Insanity Defense
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Outline
Introduction
- A brief history of the insanity defense
- Introduction of the main idea of the research report
- Thesis statement
Body
- Delling’s Case
- Moral Prerequisite of Insanity Defense
- Yate’s Case
- M’Naghten Case
Conclusion
- Restate of the thesis
- Summary of the paper
Insanity Defense
Abstract
For the last 150 years, there has been little or no change in the knowledge and understanding of criminal insanity defense. An alternative concept which tends to explain the relationship that exists between the environmental and biological factors with human behavior failed to have an impact on the criminal system of justice. It is so because when a crime happens, society always gets ready to blame other things than themselves. The insanity defense has evolved through many tests and trials. Many countries have adopted its application, while a few have abolished its use. Mitigating factors, for instance, in the United States has mostly been applied in cases where the defendant gets charged with a death sentence. Supreme Court of the United States has made attempts of urging the jury or judges not to be controlled by law but focuses on all mitigating factors before declaring one death sentenced. Insanity defense facilitates in bringing justice to the mentally ill defendants as it will get discussed below.
Introduction
The insanity defense also referred to as a defense of the mental disorder, is when a defendant of a criminal gives excuses as an affirmative defense of a specific case. The reasons prove that the defendant is innocent for the crime they committed due to persistent or episodic of psychiatric illness while the crime was committed (Vitacco & Ragatz, 2017). Insanity defense pleads defendants not guilty of a crime due to the inadequate mental capacity of the defendant that made them not realize the crime they were committing was wrong. The type of defense used here gets classified under excuse defense rather than justification defense. The insanity defense has arguably gotten applied for years since it has resulted in the withdrawal of very high profile crimes. The public has also raised concerns about how the insanity defense is involved in most courts today; most of the high profile cases are getting ended with a claim of insanity (Bloechl et al., 2007). The study determines whether limiting or abolishing the mitigating factor, the insanity defense, will have any impact on crimes.
A mitigating factor refers to any type of evidence or information that the defendant presents to the court to obtain lesser or reduced charges (Perlin, 2016). Human dignity respect, which gets stated in the constitution of the United States, according to the eighth Amendment, has led to the court stressing that (Perlin, 2016). The Amendment demands any defendant get sentenced to death, their history, and the circumstances that surrounded their offense to get availed.
The application of this defense raises concerns since it slowly withdraws the public trust towards the courts. For instance, the case of John Hinckley Jr attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan, who was the president of the United States by then (Kivisto & Swan, 2011). The case got judged as an insanity defense that dissatisfied most individuals. Religious believers have gotten reported to have had a negative attitude towards this type of defense and to the defendants who use it.
For many years now, the insanity defense has gotten applied in many criminal charges in favor of the defendant, who claims to have been incapable of differentiating wrong from right in time of crime happening. However, despite having an application to many cases, few get granted their plea. It complicates and prolongs judgment, as there are many procedures required for the defendant to prove their innocence. According to the criminal justice system, for any criminal to be termed as guilty, they must have intent or knowledge of their deeds in times of the criminal act (Kivisto & Swan, 2011). It thus provides the defendant, if proved of having mental issues during the action, a punishment relief. There are various mitigating factors applied in criminal defense systems such as provocation, young age, other defendants try to blind the prosecutor by showing remorse, others tend to plead guilty of the offense, and others bring the excuse of having a mental illness.
All these mitigating factors get aimed at obtaining attention from the prosecutor who might have pity on them and shorten their sentence. In some instances, the defendant receives the favor of the plea while in others that are proven not true faces the law. Limiting and abolishing the insanity defense is seen to impact crimes since the mentally ill defendant gets to receive unjust ruling (Kivisto & Swan, 2011).
Delling’s Case
For instance, the abolition of the insanity defense in Idaho in the early 80s lead to an unjust ruling of John Joseph Delling’s case. Despite the high Supreme Court having to urge the jury to consider applying the eighth Amendment to the situation, three judges, i.e., Breyer, Sotomayor, and Ginsburg, joined forces to the disserting application of the law. Delling got denied the right to apply the insanity defense despite his case demanding so (Levy, 2019). Delling, at the time of his crime, had paranoid schizophrenia, which made him kill his victims in defense of his life. The killings got indeed planned by Delling and went on as per the plan. The intent to kill present in his case made the judges believe that he did the act intentionally. However, Delling gets found not to appreciate right from wrong in the time of his crime due to his mental illness. Since the state had abolished the insanity defense ruling, Delling got found guilty of the murder case, which was not supposed to be the case.
The case received a wrong ruling, which made the insanity defense seen of importance. Delling received no justice for his instance. The insanity defense gets thought after the case ruling to have a significant impact on the practical pleading. (Levy, 2019). Moral and historical settings, as well as in providing fair justice to all. It offers a doctrinal expression to the legal and ethical principles acknowledged by the Supreme Court and the common law.
