Why does the insanity defense exist

Despite public fears, defendants do not abuse the insanity defense. Finally, even after Foucha, there is a high likelihood of court-mandated confinement and involuntry treatment following an insanity acquittal, often lasting a substantial length of time, which serves protect the public from defendants who may be dangerous and also to discourage people from inappropriately using the defense. The insanity defense is under-utilized due to the general failure to fully fund criminal defense lawyers for persons who are indigent.

Over-worked and under-paid public defenders may not have the time, or sometimes the training, which would lead them to fully investigate whether an insanity defense is warranted and may lack the resources to retain a mental health expert whose opinion is essential to support the defense. After the MPC was first promulgated, most states initially incorporated identical or substantially similar defenses into their laws.

Since the late s, however, many states have taken action to limit their insanity defense laws and to bring them back toward pre-MPC formulations.

Arizona, 26 and denied certiorari in Delling v. MHA agrees with this dissenting position. MHA strongly opposes the popular, scientifically-unfounded belief that mental illness predisposes a person to act violently.

To be guilty of a crime, a person must intend to do the act that the state seeks to punish. Thus far, the Supreme Court has held that a diminished capacity defense is not constitutionally guaranteed. But Mental Health America believes that people accused of crimes should be able to assert both mens rea and diminished capacity defenses at trial using expert psychological evidence.

This is the position endorsed by the MPC. A diminished capacity defense is different from a mens rea defense, but the two overlap considerably and there is not always a clear distinction between the two.

However, some courts have upheld state laws that interfere with this requirement. As of , only three states still allowed a diminished capacity defense.

Moreover, even if the defendant possessed the required mens rea, the mental illness may remain relevant to determining the extent of his or her blameworthiness, thus necessitating recognition of a diminished capacity defense as well.

The MPC both assures a mens rea defense and establishes a limited diminished capacity defense in the same section, which provides as follows:. While this formulation is more protective than the current law in the vast majority of states, the diminished capacity defense should not be limited to capital cases. A broader, but still sufficiently limited, defense would allow diminished capacity mitigation in all specific intent crimes, not only in capital crimes. A few states do not allow the insanity defense against criminal charges, including Idaho, Kansas, Montana, and Utah.

In doing so the Court emphasized that, under Kansas law, a defendant was a entitled to introduce evidence of mental illness to establish that she or he lacked the mental state required to be convicted of the crime and, therefore, to be acquitted; and b entitled to introduce evidence of a mental illness in sentencing which could result in a commitment to a mental health facility rather than a prison. Idaho, Montana and Utah allow "guilty but insane" verdicts, which provide for institutionalization in lieu of prison, and, as noted above, Kansas law also permits, but does not require, this result.

First, they are inappropriate because the GBMI verdict is no different in practice from a finding of guilty. Second, they are inappropriate because this alternative to the insanity defense may confuse jurors.

A GBMI verdict provides no benefit to society or to criminal defendants because it has the same consequences as a guilty verdict. Someone found GBMI may be given any sentence that she or he could have been given if found guilty. That includes a sentence of death. Persons found GBMI are entitled to mental health services while imprisoned. However, they have no greater right to mental health services in prison than those simply found guilty, since all persons confined in prison have a constitutional right to mental health services.

This issue is compounded by the fact that jurors are often wary of the NGRI verdict. In either context, the GBMI verdict is inappropriate and seriously undermines the important policies that require maintaining the insanity, mens rea, and diminished capacity defenses, discussed above.

It will remain in effect for five 5 years and is reviewed as required by the Mental Health America Public Policy Committee. United States, F. 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. While at the mental hospital, Loreen made friends with many of the patients and health-care personnel. From time to time, Loreen would play jokes on these friends.

Loreen was always reprimanded and often sternly punished for these escapades. After her release from the mental hospital at age twenty-one, Loreen falls in love with Aidan, a man who works in a bookstore near her apartment.

Loreen decides to make Aidan fall in love with her by feeding him a magic potion, which she concocts out of a mixture of her antidepressants. Loreen buys a book from Aidan and casually asks if he would like her to buy him a coffee. While Aidan is sipping the coffee, Loreen declares her love for him. Loreen claims she is not guilty for battering Aidan by reason of insanity. If Loreen is in a jurisdiction that recognizes the substantial capacity test, she may be successful with her claim.

Loreen has a mental disease or defect, psychosis. The Durham insanity defense is used only in New Hampshire and has been the established insanity defense in New Hampshire since the late s.

