La psicopatía en la actualidadAbordaje clínico-legal y repercusiones forenses en el ámbito penal

Abstract

As professor Alberca Lorente wonderfully points out in the foreword of the 7th Spanish edition of Kurt Schneider’s “Psychopathic Personalities” (1980), the terminological misconception of Psychopathy has always been present throughout history. The lack of common consensus when defining the clinical construct impacts on the legal sphere and therefore, the construct overlaps with terms like Antisocial Personality Disorder, Sociopathy or Dissocial Disorder. This paper aims to make an updated clinical approach to Psychopathy, to analyze its forensic aspect and its presence in Spanish courts, in particular in the Supreme Court. After evaluating 173 sentences from the Supreme Court (Criminal Chamber) gathered within last 13 years, only 14 of them were found to be significant in terms of jurisprudence, thus highlighting the existence of a conceptual chaos and the tendency of Spanish courts to consider Psychopathy to be insufficient as a lone disorder in order to amend the accused individual’s criminal liability.