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Biomedical subjects

R F Schopp

Publications and source records attributed to R F Schopp.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

Psychopathy, criminal responsibility, and civil commitment as a sexual predator.

Recent judicial decisions regarding commitment under sexual predator statutes and commentary addressing the legal significance of psychopathy provide an interesting opportunity to reflect upon the exculpatory significance of psychopathy and the appropriate relationship between criminal conviction and police power civil commitment. This paper examines the legal significance of psychopathy for the purposes of criminal responsibility and of civil commitment under sexual predator statutes. By examining the significance of psychopathy for each of these legal institutions, it clarifies our understanding of the legal significance of psychopathy and of the relationship between these institutions. This process illuminates the defensible functions and boundaries of each institution and clarifies the nature of the impairment that should qualify an individual for confinement by each. This analysis interprets criminal conviction and police power commitment, including sexual predator commitment, as integrated institutions of social control intended to provide a coherent approach to psychopaths as well as to others who require state intervention under the police power.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Therapeutic jurisprudence: integrated inquiry and instrumental prescriptions.

This paper considers the manner in which one could apply a therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) analysis to a controversial approach to the treatment of sex offenders. Rather than attempting to resolve the difficult questions regarding this form of intervention, however, this paper uses this issue as an opportunity to examine some theoretical concerns about the nature and limits of the TJ research program. As interpreted here, TJ consists of a program of scholarship and law reform intended to promote integration of conceptual, empirical, and normative inquiry. TJ does not in itself resolve normative issues, but it promotes integrated analysis that can sharpen our ability to articulate and examine those normative concerns. TJ remains normatively neutral at the levels of value and theoretical neutrality. Prescriptively, it cannot generate principled normative prescriptions, but it can generate instrumental prescriptions. The long-term measure of the TJ program rests upon its success in promoting innovative and integrated interdisciplinary scholarship and law reform.

Humans↗
PubMed1995

Predicting the present: expert testimony and civil commitment.

This article uses the Supreme Court's decision in Daubert as an opportunity to address a chronic concern regarding the disparity between mental health law as officially enunciated and the practical application of that law. After Daubert, admissibility of expert evidence under the federal rules requires a qualified expert, a reliable basis for the testimony, and relevance to the legal issue. Ongoing psychological research pursues empirical data that expands the scope of psychological expertise and clarifies its limits. This article addresses the requirement of relevance by examining the logical relationship between the psychologist's actuarial and clinical expertise and the legal issues addressed by the court in civil commitment proceedings. Ideally, Daubert might stimulate a process of cooperative analysis in which psychologists and lawyers clarify the proper roles of psychological experts and of the courts with which those experts interact. This article begins that project by clarifying the legal determination required in civil commitment proceedings and by explicating the relationship between the responsibilities of experts and those of courts.

Commitment of Persons with Psychiatric Disorders↗
PubMed1993

Therapeutic jurisprudence and conflicts among values in mental health law.

Therapeutic Jurisprudence provides a conceptual framework for a research agenda designed to promote development of legal rules, procedures, and roles in a manner consistent with the therapeutic mission of the mental health system. As such, it draws attention to the tension between the jurisprudential values of autonomy and well-being that permeates mental health law specifically and the law and ethics of health care generally. This article advances an analysis of these values in the context of the patient-centered approach to health care. The article endorses a priority for the deontic aspect of autonomy over well-being but allows balancing of the consequentialist component of autonomy against well-being. Finally, it applies this framework to several traditionally difficult types of cases.

Ethics, Medical↗
PubMed1993

The normative and conceptual foundations of a clinical duty to protect.

The continuing controversy surrounding the Tarasoff inspired duty to protect as developed by the courts and legislatures has not adequately weighed the jurisprudential foundations of such an obligation. The authors argue that the duty's misguided thrust of social control grounded in character and status seriously violates broad principles of political morality underlying the law of social control. They conceptualize an alternative--a clinical duty to protect--that coheres with these underlying values and the limits of professional abilities. They contend that any extra-clinical intervention on the part of the psychotherapist entails a role transformation requiring independent justification.

Confidentiality↗