Ford V. Wainwright Insanity Case Study

The Supreme Court has excused executions of the “insane”. The eighth amendment, the constitutional rights of the insane on death row, Ford v. Wainwright, prohibits the execution of the insane (Scholarly Commons, “Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology”). Many people, however, say that this rule should be put to an end. They say “if a criminal is aware of what he did and why he got convicted then he is mentally stable and does not fall under the qualifications for the law of being insane” (Mansnerus, “Damaged Brains and the Death Penalty”).

The first insanity case was in 1843, in England. Daniel McNaughton killed the secretary of the British Prime Minister, because he disliked the Prime Minister. He was acquitted "by reason of insanity. He

The rule assumed sanity, unless the defense proved "at the time of committing the act, the accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or, if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong. "The McNaughton Rule is still used in the United States and The United Kingdom to define sanity. (Cornell Law, “The ‘Insanity Defense’ and Diminished Capacity”)

Kent Kiehl is a professor at the University of Mexico, and conducts research on those who are considered to be insane on death row. He has been studying psychopaths for the past years. Kiehl scores his subjects level of psychopathy by using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. This checklist measures traits that are applicable to psychopaths. Many psychopaths have an inability to feel empathy, and are also pathological liars. “The scores on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist range from 0 to 40.” Kiehl says that the “average person scores about a 4 or 5, the average inmate scores about a 22, and an individual that is considered to be a psychopath will typically score a 30 or above”. One subject whom Kiehl tested was named Brian Dugan. Dugan scored a 38.5 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist.

Michael Gazzaniga, a neuroscientist, has done research dealing with Arizona prisoners that compare images of their brains with those of not convicted criminals. Gazzaniga says that there is a “higher amount of psychopathy symptoms found among prisoners than those not.” Brain imaging has been a key factor in many court cases around the US today. Some jury’s think that brain images can be a deciding factor in a case where as some believe in has no significance. (West, “Death Row Inmates Turn to Neuroscience to Bolster Their Appeals”). Brain imaging can be used in court cases to decide if a person can be legally pronounced “mentally ill” or “mentally stable”. Brian imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emissions tomography (PET) and computerized axial tomography (CAT) can be used in order to view images of the brain. All 3 of these techniques can be used to take pictures of brains and specific brain areas in order to look for damage that could deem someone mentally ill. Brain imaging can be good for some, where as not so good for others who are shown to be guilty by proving they do not have brain abnormalities resulting in mental