The Durham defense, also called the Durham rule or the product test , was adopted by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in the case of Durham v. However, the court failed to give definitions for product, mental disease, or mental defect. Thus the Durham insanity defense is extremely difficult to apply, and the D. Circuit rejected it in in the case of U. Brawner , F. In general, the Durham insanity defense relies on ordinary principles of proximate causation.

First, the defendant must have a mental disease or defect. The second element has to do with causation. Arianna has been diagnosed with paranoia. Arianna gradually becomes convinced that Nora is communicating secret messages to their coworkers when she is speaking to Arianna.

Arianna is genuinely frightened that Nora is telling their coworkers to kill her, and she decides she needs to defend herself. Arianna brings a gun to work one day, and when Nora begins talking to her about her tendency to take overlong lunches, Arianna pulls the gun out of her cubicle and shoots and kills Nora.

Arianna claims she is not guilty for killing Nora by reason of insanity. If Arianna killed Nora in New Hampshire, she might be successful with her claim. Arianna has a mental disease or defect, paranoia. Thus a trier of fact could acquit Arianna on the grounds that her conduct is excusable under these circumstances.

There is generally a presumption that criminal defendants are sane , just as there is a presumption that they are innocent. Therefore, at a minimum, a defendant claiming insanity must produce evidence that rebuts this presumption.

Some states require the prosecution to thereafter prove sanity beyond a reasonable doubt or to a preponderance of evidence Elkins, J. Post- Hinckley , many states have converted the insanity defense into an affirmative defense. The federal government and some other states require the defendant to prove insanity by clear and convincing evidence , which is a higher standard than preponderance of evidence Tenn.

Code Ann. In the United States, this definition was considered by the courts but was seen as too restrictive. Instead, the American judiciary took a slightly different tack. This would allow an insanity defense if a person knew an act was illegal, but could not control their behavior.

Specifically, an individual is "not responsible for criminal conduct if, at the time of such conduct 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 the law. By the s, most states had adopted these rules. Hinckley had incorporated scenes from a popular movie Taxi Driver into his delusional system and was attempting to gain the love of a famous actress Jodie Foster.

Immediately, the federal government, and many states, tightened the insanity laws back to those of England. Currently, the requirements for insanity vary by state. The typical standards require that a person be unable to differentiate between right and wrong at the time of the crime. The inability to appreciate the wrongfulness of conduct must be the direct result of a mental disease or defect.

Such defects typically include psychotic disorders, mood disorders and organic conditions such as mental retardation. Virtually no state allows sociopathy to be grounds for an NGRI defense, and voluntary intoxication cannot by itself end culpability.

Only a few states still contain the volitional question. It is an affirmative defense to a prosecution under any Federal statute that, at the time of the commission of the acts constituting the offense, the defendant, as a result of a severe mental disease or defect, was unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts. Mental disease or defect does not otherwise constitute a defense.

Some states have another legal option aside from insanity: guilty but mentally ill GBMI. On its face, this seems to be a good idea, as jurors have several options. However, there are two inherent problems. First, juries have two choices that find a person guilty, but only one that finds them innocent, leading away from giving the benefit of doubt to the defendant.

Additionally, the GBMI finding assumes that prisons will engage in the same level of treatment as a hospital, so that a defendant can be equally well-served in either setting. A GBMI finding also yields a set sentence, which the person will serve even if completely psychiatrically stabilized. The accused was insane He was insane at the time of the crime and not merely before or after the act and As a result of unsoundness of mind, the accused was incapable of knowing the nature of act or he was doing what was really wrong or contrary to law.

Lay testimony from the defendant and From the Psychiatrist. The expert's testimony is based on four influences: Particular symptomatology Diagnosis Presence of legally relevant impairments the defendant thought that killing was justified Ultimate legal conclusion the defendant was insane at the time of offence. Different jurisdictions differ in the test that they use to determine whether a defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity NGRI In the UK, insanity is currently decided based on rationality only Th McNoughton's Rule , so only defendants with rationality defects are excused and whose defense rests on lack of control are deemed ineligible for NGRI.

Going by the current understanding of neurological evidence of compulsion and lack of impulse control, rationality tests without the inclusion of lack of control, seem to be outdated[ 14 ] 2. Lyon and Koeheler argued that the relevance ratio is the most efficient way to think about evidentiary relevance, 4.

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