Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World

  • Author: Anna Arstein-Kerslake

Unfitness to plead law and the fallacy of a fair trial

Cognitive disability is not well accommodated in criminal justice systems. Yet, people with cognitive disability are overrepresented in these systems. Unfitness to plead law is one legal mechanism that is purported to assist when a person with cognitive disability is charged with a crime. The aim of such laws is claimed to be to prevent an individual with cognitive disability to have to engage in a trial process.

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