Mentally Insane

    As common as the insanity plea is now, it was just as common 25 years ago. A prime example is the 1984 trial of John W. Hinckley Jr. for the attempted assassination

With this the British house of lords developed a test for insanity that still remains today.

Throughout the years, the United States criminal justice system has been constantly incarcerating individuals who endure from a severe mental illness. People who suffer from serious mental illness are doubtlessly to be discovered in prison. There is a significant amount of mentally ill offenders that are placed in the state and federal institutions. The mentally ill are overpopulating the prisons. The criminal justice system is a deficiency for those who can profit more from the help of mental health treatment center or psychiatric hospital by sending individuals to correctional facilities or prisons. Today’s jails and prisons are being labeled as the new mental health hospitals for the mentally ill offenders. Commonly in today’s society, it generally takes other individuals who are willing to educate and support the mentally ill person into becoming successful in life.

This defence was originally known as the insanity defence, it was changed to NCRMD in the Criminal Code in 1992 (Wilson, Crocker, Nicholls, Charette, & Seto, 2015). Review boards must take the mental condition of the accused, the safety of the public, the reintegration of the accused into society, and the other needs of the accused into account when making a disposition after the trial, these include absolute discharge, conditional discharge or detention in a

Similar to how the accused is innocent until proven guilty, the rule states that the accused is assumed sane “unless the defense proved at the time of committing the act, the accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or, if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong" (Francone). This rule is now a standard in the United Kingdom and in almost half the states in America. The next test is the Model Penal Code, which states that “a criminal defendant must be found not guilty by reason of insanity if he is diagnosed with a relevant mental defect” (FindLaw). The mental defects could range anywhere from severe mental retardation to schizophrenia. The test was adopted in the 1970s, but it quickly became unfavorable after John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate President Reagan in 1981 and was found not guilty by reason of insanity because of the test’s loose rules. Soon after, the federal government went back to using the M’Naghten Rule because it was

Another tricky factor in the insanity defense abolishment is the fact they different states and federal government can choose to adopt whichever alternative test they think is best for their state .They can choose to go with the M'Naghten test or American Law, both, even neither. In this case the question stands, is this fair? Is it fair that if a person who is charged with first degree murder in Alabama (which uses the M'Naghten rule) who tries to plead the insanity defense and successfully verse someone in Kansas (abolished the M'Naghten rule) with the same charges and get a worse punishment for the same crime?

Psychological disorders are common in the United States and worldwide. The National institute of mental Health discovered that, “An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older — about one in four adults — suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.” Having an uncle who was diagnosed with Schizophrenia in 2003 has changed the way I see people with mental illnesses. After reading and watching the documentary about prisoners who have to undergo medication just to live a “normal” life has given me inspiration to come up with a few ways that will help our justice system deal with these sorts of individuals. While researchers are trying to come up with different medical measures to cure these diseases we as individuals can implement some procedures to help and support mental patients.

In this article I will consider whether the current claw defence of insanity is ineffective, out-dated and in need of reform. I will do so by contemplating several criticism of the insanity defence arising from the M’Naghten rules .

The aftermath prove Hinkley abused the justice system. The burden of proof shifted to the defense.”Congress and half of the states enacted changes in the insanity defense, all limiting use of the defense. Congress and nine states limited the substantive test of insanity; Congress and seven states shifted the burden of proof to the defendant, eight states supplemented the insanity verdict with a separate verdict of guilty but mentally ill”(THE JOHN HINCKLEY TRIAL & ITS EFFECT ON THE INSANITY DEFENSE).he verdict was so injustice congress passed a law shifting the burden of proof to the defendant. Three states abolished the defense alone. The states of Montana, Idaho, and Utah how banned the defense but continue to admit evidence of mental disorder

Here once again we see the fact that mental illnesses are being blatantly ignored and clearly mental ill patients are being convicted without the proper due process because appeals and motions are being rejected because the legal system doesn’t match with the psychological stand points of mental illness

The word insanity is used by a defender in criminal prosecution to avoid liability for the commission of a crime by using a mental illness as a justification. Insanity is the mental state of not being able to distinguish fantasy from reality, lack of conduct affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior (Lilienfeld 2009). In the article, Rethinking the Revolving Door Dereck Denckla argues that “while the number of people with mental illness in state psychiatric hospitals has decreased precipitously over the last thirty years, the number of mentally-ill people in jails and prisons has steadily increased (Denckla 2001).” This is because psychiatrists are leaving there patients unattended letting them cause damage to innocent people. However, threw out the years defendants have gotten away with insanity defense and delinquents now want to use this form of excuse as well. Insanity defense has made it difficult for the courts to determine an answer since they will need sufficient evidence to determine whether the defendant is guilty or freed because of psychological disorder. Cases like these should be taken to another level of

In cases where a defendant has committed the crimes in question but is clearly mentally ill, a “guilty but mentally ill” verdict is used. The guilty but mentally ill verdict acknowledges when a defendant 's mental illness played a large role in a crime without causing it. A guilty but mentally ill defendant is sentenced in the same way as if the defendant were guilty, then the court decides whether the defendant requires treatment for their mental illness. One criticism of the guilty but mentally ill verdict is that, given the level of mental health resources in prisons and jails, it is not very likely a defendant will actually receive relevant treatment while incarcerated.

In essence, it is quite clear that Australia’s criminal justice system has inherent problems in dealing with issues related to mentally ill patients. One of the major problems is likelihood of inappropriate sentences or unsuitable punishment for crimes. This problem is likely to arise from the legal requirement of the offenders to process a mainstream non-specialized Court. Secondly, offenders with

Consequently, the trend that one can escape severe punishment through the insanity defense is becoming less and less viable. Additionally, this defense is scarcely used and rarely successful today (Witkin 7).

This rule focuses on cognition, which alone is not enough to determine whether someone is mentally disabled. The M'Naghten rule remained the definition of the insanity defense up until 1954.