Insanity defense

The insanity defense has been popularized by television shows and real coverage of trials. Because of this there is a great deal of misinformation about the insanity defense. The insanity defense is a controversial topic partly because of what constitutes an insanity defense. The term insanity is a legal term rather than an actual psychological term or disorder. This paper will discuss some of the history of the insanity defense, notable cases, and finally issues with the insanity defense.…

horrible crime and after all, will not be punished for it, because they are insane. Some defendants may use the insanity plea to escape imprisonment, but they are not truly insane. If you wouldn’t want a murderer to go free of punishment, then you don’t want a criminal to be innocent, because of their “mental illness”. The Insanity Defense should…

The insanity defense typically refers to a plea that defendants are not guilty because they lacked the mental capacity to realize that they committed a wrong or appreciate why it was wrong. Some states also allow defendants to argue that they understood their behavior was criminal but were unable to control it. This is sometimes called the "irresistible impulse" defense. When defendants plead not guilty by reason of insanity, they are asserting an affirmative defense—that is, they admit that…

wrongfulness of their actions. For example, should someone with a mental disability be punished for committing a crime? “The insanity defense refers to that branch of the concept of insanity which defines the extent to which men accused of crime may be relieved of criminal responsibilities by virtue of mental disease.” (Goldstein 9) For an act to be considered an act of insanity, a person’s mental disease must impair their ability to not realize that the…

Journal, “Not guilty by reason of insanity is an inadequate remedy to violence by individuals with mental illness.” The United States justice system is meant to serve one main purpose: ensuring 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…

to American society. The insanity defense is a specific law which has gotten harder to prove. It is a defense used in the court of law to plead not guilty due to a mental state that does not allow the accuser to know what (s)he has done. American society's view is causing this law to be on the verge of being abolished. From the creation of the insanity defense, American society’s view on whether the insanity defense should be kept has been split. Before the insanity defense was developed there…

The insanity defense allows a defendant in a case to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Law Digests says that “the Insanity Defense is probably the most controversial of all criminal defense strategies”. The definition of legal insanity is when a person has a "Disorder which impairs the human mind and prevents distinguishing between actions that are right or wrong" (Duhaime 1). The defendant then has to prove to the court that he did not understand what he was doing (Findlaw 1). Along with…

For example, the insanity defense is a defense that is rarely used and rarely successful, but receives the most attention from media. In order to successfully use the insanity defense, the defendant must be judged legally insane, which consequently strips them from many of their political rights. The principle behind the insanity defense states that a person who lacks the mental capacity to form decisions based on right or wrong cannot be held legally responsible for their criminal acts. Each…

Ethical Dilemma: The ethical dilemma of abolishing the insanity defense remains an issue when considering to strip mentally ill of the plea. The culpability, or rationality, of mentally ill offenders is often questioned when considering sentencing in U.S. courts. Is it legal to punish a person who is not mentally capable of telling right from wrong, regardless of the circumstances? Attorney’s inability to guarantee psychological defect in some cases adds to the impossibility of these…

Before beginning the reading, I knew that my mindset on the insanity defense would be corrected to some degree. It has been shaped and morphed solely by TV and famous crimes where drama sells. The first case that came to my head as I opened the document was the shooter of the Aurora movie theater who attempted to plead guilty with insanity. The case quickly identifies this correlation as vividness heuristics. Without thinking of the salient factors, my mind quickly jumped to the most extreme…