Affirmative defense

justice for the guilty. Yet one issue that often comes up is if the justice for one person should be different from the justice for another. This issue often comes up specifically in relation to mental illness, and in the insanity defense. The insanity defense is used as a defense when a mentally ill individual is accused of murder, but it is only used in 1% of cases in the US due to its low success rates and many requirements that are difficult to meet. The main requirements…

Not guilty by reason of insanity(NGRI), means that the person is unaware; incapable of distinguishing right from wrong during the time that the crime is committed. In a case where a person is found not guilty by reason of insanity, the person’s actions are slightly justified. They would receive an acquittal, only if they can win over the court, allowing them to be admitted to a stay, serving their sentence at a mental hospital verses prison. Furthermore, guilty by mental illness(GBMI) still…

Introduction What is Insanity Defense? Normally, a person is only convicted of crime if the prosecution proves that the suspect is engaged in a guilty act or had any guilty intent. If the suspect is not confirmed to have such intents, then it’s not considered as a crime. However, in situations in which a person commits a crime with intent, but suffers from a mental or physical condition that hinders their ability to control their behavior or to distinguish what’s right or wrong is involved,…

Article Review: The insanity Plea in the Case of a Serial Killer What is this article specifically addressing? This article, “The insanity Plea in the Case of a Serial Killer” By George Palermo and Richard Khnudten explains the case of the infamous serial killer Jeffery Dahmer and his attempt to request the insanity plea to get out of his crimes he committed. Mr. Dahmer killed seventeen men, and when asked about his crimes his responses where clear and coherent. Yet, he pled not guilty by…

Mental Illness and the Insanity Defense Introduction The criminal justice system works by attempting to dispense justice in all instances where the law has been broken. The penal code is structured in a manner that permits it to punish according to the magnitude of the transgression in question. However, not everyone, even those who admit to committing crimes, accepts their punitive measures gracefully. They continuously attempt to avoid the penalties associated with their deeds. Besides, some…

It states that to establish an insanity defense it must be proven that that the time of the act, the defendant was impaired by the disease that he was unaware of the nature of the act the he had committing (Lubaszka & Shon, 2013, p. 67). In more resent years the Durham rule has been a standard…

The insanity defense often takes two forms: the cognitive insanity and the volitional insanity. Cognitive insanity must prove that the individual was so mentally unstable at the time of the illegal action, that they are incapable of knowing their actions were wrong.…

Mental illnesses are hard to diagnose. As Professor John Breeding mentions in his video and our textbook, Discovering Psychology, mentions on page 239, there are not blood tests or scans that you can do in determining whether or not you have a specific mental illness. People’s behavior must be observed and after that, doctors typically refer back to the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) for diagnosis. Even though there is no scientific or chemically proven way to show…

Introduction This paper will review the disaster preparedness for public housing in Homeland security. Disasters happen all the time, but it comes down to if you are prepared for what is to come, and after the disaster. Through the research it was found that a lot of communities, especially poorer communities like the housing projects are not at all prepared for disasters. A recent policy just got passed that has communities coming together to learn about disasters, and how to be prepared…

The Insanity Defense A serious American contemporary issue is the use of the insanity defense. The insanity defense is when a person being accused of a crime are legally sane but were not in the right state of mind when the crime had taken place. The insanity defense is a chance to help the person who was not in the normal state of mind. This defense is a compromise of society and law because not all mental ailments can be proven or disproven. The benefits of the insanity defense include…