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Arguments Against Insanity Defense

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BOOM! To the front of the head. In a blink of an eye, she was gone. Betty Williams was a young Christian girl, but she also liked getting people’s attention by doing crazy things. Betty was well known for being in different plays. Betty talked to a lot of different guys throughout high school, but that did not get her anywhere. She had the biggest crush on the high school quarterback Mack Herring. Betty was well known around the school as a “Slut”. Betty was not happy with her life, so she was constantly asking her friends to kill her, but her friends always thought she was messing around. Then she asked Mack, and he had agreed to take her out of her misery. After she was killed, her parents had begun to wonder where Betty went. The police …show more content…

For example, people try using insanity as a defense when being prosecuted in a criminal case. (Math, Kumar, and Moirangthem) It is based on the assumptions that at the time of the crime, the defendant was not suffering from severe mental illness. Therefore, they were well aware that they were committing a crime. Some say an insanity defense is a legal concept, not a clinical one. In some cases, the prosecution has had a hard time distinguishing between people pretending to be insane and the people who actually suffer from insanity. (Math, Kumar, and Moirangthem) Even though it is legal to be insane, do not take advantage of it and go do something you will regret later in life. There is a time and place and there is also a way to act in a public place. Another example that shows that without any mental disability there is no reason to be crazy is having a mental disability or being insane is spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavior patterns. (White). Being insane is a term that a doctor or psychiatrists can diagnose you with; it’s more of a mental disability. (White). If you are not properly diagnosed with a mental disability, then you should not be in a position to have a reason to use insanity as an excuse for bad behavior. Not only are you hurting yourself for being crazy but you’re hurting those around you that care about …show more content…

Insanity is not a valid defense for one main reason. You are either crazy or you are not. In the end, Mack Herring was acquitted for murder. He felt as if he was pressured into doing it and he also thought he was helping her by committing the crime. He pleaded a temporary insanity defense. (Colloff) So what if you think your mental or crazy, using an insanity defense is not the way to go. If you think you’re going insane, get help. Do not use the temporary insanity defense or any other kind of defense to get you out of trouble. You should be accountable for you own

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They argued that Ferguson's insistence on representing himself and not pleading insanity demonstrated his psychological incompetence to stand trial. Some argue that Ferguson's attack was a hate crime; however, the case was not prosecuted.

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271 Words | 2 Pages

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

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257 Words | 2 Pages

Destiny Colon I definitely think that malingering or faking insanity should have an added punishment for the offender who is trying to get away with the crimes that they committed. I feel like if they have some sort of way to show the offenders that malingering will cause more harm than good, there would less false insanity pleas (even though the numbers are already low). Malingering only really postpones the trail and makes it harder for everybody involved in the case. Zanathul Ahmed I do think that the media likes to exaggerate the amount of times that someone actually pleas for insanity.

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562 Words | 3 Pages

His behavior points to guilt not insanity. Why guilt? Because he killed an innocent man who never wronged him but due to his eye he took his life. Don’t let this man get away with murder. Thank You, Your

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565 Words | 3 Pages

Yes, taking these precautions was sane of him, but stalking, murdering, and hallucinating are all traits that lead towards being insane. In the end, the narrator did prove to be insane, with his reasonless murder, and absurd hallucinations. But all in all, even if the evidence does lead to the narrator being insane, as Poe once said, “The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our

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1096 Words | 5 Pages

Those who are insane can be declared innocent if proven “not aware” of what they were doing when they were committing a crime and breaking the law. The mentally insane are able to be given smaller punishment, no jail time, or no punishment. These people are also given treatment for their mental illness but, it is not much better than imprisonment. These defendants may have committed a horrible crime, but will not be punished for it, because they are insane. Some defendants may use the insanity plea to escape imprisonment, but they are not truly insane.

