The Sanity in Insanity

Sarah Garrison

Professor Pecora

English I – 060

November 24, 2010

The Sanity in Insanity

"Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity"… Must be hard to believe that you can escape punishment – but it is real. I would like to introduce you to the "get-out-of-jail-free" card, the ruling we call the Insanity Defense. It allows those who are considered "insane", "loony", or "not-all-there" to be pardoned from taking responsibility for their crimes. Our legal system may have its bumps in the road, but this is not just a bump – this is a complete road block. No matter the case, the Insanity Defense will always be flawed. It has already been reformed several times as it is… so there is no reason that we shouldn't abolish it completely. The Insanity Defense should be abolished, because even if a defendant is in fact mentally ill, they are still dangerous, and everyone should take responsibility for his or her crime. Also, anybody is capable of coming off as insane – it is called good acting! How do we sort out the legitimate loonies from the fatuous fakers? There are also other reasons for not being in the "right state of mind" during a crime, such as the influence of drugs and alcohol, yet these offenders do not escape prison. And finally, all killers must be "insane", how else would you explain their actions? Does that mean that we should let them off the hook?

What exactly is insanity and how could you possibly define something so abstract? Well, the online dictionary at www.dictionary.com defines insanity as "a derangement of the mind." Or, in terms of the law, it means "such unsoundness of mind as affects legal responsibility or capacity." Legally, if a person who is considered "insane" commits a crime, they have the option to plea "not guilty by reason of insanity"; this is what is known as the Insanity Defense. The Insanity Defense was made in the theory that most people are able to follow the law – it is under their own control; but some people, the insane, cannot be held responsible because mental disease is corrupting their ability to make the right decisions (Collins and Hinkebein).

Dating back as far as ancient Rome, legal codes had been put to use in order to characterize who was a "lunatic" and therefore not culpable and who was sane and considered liable (Collins and Hinkebein). Before the 1970's, people normally did not make a big deal about a Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity verdict, not like they do today at least. Back then if an Insanity Plea was successful, the defendant would regularly spend the rest of their life locked up in an institution for the criminally insane. Therefore, the public did not have to worry about being in danger, because they knew that the person who was committed would not be released anytime soon.

In the last two decades, though, there has been an increase in the release of those who were sent to an institution rather than a prison (Collins and Hinkebein). It is very important to have a sense of safety in order to lead a healthy life. People cannot possibly feel safe knowing that a vicious killer may be released at any time. Just as mental health professionals are responsible for classifying whether or not a defendant qualifies to be sentenced to an institution rather than prison, they also have a large part in deciding when and if the defendant gets released. "When defendants are found NGRI, the law is clear that they will be committed to a suitable facility, such as a psychiatric hospital, until they are eligible to be released back into the community" (Wright II and Piazza).Why, in any case, would you release a person who has committed a heinous crime back into the community? Court rulings say that insanity acquitees are to have the same constitutional due process that civil patients have, which makes it hard to keep the individual locked up after recovering from a mental illness – these acquitees are also able to uphold all the rights of a regular citizen (Collins and Hinkebein). In other words, it will be as if this person had not even committed a crime in the first place. The first insanity rule was developed in 1843, when Daniel M'Naghten tried to assassinate the British Prime Minister Robert Peel, because he believed, in his mind, that he was being persecuted. During the attempt, he had killed the Prime Minister's assistant. M'Naghten was found insane, and later a specific test was made and applied in insanity cases, and became known as the M'Naghten rule.

This test stated that person cannot be held responsible for a crime if he did not know the nature of the act (Collins and Hinkebein).