Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1975
Abstract
Mental illness is usually described as an impaired ability to communicate effectively. Yet the societal response--both historically and under modem psychiatric practice--has been to retard, rather than encourage, the acquisition of linguistic skills. This impediment to normal social intercourse leaves individual interests in free expression ineffectuated; it concerns the legal profession because the government condones and enforces the restriction of first amendment rights in a potentially large segment of the population. This article examines the philosophical justification for free communication for the mentally handicapped. It further suggests a systematic application of the first amendment to the particular problems of the mentally defective.
Publication Citation
50 Notre Dame Law. 419-447 (1975)
Scholarly Commons Citation
Gostin, Lawrence O., "Freedom of Expression and the Mentally Disordered: Philosophical and Constitutional Perspectives" (1975). Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works. 779.
https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/779