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649 Words | 3 Pages

While we have a justice system that is based off laws and cases that come before, and there are also some cases that express the moral principles found in our societies for a case by case assesment. The idea that anyone who commits a crime, but is missing the ability to defer right from wrong shouldn’t be held to the same standards as someone who has a rational mind. For example, in “The Insanity Defense” the narrator talks about if a person is convicted of a crime, the prosecutor must prove two things; that the person engaged in a guilty act and that he or she had guilty intend. “But what about situations in which the person commits the act and intends to do so, but was suffering from a mental condition that impairs their ability to appreciate

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102 Words | 1 Pages

The insanity plea is one of the most controversial and problematic defense strategies used in court cases. It becomes so problematical when someone determines the sanity of a person, because where does the line cross from insane and sane. The insanity plea is the least common mechanism that defendants and lawyers use as a plea. Sometimes it is accurate and the defendant is treated properly in a mental institute for awhile; whereas in other cases it is used as “get out of jail free card. ”

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798 Words | 4 Pages

Many people may believe they know about the insanity defense as it has been brought to the public’s eye in many popular trials. For example, the cases of John Hinckley, who attempted to murder President Ronald Reagan, and Andrea Yates, who drowned her five young children, were highly publicized cases where the defendant was found guilty by reason of insanity. While many people may be familiar with these cases or similar ones, the insanity defense is highly misunderstood and disliked. To help judges and juries conclude whether a person is insane, three models have been devised. There is a wide variety of tests from state to state; however, they all typically revolve around one of the three models.

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776 Words | 4 Pages

One of the main arguments or criticisms are that ‘the rule does not permit complete and adequate testimony’ and that the psychiatric operating under the rule serves as a judge. These are both arguments that people have against the rule. Many people have tried to pledge that they are insane at the time of the crime. Some of them were actually aware of the crime they were committing it, but are able to fool the legal system and get away with the defense of insanity. A valid argument towards the defense of insanity is that is difficult in proving beyond the reasonable doubt that the criminal was insane during the commitment of their crimes.

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612 Words | 3 Pages

One great example of the murderer being sane is the fact that he hid the body, rather than leaving it on the bed and not trying to hide it. If the murderer were to be insane he would have simply left the body on the bed and would not have tried to hide it, as the murder would not have been wrong in his mind. The murderer also kept a tub under the old man during the murder to

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874 Words | 4 Pages

Insanity Defense Imani Batiste Lee College Insanity Defense The insanity defense is described as, “A defense asserted by an accused in a criminal prosecution to avoid liability for the commission of a crime because, at the time of the crime, the person did not appreciate the nature or quality or wrongfulness of the acts” (Encyclopedia, 2005). It was first instituted in late-thirteenth-century England as “Complete Madness” (Encyclopedia, 2005). The defense is based on the belief that people who are ill should be treated for their illness rather than sentenced to prison or death. There are legitimate times when an individual has a serious mental illness that caused their actions because they were not able to process correctly.

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494 Words | 2 Pages

What is insanity? Insanity can mean many different things determining on the person or group of people you are talking to. To one it may mean an excuse to get out of trouble in many cases of law, to another it may mean something irrational, and to one more it may mean a psychological problem. But the most well-known definition is one that it originally did not mean. Insanity has changed from being a word that meant someone was mentally ill to becoming known as a word that someone can say instead of facing a challenge because they fear failure or being hurt.

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594 Words | 3 Pages

Though well-established, the two tests are always challenged. One of the reasons is due to the discrepancy between the legal insanity and medical insanity: legal insanity and medical insanity only partially overlap, but a legal insanity is not necessarily a medical insanity, vice verses. For example, we might use the discrepancy to criticize the mandatory hospitalization for the insane murderer. After being diagnosed as insane, the murderer would not be responsible for his act, but instead, he would be sent to the hospital for psychological treatment. Nevertheless, suppose the murderer only possesses the disorder that only exists in legal term, what treatments can doctor adopt to cure him if there is even no such disease exists?

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1232 Words | 5 Pages

His actions were intended to inflict harm on his victims to satisfy his evil rage. His rage is caused by alcohol, which is not considered an excuse for insanity. While jailed, and presumed sober, he is very clear about his actions and his level of responsibility. He even provides testimony that he is not insane. An insane person would not be able to articulate the story with such clarity.

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