Originally, most states required that, when a defendant asserted a defense of insanity, the prosecutor was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not insane. However, in , John W. Hinckley was acquitted of the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan on the basis of an insanity defense, and this result caused many states to reform their insanity laws.
Many states shifted the burden of proof from the prosecutor to the defense, requiring defense attorneys to show by clear and convincing evidence or by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant was insane. In Idaho, Kansas, Montana, and Utah, the defense of insanity was eliminated entirely. Ironically, the defense regarded by some today as a great loophole evolved in to confine defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity in much the same way as those found guilty.
When James Hadfield was tried for the attempted assassination of British monarch George III, he argued that Bannister Truelock had convinced him that the second coming of Christ and the dissolution of mankind were upon them perhaps influenced by the French Revolution.
Hadfield believed that he was ordained to die as Christ did. The judge and jury agreed. For federal crimes, the Hinckley case led to the passage of the Insanity Defense Reform Act, which requires that defendants prove the defense of insanity by clear and convincing evidence. Currently, states rely on four different tests to determine whether a defendant is legally insane. The laws of your state will establish which of these four tests applies. This test relies on the notion that defendants may be diseased such that they are incapable of understanding their own actions.
This test is currently used only in New Hampshire, since it has been deemed too broad by other states and jurisdictions. This is similar to a defendant who is hypnotized, or sleepwalking.
Second, an insane defendant does not have the ability to form criminal intent. Thus no deterrent effect is served by punishment, and treatment for the mental defect is the appropriate remedy. It is also the oldest and was created in England in After a public outcry at this verdict, the British House of Lords developed a test for insanity that remains relatively intact today. The defense requires two elements. First, the defendant must be suffering from a mental defect at the time he or she commits the criminal act.
Second, the trier of fact must find that because of the mental defect, the defendant did not know either the nature and quality of the criminal act or that the act was wrong.
Some common examples of mental defects and diseases are psychosis, schizophrenia, and paranoia. Jurisdictions vary as to the level of awareness the defendant must possess. Code, If know or understand is the standard, the trier of fact must ascertain a basic level of awareness under the attendant circumstances.
A defendant does not know the nature and quality of a criminal act if the defendant is completely oblivious to what he or she is doing. This is quite rare, so most defendants claiming insanity choose to assert that they did not know their act was wrong.
Crenshaw, Skaggs, Worlock, Susan wants to marry a single man, but he does not want the responsibility of caring for her children. Susan decides to kill her children. She drives her two sons, aged three and five, out to the lake. She puts the car in park, gets out, and then puts it in gear, watching as it drives into the water. Both of her sons drown.
Later that day, Susan files a police report stating that a stranger kidnapped her children at gunpoint. Susan recants her kidnapping story and admits she killed her children. However, she claims she is not guilty by reason of insanity. Susan tried to mislead the police, demonstrating her awareness that she had done something wrong.
Andrea, a diagnosed schizophrenic, drowns five of her young children in the bathtub. Andrea promptly phones and tells the operator that her children are dead. The operator dispatches an emergency call to law enforcement.
Andrea thereafter claims she is not guilty for killing her children by reason of insanity. Andrea suffers from a mental defect , schizophrenia. In addition, there is no evidence indicating Andrea knew her conduct was wrong , such as an attempted escape, or cover-up.
In fact, Andrea herself contacted law enforcement and immediately told them about her criminal acts. Another variation of the insanity defense is the irresistible impulse defense. This defense has lost popularity over the years and is rejected by most of the states and the federal government 18 U. However, the second element adds the concept of volition , or free choice.
White, The challenge for the trier of fact in an irresistible impulse jurisdiction is distinguishing between conduct that can be controlled and conduct that cannot. Her plan is to subdue each sister with the stun gun and then hack off her hair. As she arrives at the house, she sees Agnes, one of her sorority sisters, trip and fall in the parking lot, ripping her cashmere sweater and scraping her chin. Feeling a stab of pity, Jolene ignores Agnes and walks hurriedly toward the building.
You look like you just rolled out of bed! Jolene claims she is not guilty for assault and battery of Ashley by reason of insanity. If Jolene attacked Ashley in a jurisdiction that recognizes the irresistible impulse insanity defense, she probably will not be successful with her claim.
Jolene has been diagnosed with paranoia , which is a mental defect or disease. However, Jolene seems aware that shooting someone with a stun gun and cutting off her hair is wrong because she spared Agnes based on pity. Thus Jolene is cognitive of the difference between right and wrong and has the will to suppress criminal behavior, defeating any claim of insanity under the irresistible impulse insanity defense.
