Pros And Cons Of The Insanity Plea

This in of itself can help prevent some of the violence that already occurs in prisons. Supermax prisons are designed for violent criminals who cannot function within the general population of standard prisons (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2015). These criminals generally display patterns of violent and anti-social behavior, and they are segregated in order to maintain order. If my state were planning to build a supermax prison, I would implement certain programs in order for the inmates to potentially be

Jeffery adjusted to prison life easily, but he wasn’t aloud to be with other prisoners. He later convicted the officer to let him join the other prisoners. He got a job with two other prisoners. They're names where Jesse Anderson, a white supremacist and a convicted murderer. The other one was Christopher Scarver, an African American prisoner who was a diagnosed schizophrenic.

8TH Amendment The 8th Amendment was formed to ensure that punishment for a crime was not cruel or unusual. It also has a clause for those with mental illness so that they will not face the death penalty for committing a crime that a sane person would commit. And those under the age of 18 would not face the death penalty. Since the 8th Amendment was attached to the Bill of Rights in 1791 it has taken on a different meaning for the accused of breaking the law and prisoner of today.

This logic is very unsound considering the numerous problems that are constantly arising and are heard about in the media, especially in cases where the mental health of criminals are concerned.

Many news stories, reports, and books fairly describe wrongful convictions in detail, although not all of these wrongful convictions resulted in formal exonerations. Most witness misidentifications were made in good faith with the witness attempting to help officials find the real perpetrator of a crime, although this explanation does not examine the conditions under which these identifications were made. Some of the conditions that need to be taken into account are whether a photo was shown to a victim by the police before a lineup, whether the identification by the witness was hesitant, or if the victim was urged to be positive when testifying. Additionally, was the identification from the same race; was there prejudice, how much distance and duration of interaction was there between victim and suspect prior to identification and what were the viewing conditions; darkness or day light? With so many factors involved, it should be obvious to some why eye-witness misidentification can happen so frequently.

More people get incarcerated for non-violent crimes and crimes caused by mental illnesses or drug abuse (Webb, 2009) and because these people get put in regular prisons, instead of in mental health facilities or facilities to help against drug addiction, where they could be treated to further prevent crimes driven by their illness (Webb, 2009), the prisons get overfilled and cannot hold the more ‘important’ prisoners that needed to be locked away from the public. A strong link of the criminal justice process is that the system tries to keep it fair for everyone. Every defendant has the right to an attorney so they can be defended properly and fairly and “Only judges who are adequately informed about a case can effectively control the proceedings and examine evidence” (Tochilovsky, 2002) It is also important for the criminal justice system that those involved show discretion and although this is not always the case, discretion by the judges, police, etc.

The document “Crime and Punishment in the Elizabethan Era” also points out that the law was flexible and could be applied differently based on the situation. When a person was convicted of treason, they were not always executed immediately. Some were inhumanely tortured for more information to see if they were working with others, despite the obvious lack of morality in doing this, it worked. However, on the other hand, the Elizabethan Law did have at least some moral sense to it as people some were spared from torture, and even execution in certain circumstances. When pregnant women were sentenced to death they could be spared for their the lives of their unborn children.

A huge advantage is that this here defense when successful can save a life, in which it can avoid a defendant from being put on death row. When a defendant pleas insanity, in the courtroom it creates an insanity atmosphere of guilt. When a defendant pleas insanity, the attorney admits that the crimes happen, but the defendant is innocent because of his or her mind (Samaha, 2015). By having a successful insanity defense, this can cause for the defendant to have a lenient charge when the jury reaches the verdict.

Theirs also disadvantage to the law first it gives the potential risks of more crimes to being committed. Already convicted felons are given the chance to commit more crimes, even though this is not what the law was intended for but the opportunity is there and present. Civilians are being placed in greater risk of being targeted by the same offenders that rather continue to commit crimes. Murderers are given another chance to murder again,

“Two of the other suspects made deals with the prosecutor, pleading guilty to second-degree murder and naming Andy as the triggerman,” but that was not the reason why he was convicted, but for being part of a carjacking at the time of Lohrmeyer’s murder. He got sentenced to life without parole. The decision of whether young criminals should be tried in juvenile courts or adult courts has created a lot of controversy throughout the years. Juveniles should be tried as juveniles. Being tried according to their age is fairer.

The Pros and Cons of Plea Bargaining Disclaimer By: LawInfo When faced with criminal charges, a defendant often has one simple goal. That is, to minimize the potential penalty. Of course, being found innocent at trial, and being aquitted, is the best way to avoid jail time and other penalties.

Running head: THE INSANITY PLEA AND ITS USAGE 1 The Insanity Plea and its Usage in Large Scale Trials PSYC2003 Fall 2015 (01) Isaiah Cash North Arkansas CollegeTHE INSANITY PLEA AND ITS USAGE 2 The Insanity Plea and its Usage in Large Scale Trials Discussion The insanity plea is defensive tactic used by perpetrators of violent crimes to place the blame of their actions on mental instability.

The MHA says that the guilty but mentally ill verdict is “inappropriate”. They think this because this verdict is not different than just finding someone guilty and because this is an alternative to the insanity defense it can confuse many people including the jury. This verdict provides no benefit to anyone because it is the same consequences as a guilty verdict. Often it is the exact same sentence of someone who would have been found guilty, including death. Almost every person with the guilty but mentally ill verdict is sent to prison.

According to this article, to name a few, through history, it started from hangings in 1879, then electrocution by chair in 1890, until it reached lethal injection in 2008 where it deemed more humane. Several opinions were added in order to conduct an alternative method that would have a little to no chance in violating the 8th amendment. Officials can act unconstitutionally if they were to execute a condemned person in a procedure that intentionally makes it painful or in another way where they did not care whether it actually was. Due to this, this mostly continued to set an outer limit on how the death penalty can be carried out and since the court was unable to gather an actual majority to decipher the limit more

Insanity Defense The insanity defense has the notion that some individuals are mentally disturbed that they are unable to understand their actions and it would be a violation to hold them responsible. Smith states that the insanity defense is a plea used by the defense to show lack of mental potential of a person when committing a crime. (Smith, 2012)