Schizophrenics are not normal persons. When destructive antisocial acts are
committed, mental illness may be, but is not always, recognized as extenuating
circumstance reducing the perpetrator’s culpability. As in other cases, such as
voluntary intoxication and drug addiction, where lawyers plead diminished
responsibility, the court has to deal with a continuum of culpability. This raises
the question of capacity, that is, a person’s ability to make decisions for him or
herself. Particularly problematic are patients exhibiting dissociative identity
disorder, as they call into question the unqualified validity of the notion of a
unified unchanging self that inhibits its body for its lifetime.
Undocumented foreigners and illegal aliens are not normal persons. It is not so
much a symbolic act when asylum seekers discard or destroy their passports and
other identity papers; some do it to make it more difficult for the government of
the target country to deport them. And it is difficult for governments to deal with
people who have no identity, no matter activists’ justified argument that human
beings cannot be illegal and one’s identity cannot depend on a registration
number.
Witnesses who testified to a crime and have subsequently received in a witness
protection programme a new identity and background to safeguard their security
are not normal persons.
Someone who has the same name as a convict or disgraced individual is not a
normal person. When you are targeted by a flood of hate mail referring to
whatever crime or misconduct your namesake is accused of it becomes apparent
how unpleasant and disquieting matters of mistaken identity can be.
A thief who uses someone else’s identity is not a normal person. Most states make
it a crime to misuse another person’s identifying information. This fact alone is
indicative of the paramount legal importance of identity, that is, the verified self-
sameness of a human being. Digitalization has rendered identity theft one of the
most common and profitable crimes, making governments around the world
struggle to get a grip on it.
Other types of non-normal persons could be added to this list, but for our
purpose, it shall be sufficient. When a stranger comes into contact with the
judiciary, or a demented person, or identical twins, or impostors, their attributes
coalesce to form an atypical identity that poses a challenge to a system built for