The substantial capacity test is the insanity defense created by the Model Penal Code. The Model Penal Code was completed in By , approximately half of the states and the federal government adopted the substantial capacity test also called the Model Penal Code or ALI defense Rolf, C. However, in , John Hinckley successfully claimed insanity using the substantial capacity test in his federal trial for the attempted murder of then-President Ronald Reagan. The defense has two elements.
In general, it is easier to establish insanity under the substantial capacity test because both the cognitive and volitional requirements are scaled down to more flexible standards.
Instead, the defendant must lack substantial , not total, capacity. In addition, unlike the irresistible impulse insanity defense, the defendant must lack substantial , not total, ability to conform conduct to the requirements of the law. Loreen has been diagnosed with psychosis and spent most of her life in a mental hospital. The test is bifurcated into two components, each of which is individually sufficient to substantiate an insanity defense.
First, a defendant is deemed insane if they were incapable of knowing what they were doing at the time committing the object offense. This conclusion comports with criminal law's fundamental conception of culpability. A defendant is not culpable for an act that, because of a psychological infirmity, he or she did not know he or she was committing.
The second component of the test looks to determine if the defendant knew that his or her actions were wrong. Here, even if the defendant knew what he or she was doing, he or she is deemed insane where he or she was incapable of recognizing the wrongfulness of the action committed.
A paradigmatic example of this analysis involves deific decrees. In these cases, the defendant is often found insane on the grounds that, because "God" commanded the defendant to act, he or she was unable to recognize the wrongfulness of the act that was carried out. Various legal commentaries have identified theoretical issues within the M'Naghten framework.
For example, a scholarly debate exists addressing whether the "wrongfulness" central to the M'Naghten analysis comprises tenets of legality or morality. Another prominent criticism takes objection to the categorical approach the M'Naghten test employs.
By focusing exclusively on cognitive incapacity, the M'Naghten test is not well suited for treating more nuanced forms of psychological disorders, particularly those involving volitional impairment.
Traditionally, the M'Naghten test has been associated with schizophrenia and psychotic disorders. The M'Naghten rule became the standard for insanity in the United States and the United Kingdom and is still the standard for insanity in almost half of the states.
In contrast to the emphasis on cognition central to the M'Naghten test, the "Irresistible Impulse" test focuses on the volitional components of insanity. Various courts have struggled to address criminal defendants who, while comprehending the wrongfulness of their actions, are incapable of self-control because of a mental disease or defect. To levy punishment against a defendant unable to control his actions appears at odds with the preeminent tenets of criminal justice.
The move towards volition alleviates this tension. Under the "Irresistible Impulse" test a jury may find a defendant not guilty by reason of insanity where the defendant was laboring under a mental disease or defect that compelled him to commit the object offense. This test is well-suited for persons suffering from manias and paraphilias. While treating a genuine issue within the M'Naghten framework, the "Irresistible Impulse" test creates several practical concerns.
First, unlike the cognitive prong of the insanity defense, the volitional component of insanity is substantiated by a less robust scientific literature. Regulation concerning who can testify as to the sanity of a defendant is very inconsistent from state to state. According to one national survey, only about 60 percent of states required an expert witness in NGRI determinations be a psychiatrist or psychologist; less than 20 percent required additional certification of some sort; and only 12 percent required a test.
So the quality of expert witnesses may vary from state to state. The quality of post-NGRI psychiatric treatment may be another problem. Treatment varies from state to state in both duration and, some say, quality; some defendants spend more time in mental institutions than they would have spent in jail had they been convicted, some less. NGRI defendants tend to spend more time in institutions than patients with similar diagnoses who were not accused of a crime, which undercuts somewhat the argument that treatment, not punishment, is the goal.
In terms of preventing repeat offenses, psychiatric treatment seems to help. Some studies suggest high posttreatment arrest rates, but these arrests tended to be for less serious crimes. At least one study indicated that average time to arrest of these patients after release is no higher than for the general population.
Mock jury studies indicate that jurors do carefully consider and discuss many factors in an insanity defense, but may be ignoring the local legal definitions of insanity. Mock juries tended to render the most NGRI verdicts when the defendant showed a lack of both ability to understand and ability to resist committing the crime, even though no state requires both and some consider ability to resist to be irrelevant.
In addition, personal feelings about the legitimacy of the insanity defense may influence jurors' decisions.
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