Moral Prerequisite of Insanity Defense
The punishment and blame to the offender by the state violate the Clause of Due Process, which demands justice to every individual. When a state abolishes or limits the insanity defense’s application, the genuine insanity defenders get an unfair judgment. Responsibility concept connects with human dignity and nature convictions and with the day to day understanding of punishment, blame, innocence, and guilt (Moran, 2000). When states get rid of the insanity defense, all it is trying to do is make each being responsible for their actions. Individuals who are indeed not accountable for their actions due to insanity problems get held accountable for their actions, too, which is not fair.
According to the criminal justice system, any offender who fails to differentiate wrong from right deeds at the time of the crime should get exempted. These types of individuals are to receive some punishment and blame relief. Failure to excuse these individuals results in the inconsistency of both deterrent and retributive theories of fair punishment. A similar incipiency principle illustrates the various doctrines applied in the process of criminal justice. The Supreme Court demands that mentally ill individuals get treated with respect and different from the others with sober minds. It is so since some mentally ill individuals cannot understand and reason in a particular context.
During the trials, defendants must be able to plead for a waiver, not guilty; they must be able to stand for the prosecution and must be sober enough to comprehend the ruling. Criminal justice should thus be at the forefront of ensuring they offer fair treatment to all defenders. Offenders should not get excused from their responsibility of accountability because of a severe mental illness. Somewhat, they should only get justified when the mental illness affects their comprehensive ability such that they fail to differentiate wrong from right. It becomes inhuman to convict these kinds of individuals (Maidman, 2016). Criminal laws recognize the insanity defense. However, even for the few states that have abolished it, they still know the impact mental insanity has on the defender’s responsibility.
In such critical cases, the defender gets needed to produce substantial evidence concerning their claims. In cases where the defendant devised the mens rea charge, it gets unfair to debar them from providing and claiming their innocence. Mens rea refers to the element of crimes where defendants claim their lack of knowledge or intention to commit the accused crime. In the case of Delling, that was precisely the issue raised (Levy, 2019). The acceptance of the requirement of the affirmative legal insanity defense by the historical practices and by almost the whole universe due to the unfair judgment makes its abolishment have various impacts on crimes. According to Morris, in his research on “Madness and Criminal Law,” abolishing the insanity defense too got viewed as an unwise decision since it creates an environment of unfairness.
In his conclusion, Morris states that “it is hard to see why one should be more responsible for what gets done to one than for what one is.” The conclusion got intended to notify the reader of the irrelevant comparison between socially disadvantaged and mentally ill individuals (Morris, 1982). Morris confuses excuses with causation, which afflicted the clear rationale of criminal responsibility. In criminal law, causation gets taken not to be a condition for raising reasons. All behaviors get said to have gotten caused, although most of the time is when the causes get ignored. If causation gets taken as excuses, cases of defendants getting held liable for their wrongdoings will be absent.
For example, taking a case of a defendant whose insanity resulted from them ingesting a potent hallucinogen without their consent. The defendant gets not held accountable for their crime since they ingested the drug unknowingly. The task comes in when a need to different a defendant who committed the crime unknowingly and who was driven by motivations like one with a severe disorder of the brain from those who got forced to committing the crime with the drive of other powerful causes like those who are socially disadvantaged (Morris, 1982). However, in both instances, the defendant should get not hold liable for their actions since, in both cases, at the time the crime occurred, the defendants were irrational.
Yate’s Case
Religion strictly argues against the insanity defense since, through it, serious crimes got not brought into justice. For instance, in Andrea Yates’ case, get thought to violate the human right rule and God’s command that one should not kill. Yates was a woman who intentionally drowns her children with the belief that she was aiding them not to get tortured in hell. When her case got taken to court, she got judged with an insanity defense. She got believed that her acts were driven by her strong believes and drive (Denno, 2003). Without the insanity defense, Yates would have been verdict for a death sentence for the murder of her children. Its abolishment thus would result in such cases getting judged wrongly. Every federal and state court system currently applies either of the following tests in the definition of insanity, which then gets used in the mentally ill defense. Modification of insanity has been made by various states to suit their interest.
M’Naghten Case
M’Naghten Test– M’Naghten test is one that got established following the 1843 case of Daniel M’Naghten. Evaluation and setting the guidelines for the test rules took place in the British courts during the M’Naghten case. His case involved the killing of the prime minister’s secretary, Edward Drummond, in an attempt to assassinate the prime minister. M’Naghten was so convinced that the prime minister was the one behind his financial and personal misfortunes and was trying to avenge for it. Nine witnesses during his case stood before the court to claim that his actions were driven by a mental insanity problem, which led to the judge acquitting him and declaring his case as insanity drove one.
