Should the Mentally Ill Be Convicted

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Alysa Torino Hanley English 1/ Period 4 April 3, 2013 Should Mentally Ill Individual be Convicted in Court? Many people believe that if someone is mentally ill, then they cannot be executed for their crimes. This is not true; and individual suffering from a mental illness can be sentenced to death in the United States today. Many seriously mentally ill individuals are set on Death Row in the United States. Yet, why does one get away with it and another does not? Depending on the severity of their illness and the intensity of the crime, individuals with a mental illness who commit a crime should not be convicted, but they should be hospitalized if they are a threat to society. The question that most people ask when proposed this question is: who is considered mentally ill? To clarify, there are two prevailing legal tests to determine whether or not a defendant is legally insane. According to Terry Lenamon, expert Criminal Trial Attorney, the first, and most popular, is the “M’Naghten test.” Lenamon says, “Under M’Naghten, the determining factor is whether or not the defendant was (1) able to understand what he (or she) was doing at the time of the crime due to some “defect of reason or disease of the mind” or, (2) if he (or she) was aware of what they were doing, that he (or she) nevertheless failed to comprehend or understand that what they were doing was wrong” (Lenamon). With that in mind, think about how many inmates have not taken that test and have been wrongly convicted. The American Civil Liberties Union states, “Mental Health America, estimates that five to ten percent of all death row inmates suffer from a severe mental illness.” Furthermore, if these people could get tested, they would realize how many people are legally insane and do not deserve to be in jail, but rather a hospital. Consequently, some of the individuals sitting on death row may

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