At the 2002 trial, Yates pleaded not guilty, by using the insanity defense. The insanity defense argues that an individual should not be found guilty of a crime if they have a persistent psychiatric disease at the time the crime was committed. It was proved that Yates could tell right from wrong, so she did not meet the definition of the insanity in Texas (Walsh). The jury deliberated for almost four hours, and finally found Yates guilty. The jury rejected her insanity defense, and Yates was sentenced to life in prison.
Mental illness is necessary to use the insanity defense and
Those matters are for the trier of fact alone. Id. In this criminal case a mental health expert is prepared to offer an opinion on the whether the defendant was insane
In June of 2001, the entire nation was deeply disturbed by the horrific acts committed by a suburban Texas housewife, and mother of five. Andrea Yates had drowned all five of her young children in the bathtub of their home. Yates called the authorities and her husband Rusty Yates to the home, where she confessed to killing her children. According to Faith McLellan of the Lancet Medical Journal, Andrea Yates’s bizarre reasoning behind this horrific act was because she believed to have been marked by Satan, and that in order to save her children from hell she needed to take their lives (McLellan, 2006). Yates pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity on the basis of mental defect due to postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis.
The insanity defence is one of the most controversial topics in the legal system, used by many criminal defendants as an excuse for their unlawful activities. In fact, the Canadian legal system has experienced this in the case of Valentine Shortis, an Irish Immigrant who was convicted of killing two men, injuring one and attempted murder on March 1, 1895. Charged with murder and sentenced to death, Valentine’s Lawyer St. Pierre argued that he suffered from insanity, such as his inability to distinguish right from wrong. There was evidence from Shortis's friends, family, and neighbours who claimed that Shortis was arrogant and mischievous person. According to Friedland, the crown (Macmaster) stated that “he did many eccentric, rash and even
Since the use of insanity defense typically has to do with knowing right from wrong he could not use this defense because he did in fact know what he was doing was wrong. Despite individuals knowing the wrongfulness of their act some may not be able to control their impulse to commit such act. We are captivated by the acts of some of these individuals
Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI) is a form of insanity defense that allows for an individual to not be found guilty of a crime due to a mental defect or disease that results in a lack of mens rea, or the capability to intentionally commit a crime. However, simply having a mental illness or defect does not guarantee that an offender will be found NGRI. Not only would a defendant have to have a major or severe mental illness or disease, but the defendant would have to prove that their condition impaired them so greatly as to not have any control over their behavior or any concept that they had done anything wrong at the time of the offense. Although Bob undoubtedly had a diminished capacity for logic and reason in this case, the example as given does not provide enough detail to determine the nature of Bob’s personality or his potential motives in committing this crime. Nevertheless, there is one major flaw to Bob’s insanity defense: he tried to hide the crime.
How fair is the “insanity” defense? Davis (2016) argued that the used of the “insanity” defense may be seen by others as unfair to other criminals because of the leniency towards one group of criminals and not others. This can be seen as discrimination towards individuals with mental illness.
(Busby, 2022). This compared with the Irresistible Impulse Test, which states “the defendant will be found not guilty by reason of insanity if they can show that as a result of mental disease or defect, they could not resist the impulse to commit the crime of which they are accused, due to an inability to control their actions”
Intro: “It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane” (PHILIP K. DICK, Valis). In present day America laws have been placed that prevent people who are “insane” to be guilty of the crimes they commit. In short, insanity is the state of being seriously mentally ill relating to madness. This is presented in the book Medea written by Euripides through her point of view. In Medea, a surge of insanity purges her after she is betrayed by her husband Jason causing many cruel and harsh actions to follow from her.
The legal definition according to the book is “The principal legal doctrine permitting consideration of mental abnormality in assessing criminal liability.” According to google it says it is the state of being seriously mentally ill. One other definition I have heard was from Einstein, and that was that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Insanity refers to the defendant’s mental state at the time the offense was committed. The insanity defense is most often used in cases in which the defendant is charged with a violent felony.
Criminology is one of the most perplexing areas to practice in legal courts. For one, it includes the decision which certainly changes the entire life of a person. For another, it is sometimes challenging to find enough evidence in a crime scene to assess the case, thus resulting in an unfair suite. For these reasons, people have come up with the notion of insanity defense, the claim that at the time of the crime, the defendant was mentally disable and thus was not thinking rationally.
Mental illness is commonly used as a criminal defense in the court of law. The insanity defense is preferred for suspects who have mental disorders such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. These disorders impair a human being in emotional aspects like depression, paranoia, and other forms of emotional instability. We hear about the insanity defense on a regular basis in court cases and portrayed in the media and movies. What we don’t hear about as often, however, are people with cognitive impairments in the criminal justice system.
In summary, mental illnesses are induced by a chemical imbalance of the brain; they range from depression to borderline personality disorder to schizophrenia, and without proper treatments, they could result in abnormal behaviors including criminal tendencies, violent outbursts, and sudden mood swings. Mental health is a topic which is often stationed on the back burner. In fact, many mentally ill people are not diagnosed or treated because mental health is not a part of the standard educational system. Police officers are inadequately equipped with the knowledge of how to deal with the mentally ill, and dozens of cases have been in the news of police not knowing how to react to their erratic actions (Times).
The question is, how do we define insanity? Is the acts that which society deems unusual? Or is there a deeper understanding of this illness in which we have not recognized? I have thought of three guide lines of insanity. Insanity is when someone does not think normally as the rest of us do.
