THE INTERFACE OF LAW AND THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES. THE LOWELL INSTITUTE LECTURE.

THE recurrent problem at the interface of law and the behavioral sciences, the one we rarely get beyond in the courtroom, can be put this way: which of us, lawyer or psychiatrist, has primary responsibility for determining the issue of responsibility? Who is responsible for responsibility? I call this the "football question" — we make a football of the question of criminal responsibility, and kick it back and forth between our professions, and neither side makes much "yardage." The medical witness says to the lawyer, "What do you mean, 'responsible'; what does the Durham vs. United States decision mean when . . .