Nineteen innocent people are hanged on the signature of Deputy Governor Danforth, who has the authority to try, convict, and execute anyone he deems appropriate. However, we as readers sense little to no real malice in Danworth. Rather, ignorance and fear plague him. The mass hysteria brought about by the witchcraft scare in The Crucible leads to the upheaval in people’s differentiation between right and wrong, fogging their sense of true justice. When Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in the early 1950’s, the United States was experiencing a modern “witch hunt” of its own.
I believe that Daniel Sickle did what many others have done and continue to do, manipulate and abuse a plea intended for people who cannot help themselves. He got away with murdering a man because of jealousy and anger, not because he was insane. Today I’m going to talk about the Insanity Defense, what its purpose is, how its purpose has been abused, and what some states are doing to prevent the abuse. Point 1 Insanity can be defined as mentally deranged, but I think that this definition is an understatement. Insanity is actually a mental disease causing a person to not fully understand their actions or in other instances not be able
Aside from the verdict from the Hinckley trial, the public’s view on the insanity defense is not altogether accurate. There’s a misconception that criminals who use this type of reasoning as a plea can evade punishment. When it comes to the use of the insanity defense, only about one percent of criminals use this type of justification. By using the insanity defense, the criminal is admitting they are guilty of the crime however they are requesting a not guilty verdict based on the state of mind they were in at the time of the crime. This can get tricky for a defendant because if not proven mentally ill, they will be found guilty and usually endure a harsher sentencing for the crime.
An example of this was when the deranged murderer devised a year long plan to slowly eradicate a man guilty of the capital vice of sloth. The killer took pictures of each day of this man's disintegration of life. Thus proving his lack of impulsivity. Another essential characteristic to being a psychopath is the consistant irresponsibility, also meaning the lack of responsibility of one's actions. In this thriller, the executioner did not lack responsibility for his murders.
That was presented as evidence of White's depression. It wasn't a serious legal conclusion, and there was a lot of other evidence of White's depression at trial. But reporters called it the "Twinkie defense," and it caught on in popular lore. White was eventually convicted of voluntary manslaughter as a result of his depression. While that kind of mental illness isn't enough for a finding of not guilty by
Elie Wiesel suggests through the events and thoughts of his characters that hatred kills innocence. Captain John Dawson’s death is a literal metaphor for the death of innocence. The Movement captures Dawson and holds him captive and as a bargaining tool to retrieve The Movement’s own captured man David ben Moshe, who is held captive by the English for attacking the English and attempting to steal from their arsenal. Captain John Dawson could not be any more innocent yet is killed because of the hatred harboured in the hearts of the terrorists holding him captive. These terrorists do not see an innocent man sitting before them, they see an instrument capable of effectively communicating the depth of pain they feel by indifferently expending the life of Captain John Dawson, as well as an instrument publicizing to the other Jews The Movement is fighting back their anger, pain, and hatred for the people who wronged them.
In this case, a psychotic individual named Daniel M'Naghten intentionally and with premeditation killed an assistant to a prime minister of England because he believed he was being persecuted (Kimberly Collins, Gabe Hinkebein, and Staci Schorgl (3Ls), n.d.). Ever since then, the insanity plea has been used in numerous case throughout the years to try and get people of crimes that knowingly committed, but do not want to admit that they did. What is the significance of the M’Naghten Rule? What is so significant about the M’Naghten rule is that how
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).
However the central committee and the politburo refused to order Ruitin’s execution, Stalin viewed this as a betrayal. In December 1934, Kirov was murdered by Nikolayev who claimed was working for a secret terror group who wanted to overthrow the soviet government; however Zinoviev and Kamenev were arrested for the conspiracy of Kirov’s Murder. This murder rid Stalin of his most powerful rival, whilst allowing him to imprison two of his old opponents, basically “two birds with one stone”. The Murder of Kirov allowed Stalin to establish dictatorship because with the death of Kirov, it gave Stalin an excuse to purge and the purges became more systematic and far-reaching.In the spring of 1937, Stalin argued that the conspiracy against the Soviet people was not restricted to the forty or so people involved in the show trials, and so the start of the purges against the party and army began. The effects on the party were dramatic.
The reporter wants the reader to sympathise for the double killer Robert Harris. He says “gurgled and gasped for air as the cyanide gas choked the life from him” The reporter has used strong emotive language to emphasize the pain harris went through. In the article the reporter clearly wants to make the reader feel like Harris was killed in the worst way possible. The writer states “If you asked me i’d say that was not a clean humane way to die “ this makes the reader feel like it was a horrible way to die and he wouldn’t report on it again. In the article I see a killer die the reporter wanted us to be in favour of Harris when he wrote “We had heard he had broken down and cried to a guard shortly before he was tied to the chair with leather straps” This makes the reader feel as if Harris was remorseful towards the victims families.