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| | Ohio Psychiatric Association |
 | | H.B. 357 proposes to eliminate the "not guilty by reason of insanity" (NGRI) defense, thus removing from Ohio law a nearly 1,000-year-old Anglo-American legal principle that it is fundamentally unfair to punish mentally ill defendants who cannot understand the wrongfulness of their conduct. |
 | | For example, across Ohio, judges, prosecutors, law enforcement agencies, mental health boards and agencies, professionals, and consumer advocacy groups have joined with the Ohio Supreme Court to form the Ohio Supreme Court Advisory Committee on the Mentally Ill in the Courts. |
 | | H.B. will move Ohio jurisprudence in the opposite direction, depriving judges and juries of a critical tool required for the fair administration of justice by abolishing the insanity defense. |
| www.ohiopsych.org /winter04/position.htm (473 words) |
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