The Importance Of The Insanity Plea

The insanity plea is a defense in the court of law put in place for people who suffer from mental illness and commit crimes. Under this defense, the mentally ill are not entirely held responsible for their actions given the terms that they were not in the correct state of mind when the crime took place. The person would admit to committing the crime, but then say they are not guilty by reason of insanity (Francone). This plea has been used in my cases throughout history. The presence of this plea option has led to controversy in the law world; some think that the plea should be diminished while others notice its necessity. Nevertheless, there are people with mental illness in our society that commit crimes just as those without mental illness do. There should be a system that protects the rights of those with mental illness, but there is a lot of grey area with the current system in place because it is difficult to tell if the person was not in a sane state at the time the crime took place when the trial often occurs months later. Those who plea guilty by reason of insanity are required to go through an extensive psychological …show more content…
The insanity plea is a necessary modality for the legal system to possess; however there are many holes in the current defense that have caused criminals to find an escape, and because of this, there should be stricter stipulations in place on the