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The premise of the law that men are presumed to act freely and may be held responsible for their actions is contrasted with dynamic psychiatry's concept of psychic determinism. In court commitment, it is the law, not psychiatry, that defines the mentally ill offender, and the decision made without regard to the existence or absence of an effective treatment for the mentally ill person is so defined. Mentally ill offenders are divided into three categories: 1, the psychotic offender who is too severely impaired to be held responsible; 2, the person who is not impaired at the time of the criminal act but later becomes so impaired that he needs hospitalization; and 3, the manipulator who is in the hospital because it suits him better than does prison. Case histories demonstrate that present solutions are unrelated to each type of mentally ill offender: there is a haphazard 'dumping' of patients from the courts of law and correctional facilities into psychiatric facilities. There is also a 'conceptual dumping'—a lack of clarity about whether the offender should be regarded from the legal or the psychiatric viewpoint, with the courts recommending treatment where only custodial care exists and therefore inappropriately applying psychiatric concepts. This situation would be improved if psychiatrists were willing to testify more frequently in court.