Insanity Defense by Jesse and Allison

A criminal defendant who is found to have been legally insane when he or she committed a crime may be found not guilty by reason of insanity. In a lot of cases, the defendant is then sentenced to mental help instead of a punishment. In other cases, the defendant may be found guilty but sentenced to a less severe punishment due to a mental impairment. In states that allow the insanity defense, defendants must prove to the court that they did not understand what they were doing; failed to know right from wrong; acted on an uncontrollable impulse or some variety of these factors.

Those in favor of the insanity defense feel the need for its existence in order to distinguish between those defendants charged with a crime who are and those who are not responsible for their acts. Those with a mental disability fall into the category of those who are not responsible for a crime committed due to the fact that their actions were based upon uncontrollable actions. The insanity defense is not present in order to state that what the defendant did wasn’t wrong, but just that the punishment they would face for their crime would not be effective. Those with a mental illness will not understand or learn any lessons by being placed in prison or a punishment as such. They need mental help to understand why what they did was wrong, something that they will not receive just by being locked up.

One very interesting argument against the insanity defense is that it is known as the “a rich person's defense”. This is because being able to prove that someone is mentally ill enough to threaten someone’s free will can only be done by high-priced psychiatric experts, who can only be afforded by wealthy defendants. Persons represented by public defenders are usually afforded a psychiatric examination for the defense, but they may not get the same quality of exam, nor are they typically able to hire more than one examiner. This splits a criminal justice system into the rich against the poor which is why it should be abolished.

One very notorious example of a case where the insanity defense was used was the Jeffrey Dahmer case. Dahmer was a serial killer who murdered quite few people and even committed some other gruesome acts and crimes like cannibalism and necrophilia. He committed over 15 murders in his life. He’d even keep trophies of his murders, he’d keep the victims skulls or genitalia. He plead not guilty by reason of insanity, which it is quite clear that he has a screw loose, but the judge rejected his plea and he was given 15 life sentences. Many viewed it is as the end of the insanity plea because if someone as blatantly insane as Dahmer couldn’t get the plea, no one would be able to. Another famous example is John Hinckley. Hinckley was known for being obsessed with the movie Taxi driver starring Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster. In the movie De Niro plans to assassinate a presidential candidate. After watching the movie many times, Hinckley became infatuated with Foster and wanted her attention. At first he was going to commit suicide in front of her to gain her attention, but then he decided to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, similar to the plot of the movie. He failed in his attempt, however, upon being tried with attempted murder he plead the insanity defense and it was granted to him.

Insane or not, murder and crimes as such are obviously wrong. There is no going around it. But, the point of imprisonment and punishments as such is so that the defendant learns a lesson and accepts that what they did was wrong. The insanity defense is not present in order to get someone off the hook for wrongdoing, but just to give them an effective punishment. Someone mentally ill enough to have their free will threatened is too sick to learn any sort of lesson by being locked up in a prison, so what’s the point? A more sufficient “punishment” would actually be to get them some mental help in order for them to be forced to understand that what they did was wrong. But, it is true to say that to be able to sufficiently claim insane would cause for the defendant to have a little bit of money does put a split in the justice system. There should be a fair system of evaluation for the insane within the justice system to keep things fair.