Bioethics, Medicine and the Criminal Law

Griffiths and Sanders present a fresh and wide-ranging analysis of the impact of the criminal process on medical practice.

Danielle Griffiths (Edited by), Andrew Sanders (Edited by)

9781107021532, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 31 January 2013

352 pages
23.5 x 15.5 x 2 cm, 0.64 kg

'This anthology is a must-read for policymakers, healthcare providers, academics, and anyone else interested in the thorny questions surrounding the intended and unintended effects of criminal punishment on the provision of medical care... one of the volume's many strengths is that it provides the reader with significant and valuable information to begin thinking critically about whether the involvement of the criminal justice system in the regulation of medicine is to be commended or condemned.' Song Richardson, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books (clcjbooks.rutgers.edu)

In recent years, debates have arisen concerning the encroachment of the criminal process in regulating fatal medical error, the implementation of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 and the recent release of the Director of Public Prosecution's assisted suicide policy. Consequently, questions have been raised regarding the extent to which such intervention helps, or if it in fact hinders, the sustained development of medical practice. In this collection, Danielle Griffiths and Andrew Sanders explore the operation of the criminal process in healthcare in the UK as well as in other jurisdictions, including the USA, Australia, New Zealand, France and the Netherlands. Using evidence from previous cases alongside empirical data, each essay engages the reader with the debate surrounding what the appropriate role of the criminal process in healthcare should be and aims to clarify and shape policy and legislation in this under-researched area.

1. The 'doctoring type'
2. 'The sleep of death': 150 years of anaesthesia-related mortality and the courts
3. Victims and prosecution policy
4. The road to the dock: prosecution decision-making in medical manslaughter cases
5. Medical manslaughter: the role of context and character
6. Doctors who kill and harm their patients: the Australian experience
7. Medical manslaughter: organisational liability
8. 'From prosecution to rehabilitation': New Zealand's response to health professional negligence
9. The role of the criminal law in healthcare in France: examining the HIV blood contamination scandal
10. Pain relief, prescription drugs, and prosecution in the US
11. Exploring the tension between physician-assisted dying and palliative medicine
12. Psychiatric care and criminal prosecution
13. 'Involuntary automaticity' and medical manslaughter
14. Maternity services and the impact of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007
15. Disease transmission and prosecution.

Subject Areas: Bio-ethics [PSAD], Medical & healthcare law [LNTM], Criminal law & procedure [LNF], Crime & criminology [JKV]