精神病辩护:历史、社会与现实

The insanity defense: history, society and reality

精神病辩护制度在普通法国家具有长久之历史,特别在美国,其不仅具有比较完善的刑事责任能力法则,而且其精神病辩护的案件也备受社会各界瞩目。而精神病辩护制度、相关立法或者司法实践活动并不是与世隔绝、生活在真空中的产物,其受到社会、政治、伦理道德等各种因素的影响。同时,即使在精神病辩护制度最为发达的美国,与人们印象中不同的是,实际上精神病辩护并未获得多大的成功,从而形成想象与现实的落差。对于我国而言,应从精神病辩护制度之历史、社会与现实多个视角或者因素考虑,从而确立一种渐进的或者改良的中国刑事责任能力法则或者辩护制度。

The insanity defense has a long history in the common law system. Particularly in United States, it not only has a fairly completed insanity defense law, but cases related to the insanity defenses have attracted broad focus from wide cross-sections in society. However, the insanity defense is not an insular product, nor does it exist in the vacuum, which is inevitably inlfuenced by social, political, ethical and moral factors. In the meanwhile, even in United States that has the most developed insanity defense system in the world, its insanity defense in fact still has not achieved much success, differing from general impression of ordinary people, consequently causing a gap between imagination and the reality. In China, we should establish or improve our insanity defense system based upon factors of history, society and reality of our own Country in a progressive way.