measure to consistently achieve success in classifying individual cases using the receiver operating characteristic approach

This paper is an account of what I?ve learned about Antisocial Personality Disorder and Psychopathy through scholarly journals, college text books & listening to the 2012 audio podcast ?Scientific American.? In my experiences learning to cope with mental illness and being able to explore what causes the initial behaviors that many people can?t look past and honestly don?t want to. I wasn?t allowed to explore & talk openly about ?it??whatever ?it was? that was causing me to act out seek other vices to cope because ?it? wasn?t getting addressed. It just wasn?t & isn?t your average topic at the dinner table or it wasn?t then.

assessed by a mental health professional and scaled on a rating of one to three on each of the 20 components based on the interview and previous knowledge on file (Hare, 1998). As an alternative to the PCL, Lilienfeld and Andrews developed the Psychopathy Personality Index (PPI) (Lilienfeld, 1994). The PPI is now one of many self-report surveys used to measure psychopathy (Lilienfeld, 1994). These two measures are being continually adapted and are still used in the assessment of psychopaths.

Psychopathology is the scientific study of mental disorders. A psychopath is a person suffering from a chronic mental disorder with violent social behavior. Psychopaths lack conscience and feelings for others. They are aware of what they are doing, however they continue take and do what they want, with no trace of guilt. They demonstrate power over others to cover for their feeling of inadequacy. Psychopaths are selfish, impulsive, aggressive, loveless, and remorseless. They can appear charming, but are deceitful and manipulative. The word psychopath is broad and covers a range of behaviors, so it is further broken down into subcategories throughout this paper. The subcategories are; malignant narcissism, sadism, sexual sadism, and serial murderers.

The term psychopathy is described as a ‘disorder characterized by callousness’ (Richell et al, 2003) and is more of a personality trait than a stereotype. Within the term psychopathy, there are different subtypes that divide both a primary and secondary psychopath. A primary psychopath is characterized by traits such as lack of remorse and manipulative. Secondary psychopaths are ‘also associated with social anxiety and low self esteem’ (Ali, 2010), known to be more emotional.