The Insanity Defense: Adowa Mohamed

The human brain is a marvelous thing with many different components that allow us to do the things we do. The many different parts of the brain are associated and linked to certain behaviors and allow us to perform the actions we perform in our day to day lives. In some cases there may be apart of one’s brain that may cause their senses to be off. The frontal lobe which is in control of one’s motor function, problem solving, memory, language, impulses, and social and sexual behaviors. When this part of the brain is tampered with or stuck by another force, detrimental effects that could lead to permanent damage could occur.

In one case a 40 year old school teacher claimed that his tumor was the cause of his sexual behavior. It was noticed that something was wrong with him and even had severe headaches. This tumor was the size of an egg that pressed against the right side of his frontal lobe. This was one of the claims as to why he would act the way he did and was said that the tumor was the cause. The tumor was said to give him urges where and that he was in no way aware of his urges. He was eventually convicted and the day before that he had walked into an emergency room with a headache and was suicidal. These signs all were said to lead back to his tumor and he had the tumor treated so that it had shrunk. The urges no longer existed but once the tumor grew back so did the urges. What was the true reason as to his behavior? He was

In another case a 19 year old teen was murdered by who is pretty much remembered as a psychopath. One night after a night out with her friend, once she separated from her friends she was expected to be home and never showed up. At this point her family decided to start looking for her as any other caring family would. In this case Travis originally lied about what he did and the truth eventually came out with evidence. Once interrogated again he said “It was a mistake” and then went on to basically say he does not want to be remembered as a bad person because he just wanted to do some good by actually burying her instead of throwing her in a dumpster. Psychopaths lack emotions for empathy and the awareness in what their actions might do to someone else. This was linked to the cerebral cortex, and was noticed to be the cause of why people would lack empathy, self control, and common moral rights.

Each region of the brain correlates to specific body functions and when a part of the brain is damaged or injured, that can cause effects on the brain that can alter one’s life. In these cases these changes in the brain led to personality disorders, making it difficult for someone to control certain behaviors and impulses. In our law system there are cases where people plead insanity but in reality is it actually one’s fault for their actions if the reason for their behavior is from neurological disability or damage?