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.
The doctor had no intentions of a death occurring but a death ended up occurring, that would be involuntary manslaughter on the practitioner’s part. In most states involuntary manslaughter results from an improper use of reasonable care or skill while performing a legal act, or while committing an act that is unlawful but not felonious. When it comes to involuntary manslaughter, there are two types; first there is negligent manslaughter which would be when the act is a result from negligence or due to recklessness. The second is unlawful act manslaughter; unlawful manslaughter would be a crime in which an unlawful and dangerous act is what had caused the death being investigated. The penalties and punishments that are given for the acts vary from case to case by state and severity.
If someone can’t prove guilt it does not necessarily mean a person didn’t commit a crime. I also feel this law should not be used today, because what if the person who is being accused is guilty? It is the courts job to determine a “guilty or not guilty” plea. Another reason I feel this law should not be used today is, putting a person to death for a crime such as this is unethical. Because of the fact there are more crimes that are worse than this, such as murder, and rape In which someone should be put to death, not just because a person can’t prove someone’s guilt.
The ban will limit guns to both moral and immoral human beings; unfortunately people are the ones that murder other people not the guns or weapons they pick. Guns are inanimate objects and cannot think. For instance, only a maniac, madman or psycho will shoot or harm others for reasons only psychologists can explain. That is not normal human behavior. The definition of a psycho is a crazy mentally unstable person.
Following that Andrea Yates submitted a plea of guilty for reason of insanity. The criminal case a criminal defendant can claim insanity by simply saying that he or she should not be held criminally liable for the damages committed from his particular crime because he was insane at the time of occurrence. Acording to CBS News (2009) "Dr. Phillip Resnick, a forensic psychiatrist, testified for the defense that she did not know killing the children was wrong because she was trying to save them from hell.” Now because of the evidence used and the defense of insanity, the cases outcome did not meet very many people’s expectations, to include my own. Many felt that her being sentenced to a mental institute was an injustice at its finest. Acording to CBS News (2009) "No one should believe that she is getting off easy.
In this speech I am going to tell you about the types of insanity defense that are used in court cases, the process that goes into verifying a criminals sanity, and the issues that come about after a plea is entered. Now I’m going to explain what insanity is and the different types associate with it. The insanity defense plea as defined in law journals is a defense that’s asserted by the accused in a criminal prosecution as a way to avoid liability for a commission of a crime because at the time of the crime the person did not appreciate the nature or quality or wrongfulness of the acts. Cognitive insanity is the most common variation of an insanity defense that goes through the court system. This is where the defendant during the time of the crime suffered from a mental disease that impaired his/her psychological ability to see the wrongfulness of the act they committed.
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).
This code states that the person is capable for using this defense in the case of mental insanity if the do not have the ability to appreciate the fact that they have committed a crime and what that entails or that they are unable to conform to the moral and legal codes of society. (ALI Moral Penal Code (1962)) In regards to this case, I feel that the defendant did know what he was doing but do to the fact that he was either under the influence of the drugs at the time and dor he was mentally unstable and believed that he was saving her rather than killing her when he committed the crime. The reason that I feel that we can use this defense is the fact that the defendant ranted about aliens and the fact that he was god when the officers went to arrest him. He also kept a journal until he decided the time was right to perform the "saving" of the
Without evidence of each of these three principles criminal liability cannot be established. The first requirement would be to prove that defendant’s conduct was the factual cause of the consequence. This can be established using the ‘but for’ test, meaning ‘but for’ the defendant’s conduct the consequence would not have happened. This can be seen in White (1910) were the defendant was held to be not guilty of murder as his mother died of a heart attack which was not caused by the defendant’s conduct of putting cyanide in her drink. Another case example is Pagett (1983) where the defendant was found guilty for the muder of his girlfriend a had it not been ‘but for’ his actions she would not have been killed by police bullets.
Also, criminals rarely “get away with it” by pleading insanity. When the defendant pleads insanity, it means they admit to committing the criminal behavior and is seeking a “not-guilty” verdict on a basis of his state of mind. If the jury does not agree with their defense, then the defendant will be convicted and generally serve a longer sentence than if they did not plead insanity. Most people also believe that the insanity defense is only used for murder, however, sixty to seventy percent of insanity pleas are for crimes other than murder. These crimes range from shoplifting to assault.