Jeffrey Dahmer's Insanity Defense

John Hinckley Jr. was a man who became obsessed with a breakout actress named Jodie Foster. Hinckley quit his job and derailed his life due to his obsession and followed Foster everywhere she went, writing her letters and trying to gain her affection. It became so extreme that Hinckley Jr. decided that the ultimate way to get her attention was to assassinate President Ronald Regan. In 1981, Hinckley Jr.’s defense team pled insanity defense and succeeded. Yoong (2012) states that he was acquitted of all thirteen charges of assault, murder and weapon counts and because of this ruling, the public perceived the insanity defense had a major loophole in the legal system which allowed a clearly guilty criminal to avoid responsibility and eventual
Dahmer grew up in Bath, Ohio and went to Revere High School before moving to Milwaukee where he garnered the infamous nickname the Milwaukee Cannibal. Dahmer is, without a doubt, the most abnormal and notorious criminal in American history. On top of being a serial killer and registered sex offender, he was committed for being a rapist, a cannibal and a necrophiliac who would hide the body parts of his victims throughout his house and in the walls and store the skulls and heads of his victims in freezers, apparently collecting them as trophies. Yoon (2012) explains that in the trial, Dahmer was found to be legally sane during his crimes and pled not guilty by reason of insanity. The plea was subsequently rejected and Dahmer was convicted of all fifteen murder charges and sentenced to fifteen consecutive life sentences. Yoong (2012) states that the case was seen by many as the death of the insanity plea. The argument was that if someone as deranged and psychotic as Dahmer were to be rejected the insanity plea, then no other criminal following his case would meet the qualifications of the defense. If offenders like Hinckley Jr. and Steinberg walk free for single murders however, Dahmer is denied any possibility of being insane then it displays the wrongfulness and the lopsided nature that is the insanity
James Keller of the Canadian Press wrote about the reform in February of 2013. A presumed family man and father of three, Allan Schoenborn murdered his three children in cold blood and was then sent away from the courts to a psychiatric hospital, technically as a free man in 2008 because he was deemed not criminally responsible for his actions. In Keller’s (2013) report, Prime Minister Stephen Harper brought to light the fact that “Canadians have been shocked to learn that certain violent individuals who, while still in detention, have received unescorted day passes despite still being a significant threat to public safety”. Because of this case, Harper suggested current laws fail to protect the public and victims from violent, mentally ill offenders. He was quoted as saying "When atrocious events do occur, and the state fails to act, fails to do all it can do to defend innocent citizens, it violates the inherent trust upon which its existence is justified”. Harpers statement supports the claim that the ultimate goal is to protect the safety of the public, not support the offender in seeking his or her own treatment or release from