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Barney Bezerk Case Summary

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Recommended: Upholding insanity defence

This case study details the trial of Barney Bezerk, who was to come before the court for the axe murder of his family. Planning to use the insanity defense, his attorney hired an expert, Cruddy O’Pinion to conduct a psychological evaluation. The evaluation revealed that Bezerk had a major thought disorder, poor impulse control, uncontrollable anger, and frequently expressed paranoid ideation. An effective approach to explain this case study would be a psychological approach. In analyzing the case, it is important to dissect how to effectively determine whether a person meets the legal definition of insanity, and whether that person has the correct psychiatric assessments to prove his sanity.

Case Study Analysis In the following case study, Barney Bezerk was to stand trial for the axe murder of his family. His attorney …show more content…

The issue is determining whether an individual truly meets the legal definition of insanity. The concept of insanity is constantly changing, which makes it difficult to truly find an individual to be legally insane. In 1843, Daniel M’Naghten, a Scottish wood turner, attempted to assassinate the prime minister of England (Koocher & Keith-Spiegel, 2008). He suffered from paranoid delusions and killed another man instead. He was found not guilty, because he was unable to realize the wrongfulness of the act. After this, public outrage surfaced and formed the legal definition of insanity, which evebtually became known as the M’Naghten rule (Koocher & Keith-Spiegel, 2008). A plea of not guilty by reason of insanity claims that due to mental illness, the defendant should not be held morally responsible for the crime. In order to successfully plead the insanity defense, a defendant must not only show that he is mentally ill, but also show that there was a link connecting the mental illness and the criminal offense (Grachek,

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