Abstract
This paper describes the role played by the notion of asylum in the legal battle over confessed murderer Jean Gianini's mental competence and commitment. Gianini was a 16 year old who murdered his former teacher in a small upstate New York town in 1914. His trial was the first in the US to employ the Binet-Simon intelligence test as a defence and featured a clash of expert witnesses whose credibility was based upon their residence and work in asylums. The verdict of ‘not guilty due to criminal imbecility’ was due to the defence team's successful portrayal of the asylum as a punishing prison from which the defendant would never be released.
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