ipl-logo

Arguments Against Insanity Plea

312 Words2 Pages

If an insanity plea is successful, it can be implied that mental illnesses can be dangerous or harmful. Also, that the person with the mental illness is going to be treated and hopefully learn how to handle such an illness. Then perhaps that person can go free after a while. On the other hand, if an insanity plea is unsuccessful, then it can be implied that the person with the illness may not get treatment. Although, if the person is just using a mental illness as an excuse, then he or she is giving other people with a mental illness a bad name. In my opinion, I think it depends on the situation. The people that have a mental illness, which caused them to comit the crime, would be better off than if he or she went to prison. In other words, if that person had little to no contol of their actions, due to the mental illness, then they would be better off getting treated. On the other hand, the people that had control of their actions, and blame it on a mental illness should be convicted. …show more content…

The use of the insanity defense has provided the defendants with treatment for the their mental illnesses. Also, I think the insanity defense made a difference when it comes to their sentence. If I was the defense attorney in each case, I probably would have used the insanity defense for each client. They both seemed to have a mental illness. Although, just because they have a mental illness, doesn't mean that's the reason they did their crime. I believe the insanity defense could have been the best outcome for the defendant, because they would have been treated for their mental

Show More
Related
707 Words | 3 Pages

Mental illness is necessary to use the insanity defense and

Read More
2597 Words | 11 Pages

During my true crime podcast era, I came across Andrea Yates. Yates was a mother who killed her five young children by drowning them in a bathtub. While listening to this case, it was revealed that the insanity plea, or also known as the insanity defense, was used. It got me thinking about how the plea works and how people would allow this outcome over a jail sentence. The insanity plea is a tough topic to tackle in the world of criminal law.

Read More
513 Words | 3 Pages

Are people with mental disabilities, who have killed people, actually innocent? People, including those with mental disabilities, are still human beings. They should be treated as such. Yes, the court should be aware of that fact and consider if the fact may alter their decision. On the other hand, that person needs to earn a punishment.

Read More
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.

Read More
641 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
49 Words | 1 Pages

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.

Read More
312 Words | 2 Pages

Insanity Defense evaluations The insanity defense evaluations are used to justify the mental capacity of a criminal in a court proceeding that committed murder as a result of their conduct in society. According to Heilburn (2006), “One doctor in an attempt to find a legal analogy called the DSM 3 the statute law of psychiatry.” (pp.65) formally known as the lex loci delicti commissi in legal terms is a diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders ever known. However, there are two different ways in going about providing an evaluation to a criminal with a mental disease.

Read More
1699 Words | 7 Pages

It is important for there to not be the death sentence because like previously mentioned, all you’re doing is getting revenge, not helping anyone. In a sense, we aren’t any better than the person being killed. We are basically killing someone because they killed someone. So because of the murder trial of Bobby Franks, the plea for insanity has been used more and has worked

Read More
1104 Words | 5 Pages

Plea of Insanity The plea of insanity is a defense in which the defendant cannot be held criminally responsible for a crime due to them not being in a stable mindset. In the ongoing trial of Alex Murdaugh, the question of whether or not he should claim insanity is still up for debate. But many things must still be considered before saying that he should not. Before the murder trial most people knew Alex Murdaugh as a thief and drug addict, but that is only half of the story.

Read More
952 Words | 4 Pages

I agree with this statement. However, I do not solely blame the criminal for their actions due to their mental illness. Creating stricter gun laws, expanding mental health awareness

Read More
1667 Words | 7 Pages

Is The Insanity Defense Overused? Back in the year 1993, six people were killed and nineteen injured. In 1996, a man named Colin Ferguson was convicted of this mass shooting. While his attorney believed he was mentally incompetent to stand trial, he felt he could be his own attorney and decided to not go through with the insanity defense in favor of a story that somebody else did the mass shooting instead, leaving him there. This is probably one of the more known cases when the insanity defense is brought up.

Read More
2547 Words | 11 Pages

The insanity defense proves defendants not guilty by arguing that at the time of the crime they lacked the mental capacity to realize that they were committing a crime. This defense is currently used in 46 states, some of which allow defendants to argue that they had no control over their actions even if they realized that what they were doing was unlawful (Mental Health America). The insanity defense was created to impose a moral check on the judicial system; many people argued that if children aren’t punished for crimes because they are too young to realize that their actions are wrong, then adults who aren’t mentally capable of making this distinction shouldn’t be punished either. This defense, however, is often abused, which defeats its

Read More
505 Words | 3 Pages

Less than one percent of felony cases raise an insanity defense in hopes of nullifying the case. In that one percent, there is even less of a chance that the defense will be successful. (“Frontline”) An insanity defense may not have a high success rate, but when it does succeed, it can get an overwhelming amount of media coverage. One famous case in particular is the trial of Jeffery Dahmer.

Read More
259 Words | 2 Pages

As it was being debated whether psychopathic diseases would be included in the model insanity standard, the American Law Institute attempted to exclude psychopathic and sociopathic conditions from consideration (Felthous, 2010). Then in 1961, it was declared by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals that sociopathy would be sufficient in order to raise the issue of insanity. However, this issue of psychopathy and sociopathy inclusion in the insanity defense, and the insanity defense in its entirety remains a controversial issue. Since the 1970s, it seems there is a greater interest in restricting and abolishing insanity tests as well as excluding psychopathy from the defense, and that view is still present (Felthous, 2010). According to Felthous (2010), this tension has been long

Read More
296 Words | 2 Pages

The truth of the matter is that the insanity defense is rarely ever successful. As the public cries that this defense is a “get out of jail” free card it really isn’t. Statistics show that less than 1 percent of all felony cases are successful pleading insanity (Worrall, 2014). If a defendant is legally insane, it does not necessarily mean that he or she can plea insanity.

Read More

More about Arguments Against Insanity Plea

Open Document