When a three-year-old child was found with a head wound and other injuries, it looked like an open-and-shut case of second-degree murder. Psychologist and attorney Susan Vinocour agreed to evaluate the defendant, the child's mentally ill and impoverished grandmother, to determine if she was competent to stand trial. Even if she had caused the child's death, had she realized at the time that her actions were wrong, or was she legally "insane"? What followed was anything but an open-and-shut case. NOBODY'S CHILD traces the legal definition of "insanity" back to its inception in Victorian Britain nearly 200 years ago, from when our understanding of the human mind was in its infancy, to today, when questions of race, class and ability so often determine who is legally "insane" and who is criminally guilty.
