Should the Insanity Defense be Abolished - An Introduction to the Debate

As the plans for the debate began to unfold I was concerned about the possibility that the subject matter might already be jaded, or in any event no longer would be a "hot topic" for our potential audience. Being quite familiar with the writings of our Advocates and therefore particularly susceptible to the reader-listener rehash syndrome, I was nonetheless hopeful that what had the potential for being old-hat would instead be new and interesting to those members of the audience not professionally committed to intimate familiarity with the subject matter. While I had expected that these issues, aired in the setting of a debate, would be more exciting and immediate than even the extraordinary written scholarship of both erudite visitors, I hadn't expected the remarkable level of intensity, originality and profundity to which all of us were treated.