As a prosecutor is he a calculated killer or a delusional madman? In the story “A Tell-Tale Heart,” by Edgar Allan Poe, it introduces a killer that has a motive of wanting to kill an old man because of the look of his eye. He plans to kill the old man by staying in his house for 7-8 days and by setting up a lantern in the old man’s room. Then, after the 8th night, he had put a heavy mattress over him suffocating him and leading him to his death. Additionally, he disassembles his body hiding each part under the covers and at the end, he turns, mad.
Due to the narrators anxiety it made her commit the crime and while it has been established that she is mentally ill, in this state it only incites her anxiety and pushed her to commit this crime. Now some people may incorrectly believe that she is not insane and deserves juvenile punishment. They may believe this because the narrator did know what she was doing, “with what dissimulation, I went to work” . However, this is simply not the case because the narrator did not have mens rea and in order to have actus rea, mens rea is required. To prove this, “I think it was his eye!
His justification for the crime shows clear instability“I loved the old man. He had never wronged me… For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye!”(Poe,1843) This shows that he is mentally ill because he had no real reason or prior experiences with the man to explain why he murdered him except for that he had an ‘evil eye’. Additionally, his mental illness caused him to hear voices and sounds for example “I heard things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.”(Poe,1843) With this in mind, it is necessary for him to be placed in care with proper medical supervision.
This was later carried out through twenty-six other states, including the U.S., which created a precedent against the execution of the mentally ill in 1986. Even though the mentally ill cannot be executed, if the person who claimed mental illness is no longer mentally ill he or she can be executed. While the insanity plea proves that some criminals are mentally unstable, it should be used with caution because many convicted criminals abuse it during court cases, imitate being mentally ill during an examination, and are able to avoid the death penalty. Despite that the insanity plea can potentially help someone in defense for a mental illness case, many people can also take advantage of these precedents to alleviate their trials. The public in most insanity plea cases, do not typically agree with the rulings because most criminals use the
I did so in an act of perfection. No madman could have performed the murder, and for that matter, the concealment of the old man with such wise precautions. I was rational. I dismembered the body and hid it. Without stains and no evidence, there was no way anyone could have caught me.
Although you may disagree, I say he was insane for killing the old man. First, I chose that the narrator was an insane killer because he killed the old man by his vulture eye. The narrator shows he’s insane by
The suspense is very crucial in this story because it keeps readers on the edge of their seat. It is seen that the killer did in fact sink under all of the pressure and admit the deed solely because of the beating of the old man's heart. However, we are left to figure out one idea for our self. We are left to wonder whether it was his guilt or that he may have just been agitated at the thought of this heatbeat continuing in his head that was the driving factor that made him confess to the inhumane crime he had just
Just like in all murders there is always a reason to why they suspect is not guilty. People are willing to argue with the fact that she is guilty. They, being her friends say that she was with her. They believe that she would have no notions to kill her husband. Her friends tell the police that she was a chick, not a murderer, she was not capable of murdering anybody.
This explains that the main character is hearing noises and is ill. This is compelling because according to the court system 5% of criminals due have a mental illness. If you do have mental then you are not cognitively able to make clear decision. That means, the narrator can get the death penalty, even though he does not deserve
The law deals with these situations by treating insane offenders as patients who bear no criminal responsibility for their actions, but who must go under medical care if medical experts think it is necessary. For this reason the issue of insanity in criminal law has been very controversial, being seen oftentimes as a ruse to avoid criminal punishment. Insanity is rarely pleaded outside of homicide cases, figures from the Court Service show that between 2000 and 2013 insanity was pleaded in less