Insanity defense Essays

required to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The most common criminal defenses fall under two categories, excuse and justification. An excuse is when a person admits to committing a criminal act but believes that he or she can’t be held responsible because there was no criminal content. Some excuses used in court today are; mental disorder, infancy (age), mistake of fact, mistake of law and automatism. In justification defenses, the accused admits to wrongdoing but argues that he or she should be

The Insanity Defense Christian Hopkins Intro to the Legal Process 1020 L01 Leo Rowe March 15th, 2017 The insanity defense is used by criminals who plead that they are mentally insane to avoid a more serious sentence. In most of the insanity defense cases, the defendant typically has some sort of mental issue during the time of the crime that caused them to commit the crime. “A criminal defendant who is found to have been legally insane when he or she committed a crime may be found not guilty

A case can be changed due to the call of the insanity plea. Nevertheless, This may cause a possible difference to the charge of the defence. In a court case dealing with murder such as the issue with the Clutter family, the Insanity plea was brought into thought to test if Perry and Dick were mentally stable during that time. By definition, the insanity plea is an argument stating the defense was not responsible for their actions due to a psychiatric disease at the time of the act, consequently,

The 1984 Insanity Defense Reform Act was passed by Congress after an infamous trial that shocked the United States. United States v. Hinckley was notorious because it was one of the rare cases where the insanity defense worked and the defendant was found not guilty by reason of insanity. The result of this case caused a huge public outcry against the insanity defense. Debate began to form over how to amend the insanity defense. This paper will critically analyze three scholarly journals. Each journal

The insanity defense gives the judge and jury to decide if the defendants are not criminally responsible. It is kind of like a child who accidentally started a fire, they don’t know any better and should not be treated as an arsonist. It originated in 1843 when Daniel McNaughton planned to kill the British prime minister at the time, Robert Peel. He did not succeed but ended up killing Peel’s secretary. McNaughton believed that the government was out to get him and a panel of judges came up with

may use mental illness as a defense. This is called an insanity plea or insanity defense. What the insanity defense does is try to give the alleged perpetrator a fair trial. At least in extreme cases, society agrees with this principle.The Insanity defense is probably one of the most controversial of all criminal defense strategies, and at the same time is one of the least used. In many cases when it has been used it has tended to cause public debate. The insanity defense confirms that the criminal

As a type of defenses of excuse that completely exonerates a defendant from conviction, insanity defense argues that defendant is not responsible for their actions due to the presence of psychiatric disorders that influence the normal functions of judgment and cognition. However, the prerequisite of the insanity defense, the insanity is hard to prove in criminal cases because the definition of psychiatric disorders is tricky, elusive and vague. To prevent its abuse, the successful exoneration based

Insanity Defense: villain or victim? A University of Florida law professor and former prosecutor, Bob Dekle, states, “In general, insanity is a desperation defense. You haven’t gotten anything else, so you act crazy.” He claims this after Eddie Ray Routh from Stephenville, Texas commits a murder while having a psychotic episode. Within two hours of checking through his trial, the jury found Routh guilty. This stirred up a collection of arguments whether people should return as guilty but mentally

of this essay is to critically analyze the current status of the use of insanity as a defense within a court of law. In order to do so this essay will do the following ****. This essay will attempt to draw a conclusion as to whether or not the current legislation in place is sufficient to ensure that society is protected. In the recent decades within Ireland it had been called that the laws governing the defense of insanity were to be reformed. The factors that have led to the slowness are low

mental health law and the insanity defense. In the courts of the State of Massachusetts, "a person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time as a result of mental disease or defect he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality [wrongfulness] of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law." Commonwealth v. McHoul, 352 Mass. 544,546-547) In the courts of the State of Texas, “a criminal defendant asserting insanity defense must prove that mental

definition of insanity refers to “the legal concept referring to the criminal’s state of mind at the time of the crime was committed. It requires that, due to a mental illness, a defendant lacks moral responsibility and culpability for the crime, and therefore should not be punished” (Costanzo, M., & Krauss, D. Forensic and legal psychology: Psychological science applied to law) There where overwhelming cases about defendant that tried to use the insanity defense. The role that the insanity defense played

Conclusion In conclusion, insanity should be regarded as a mental condition that describes the lack of some mental capacity, rather than an avenue to be exploited to escape responsibility or punishment. Undoubtedly, the insanity defense is a multipart kind of case in proving that a person does not understand the nature of the unlawful act he/she was involved. It has developed considerably from being a mitigating factor in criminal cases to being a defense through the development of various tests

Beneficial Defense In keeping the insanity defense as it stands the benefits outweigh the problems. This defense fixes problems with the mentally insane and leads to curing more of the mentally ill. Viewing the defense as a benefit seems to fit if it helps more people than it harms, although other views have been brought against it opposing the defense. The jurisdictions that have kept the defense see it rarely and take it as a claim of innocence. The innocent people who have severe mental

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) This reasoning is based on willful intent, which is very essential to an insane person. This means they cannot form such intent. However, mental

One of the most notorious cases of the insanity plea took place during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. A man by the name of John Hinckley Jr. attempted to assassinate President Reagan in an attempt to impress a young actress named Jodie Foster. Hinckley manifested several signs of mental illness early in his adult life, prior to his assassination attempt. As a teenager and young adult, Hinckley lived an unenthusiastic, melancholy life. He began to develop signs of depression in his teen years, and

The insanity defense is also known as the mental order defense. In the criminal justice system, a defendant that been evaluated to be legally insane when he or she committed the crime in some states may be found not guilty because of insanity (Schouten, 2012). This does vary, and it depends on the state laws and regulation when it comes to a case like this. However, in some cases the person may be found guilty and is sentenced to less time. For example, the time frame for murder is 20-25 years, but

London and shot a man who he believed was the Prime Minister. M’Naughten was taken into custody and the British Trial Court found M’Naughten not guilty of the offenses by reason of insanity. The House of Lords gathered to develop a set of rules known as the M 'Naughten Rules for when insanity can be used as a defense in a case. These rules consist of presumption of sanity, disease of mind, nature and quality of the act, knowledge that the act was wrong, and strict liability. This particular case

into the phone “I need a police officer,” (O’Malley). The news over Andrea Yates drowning her children spread like wildfire across the nation, horrifying Americans. Following her confession, she pleaded innocent with the “Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity” (NGRI) plea, yet the jury rejected her appeal and found her guilty of five accounts of first-degree murder. However, in the retrial of 2006, Yates’ abiding murder convictions were overturned, and Andrea Yates was found NGRI. The change in her verdict

successful Insanity Defense.

There are many cases where the insanity defense was used but not all of them were successful. One case that was successful using that insanity defense was Lorena Bobbitt. She was married to John Bobbitt and were from Virginia. John Bobbitt had a history of mental abuse and sexual abuse towards Lorena Bobbitt. On June 23, 1993 John showed up at their house completely intoxicated and raped his wife Lorena. When John was finished raping his wife, Lorena went into the kitchen for a drink and seen a knife