Insanity Defense

Assessment of the Necessity and Validity of the Insanity Defense
Kirk Saunders
Gallia Academy High School
Honors Language Arts (English IV)

Assessment of the Necessity and Validity of the Insanity Defense Despite public notions about the use of the insanity defense in criminal trials by defendants as a method of reducing their punishments, the reality is that the defense is rarely invoked, difficult to feign, and when proven, often leads to longer incarcerations than if the defendant was criminally convicted. Due to the fair nature of the insanity plea, it remains a valid form of defense for mentally handicapped people charged with crimes. Not only is it a valid form of defense, but it is a necessary one. It was set in place
A defendant is considered insane if he/she was unable to see the wrong-doing of his/her actions or was not able to understand what exactly he/she was doing at the time of the crime due to mental disease or defect. The Model Penal Code rule was based on the M’Naghten rule and therefore shares many similarities. The only main difference between the two is that the Model Penal Code rule uses a more broad definition of “insane.” Most importantly, both of these rules require the defendant to prove they were not in a right state of mind at the time of the crime, which helps to prevent criminals who willingly and knowingly committed crimes from using the insanity defense, yet still allows people who have mental diseases or defects to properly use the defense (Crime and Punishment: Essential Primary Sources, 2006, p. 30). To properly prove to the court that a defendant is indeed classified as insane under the law, the defense must seek the evaluation of a psychiatric expert. According to Dr. Robert Wettstein (2014), a practicing psychiatrist, “The evaluator must analyze the defendant's thoughts, feelings, and behavior carefully to determine whether the specific cognitive or volitional criteria for the applicable insanity defense are satisfied“ (p. 1732). Before the M’Naghten rule was adopted, it was the responsibility of the prosecutor to prove that the defendant was sane, which allowed some
Most of the cases that media covers in which the insanity defense is involved are homicide cases. However, around 60 to 70 percent of cases in which the defendant pleads NGRI are crimes other than murder. Since the media only covers the extreme cases, many people don’t consider the plea being used for less serious charges. Some of these lesser charges can range from shoplifting to assault (Gale Encyclopedia of American Law, 2010, p. 438). For example, the media covered the case of John Hinckley Jr., a man who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. Hinckley claimed that he was only trying to impress an actress, Jodie Foster, who he was obsessed with. Hinckley successfully plead NGRI and spent the next 36 years in a mental hospital until his release in September of 2016. In the mental hospital Hinckley was treated for various mental illnesses with which he had been diagnosed. The general public sees cases such as Hinckley’s as a failure on part of the legal system to punish criminals and therefore call for the abolition of the insanity defense, without knowing the full process employed in these trials. In the article “Does the Insanity Defense have a Legitimate Role?” (2006) it is stated: “The media may foster the notion that criminals get away with feigning mental defect, only to be released and recidivate” (p. 31). As stated earlier in this paper,