The judges, after M’Naghten judgment, was asked by the House of Lords to provide answers to five queries and questioned their formulation of the case. Their reviews demanded that the defendant be held liable for his actions since he had a mental illness at the time of the incident and failed to understand that it was wrong to do what he did. M’Naghten ruling got taken as the basis of giving verdicts in England for the mentally ill defendants. Loss of temper, which results from mental insanity, was not included in the rules.
Availability of the insanity defense will aid help to prevent cases like the one for M’Naghten from being unjustly judged. If the insanity defense was not present, M’Naghten could have been sentenced for a murder case, while in a real sense, he was not able to different wrong from right at the time of the crime (Gardner& Anderson, 2018). Abolishing the insanity defense results in unfair treatment of cases thus should not be abolished.
Irresistible Impulse Test– The test demands that the mentally ill defendant at the time of the criminal act could not control their impulses be held guilty of the crime in the claim of them being insane (Gardner& Anderson, 2018).
ALI-MPC (Model Penal Code) Test– The test demands the mentally ill defendant not to get hold accountable for their committed crimes. It argues that a lack of control and understanding act as a basis for them to commit the crimes (Gardner& Anderson, 2018).
Conclusion
Mitigating factors such as the one discussed above of the insanity defense aid in equalizing defendants by ensuring justice are served to all. States that abolish the insanity defense fails to give justice to all citizens. Mentally ill defendants lack the knowledge to differentiate wrong from the right, which is thought to be the root cause of their crimes. Limitations such as shortening their sentence should be applied to them to ensure justice is served to all despite their status. Thus limiting and mitigating the insanity defense will have an impact on crimes in that it will deny justice to the mentally insane defendants.
Summary
From the above discussion, it is clear that abolishing and limiting of the insanity defense will have a negative effect on the defender’s case. Most criminal justice systems demand that the defendant provide sufficient proof of them being insane at the time of the crime happening. The procedures are quite lengthy, and proving their insanity becomes quite hard. Abolishing it also makes the genuine mentally ill defenders get unfair treatment. Like for instance, in the cases identified above of Delling and Yantes, without the insanity defense option, the two cases could end up being judged as murder cases that could have denied justice to them. Morally also it is unjust to punish and blame defendants who are not to be held liable for their actions. Mentally ill defenders, instead of being jailed, the states should instead be more concerned about how they will get taken to hospital for medication.
The insanity defense is vital since it tries to bring justice to the mentally ill defendants. Abolishing will have a negative impact on those that are genuinely insane since it will deny them justice. Christianity has found its application not suitable with their faith, arguing that it aids in injustice ruling. Many serious crimes like murder get judged under insane defense, denying them accountability for their mistakes. An insanity defense is one of the mitigating factors applied in the criminal system of justice. It forms the fundamental argument of this report. Delling and Yantes’s cases get outlined in the study that got judged under the insanity defense rather than being made to be accountable for their murder cases.
References
Bloechl, A. L., Vitacco, M. J., Neumann, C. S., & Erickson, S. E. (2007). An empirical investigation of insanity defense attitudes: Exploring factors related to bias. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 30(2), 153-161. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160252706001002
Denno, D. W. (2003). Who is Andrea Yates-A Short Story about Insanity. Duke J. Gender L. & Pol’y, 10, 1. https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1103&context=faculty_scholarship
Gardner, T. J., & Anderson, T. M. (2018). Cengage Brain.co.uk: ISBN13: 978-1-305-96636- https://www.cengagebrain.co.uk/shop/isbn/9781305966369
Kivisto, A. J., & Swan, S. A. (2011). Attitudes toward the insanity defense in capital cases:(Im) partiality from Witherspoon to Witt. Journal of forensic psychology practice, 11(4), 311-329. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15228932.2011.562811
Levy, K. (2019). Normative Ignorance: A Critical Connection Between the Insanity and Mistake of Law Defenses. Florida State University Law Review, 47. https://philpapers.org/archive/LEVNIA-3.pdf
Maidman, B. R. (2016). The legal insanity defense: Transforming the legal theory into a medical standard. BUL, Rev., 96, 1831. https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2016/10/MAIDMAN.pdf
Moran, R. (2000). Knowing right from wrong: The insanity defense of Daniel McNaughtan. Simon and Schuster. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=zpwET59ZlQIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=Moran+R:+Knowing+Right+From+Wrong:+The+Insanity+Defense+of+Daniel+McNaughtan.+New+York:+Free+Press,+2000+26&ots=gwaVmPmO1y&sig=Uy3PRmRUspVkKOzv8T3z9kimCN4
Morris, N. (1982). Madness and the criminal law (p. 199). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=86780
Perlin, M. L. (2016). The insanity defense: Nine myths that will not go away. The Insanity Defense: Multidisciplinary Views on Its History, Trends, and Controversies (Mark D. White, Editor. https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2137&context=fac_articles_chapters
Vitacco, M. J., & Ragatz, L. L. (2017). Insanity Defense. The Encyclopedia of Juvenile Delinquency and Justice, 1-5. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118524275.ejdj0083