Mental Illness, Dangerousness, the Police Power and Risk Assessment (3) (CRI 275)

Professors Bruce David, Michelle Galieta, Patrick Reilly

This course will deal with the relationship between mental illness, dangerous behavior and the police power, the ability of mental health professionals to predict dangerousness, and the significance of risk assessment instruments for a variety of decisions to be made in the legal system. Students will discover how these relationships and concepts play out” in a variety of settings, including involuntary civil commitments, right to refuse treatment, insanity defense acquittee retention hearings, sex offender status hearings, sentencing cases, death penalty “future dangerousness” inquiries, death penalty mitigation hearings, and Tarasoff (duty to protect) cases in civil law.
This is a predominately on-line course, requiring students to participate in a weekly chat room, discussion board, and two, day-long weekend live seminars at New York Law School. The grade is based on chat room, discussion board and live seminar participation, a midterm paper, and a take-home final. This is an advanced course and for JD students to enroll the pre-requisite is Survey of Mental Disability Law or Advocacy Skills in Cases Involving Persons with Mental Disability Law: the Roles of Lawyers and Expert Witnesses formerly known as Lawyering Skills in the Representation of Persons with Mental Disabilities or permission of Prof. Michael Perlin, Director, Online Mental Disability Law Program. For master’s degree and certificate students, Survey of Mental Disability Law is a pre-requisite or co-requisite.