However, there has not been a comprehensive review of our State s
mental incompetence defence for some time and concerns have been raised in the past by the Parole Board and the community that the threshold for offenders being able to avail themselves of this defence is too
The controversies Gottschalk analyzes will be familiar to anyone who knows the outlines of Eddy's life--litigations; disputes with former students such as Josephine Woodbury and Augusta Stetson; disillusionment with people she had at one time been close to such as her adopted son, Foster Eddy; accusations against her that ranged from hysteria to fraudulence to authoritarianism to heterodoxy to mushy thinking and bad writing; and, finally,
mental incompetence.
physician, carries a much higher connotation of
mental incompetence and also presents the "threat" of involuntary treatment.
The Tokyo High Court suspended the appeals trial in February last year due to his
mental incompetence.
It fosters the assumption that diagnosis of
mental incompetence can be accomplished independent of nonscientific motives.
The law provides diverse legal settings for the heroes' actions, including complaints of elder abuse, appeals over
mental incompetence, and even criminal charges.
Attacking the use of an insanity defense by murder suspects: "If you're guilty of unspeakable acts, fleeing to a convenient legal refuge, even one as humiliating as
mental incompetence, is probably the most rational thing one can do.
Gill spends perhaps a bit too much time on the story of the so-called "Next Friends" suit, an unsuccessful attempt by Eddy's next of kin to prove her
mental incompetence and to wrest control of her vast estate from the Christian Science Church.
