Word: defectiveness
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...jury's verdict: "not guilty"-by reason of insanity. The case so shook Britain that the judicial committee of the House of Lords suggested a hard and fast rule: to prove "insanity," a defendant must show-that he was either "laboring under such a defect of reason from disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of the act; or, if he did know it, that he did riot know he was doing what was wrong." Thus the famed "M'Naghten Rule," which in the main has guided U.S. and British courts ever since...
Psychiatrists and lawyers see major difficulties in this ruling, e.g., how to define such terms as "disease," "defect," "product." Many fear that it would be too easy for criminals to take refuge in "mental disease." Actually, if properly administered, the Durham rule would not necessarily have such results; in many cases, the defense would have a hard time proving a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the mental illness and the crime. The Durham rule, by allowing freer psychiatric testimony, might also undermine many defense attempts based on "irresistible impulse." which in the past has been responsible for some highly...
...Flaw to Correct. The gravest defect in the revitalized A.F.L. that Meany took over was the weakness of the central leadership in comparison with some of the individual union heads. The public knew about the A.F.L.'s failure to stamp out racketeering in some of its unions-e.g., the longshoremen and teamsters. Almost as serious were the unceasing membership raids between A.F.L. unions. Meany started by negotiating a no-raiding agreement within the A.F.L. Meanwhile the unity committee mulled over some sobering statistics showing how labor was wasting its strength in internal warfare. The figures...
Aside from this defect, Cocteau has clevery combined realistic passions and humorous dialogue. His characters, hysterical as they are, manage to remain credible and funny at the same time. Their humor derives principally from the ancient method of dramatic irony-as when Madelaine tells Michael, "I was as found of George as I shall be of your father," and only the audience knows that George is Michael's father; and partly also from a simple exaggeration of emotions, as in the opening scene, when Yvonne's possessiveness and then Michael's naivete combine in a virtual parody of the Oedipus...
Under sharp questioning in the House of Commons last week, Under Secretary of State for Air George Ward made an admission that shocked Britain. The Royal Air Force's most promising operational jet fighter, the high-firepower, 650-m.p.h. Hawker Hunter, is stalled by an unlooked-for defect: when its four 30-mm. cannons are fired "at certain heights and in certain conditions of flight," its engine flames...