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In Cold Blood Insanity Defense

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A case can be changed due to the call of the insanity plea. Nevertheless, This may cause a possible difference to the charge of the defence. In a court case dealing with murder such as the issue with the Clutter family, the Insanity plea was brought into thought to test if Perry and Dick were mentally stable during that time. By definition, the insanity plea is an argument stating the defense was not responsible for their actions due to a psychiatric disease at the time of the act, consequently, making him/her unaware of the occurring actions moreover the later consequences. In the book, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, the main characters Perry and Dick killed the Clutter family committing the crime of the century. During the screening …show more content…

The Durham Rule defines that the defendant cannot be claimed as guilty due to a mental disease and defect at the time; as for the Model Penal Code states as the defendant obtains a mental defect that causes the defendant unable to appreciate the criminality of his conduct. The stability found in Perry does not follow the guidelines or requirements of the insanity defense tests. During the times of the murders Perry was in search of the money that they were targeting, as he searched the houses he came across Nancy’s room and found a doll like purse obtaining a silver dollar. As he attempted to get a hold of the dollar he dropped it causing him to get down on his knees to grasp it. The pitiful moment when he knelt caused him to think, “I had to get down on my knees. And just then it was like i was outside myself. Watching myself in some nutty movie. It made me sick. I was just disgusted...here I am crawling on my to steal a child’s silver dollar. One dollar. And I’m crawling on my belly to get it.” He said he felt as if he was watching himself and was disgusted as to what he could see himself doing at that occurring moment. If one were to be mentally dysfunctional they would not see or feel themselves in that type of

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There is also an inclination to believe that if he had not suffered from this state, then the offence would not have been committed, specially not in the barbaric way it was done. Thus, it cannot be concluded that the accused willfully preformed the act, nor that the mens rea and the actus reus coincided while he was not in a psychotic state. (Roach, 113) Related to this finding is another element that supports the verdict of the Honorable Judge, which is the Principle of Fundamental Justice that states that no one should be “punished for morally involuntary actions.” (Roach, 82) A person who successfully raises the mental disorder defence is considered to be morally innocent of the act because they were not acting freely, in this case, free from psychotic ideations.

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Andrea was arrested and charged with 5 counts of capital murder, to which she pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. However, after her first trial, she was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison based on a testimony that would eventually be found to be false, leading to another trial, which would then result in her acquittal, by reason of insanity. Based on the fact that Andrea was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison during her first trial, it is obvious how difficult it was for a jury to decide whether Andrea should have been found not guilty by reason of insanity. In fact, during her second trial, “jurors deliberated for 13 hours before finding that Yates did not know her crime was wrong because of her long history of mental illness” (Death Penalty Information Center, 2006). This is due to Texas state’s – where Andrea was tried – laws requiring that a severe mental illness be what prevents someone who is committing a crime from knowing that it is

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Jones truly feels about Perry’s sanity. Dr. Jones, being a credible man, only had the choice of saying yes or no, to one question the court asks him: “And once more the court admonished the witness: “Answer yes or no, do you have an opinion?” “No”” (Capote 296). The court’s forceful strict system gave Dr. Jones a strenuous decisions. Dr. Jones was unsure of Perry’s mental state of whether he was mentally stable or not; therefore, Dr. Jones told the court “no,” no he did not have an opinion.

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The neglect, interest in animal corpses, and alcoholism Jefferey experienced all correlates to his killings. In his trial, Jefferey Dahmer plead insanity. Insanity is represented by “The Devil Made Me Do It” defense, which argues the defendant does not deny the actual crime but denies that it was done with criminal intent. For example, Dahmer could not differentiate between right and wrong pertaining to murder. Dahmer’s corrupt childhood was used as evidence to demonstrate how neglect and alcohol controlled his decision

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The defendant does not meet the standard for legal insanity in Delaware, using the American Legal Institute Test. Although, Howard the defendant, had a mental disorder Bipolar 2, it did not cause impairment at the time of the sexual assault. Mood disorders are relevant to volitional tests, but not to cognitive tests. Since Delaware is under ALI, it has to prove that both the cognitive and volitional prong was passed. Howard sexually assaulted, his ex-coworker out of his own control and sane mindset.

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Drunk mom, dad leaving at such a young age, some of his siblings killing themselves and on top of all that getting abused a lot by his mom and the nuns that hit him when he was in catholic school. Well who was this this very ungood, bad childhood and different and that is Perry Smith. My client’s case is about 2 men Perry & Dick and they're doing is very shocking,that was Perry has killed a family of 4 the Clutter family & each were shot with a gun besides that Mr.Clutter had his throat slit. Previously,Dick was gonna kill them all but something suddenly happened and that was in Perry’s mind. They are not guilty at all but the fact that they will be charged with insanity because yes there has been something going on in Perry’s mind like something

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Based on the legal definitions and description of court cases in relation to those definitions, Ana’s case can correlate with the insanity defense due to her reaction to the crime. As stated previously, while asleep in the park a male attempted to wake the client up causing her to go into a rage yelling “ Get off of me!” as she stabs this individual. After committing the crime Ana then went to into a state of sobbing, as well as being easy to calm down. Ana was also able to cooperate during her arrest, but she did not want to discuss what had occurred.

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Kyle Figueroa Mr. Paneralla March 19, 2023 Class 6 Honors English Perry Smith Is Innocent Due to Perry Smith's childhood in a harmful environment, where he was subjected to abuse and negative influences, it would be unjust to sentence him to death. Perry has a medical reason for his insanity, it is called schizophrenia. Perry has never had a true family, but he does get family-like people in his life like Dick. When he meets someone who treats him the way he wants to be treated he gets attached to them.

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In the trial of Mr. Smith, there is no question of whether or not he committed the gruesome murder of Mr. Johnson; the question is in the sanity of Mr. Smith at the time the murder was committed. You may be thinking, “Why on Earth would you think Mr. Smith was sane? He killed a man because his eye was creepy!” While Mr. Smith did kill someone for what seems like an absurd reason, this does not make him insane. The legal definition of insanity is “a mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot manage his/her own affairs, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior....

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He writes about how Perry and Dick’s and other defendant's cases are often overlooked and not taken into account when evaluating the verdict and punishments. Capote stresses this to the reader by mentioning a direct statement from Dr. Jones, “Perry Smith shows definite signs of severe mental… Two features in his personality make-up stand out as particularly pathological. The first is his ‘paranoid’ orientation toward the world.. his ability to separate the real situation from his own mental projections is very poor” (296-297). His objective in mentioning this was to again show that Perry suffered from a mental disease that altered his judgement but as well as to show that all the evidence provided to the court regarding that was

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1960 Words | 8 Pages

Justice Tindall, whom was present at the M’Naughten trial when the insanity plea became a legal defense, breaks these rules into 3 statements. “Every person is presumed sane unless the contrary can be proven otherwise” (Allnut, et al. 293), which in this case it cannot. “A person suffering a ‘partial delusion’ should be dealt with as if the circumstances of the delusion was real” (Allnut, et al. 293). If Minnie was suffering from some sort of delusions, she would have used that as an excuse once Mr. Hale found her or would’ve had some crazy story on what happened. She got straight to the point.

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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.

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Throughout human history, humans have been known to execute gruesome acts. Whether these acts are small and insignificant or massive and change history, humans are capable of performing horrific plots against one another. To make matters worse, most of the people who commit these terrible crimes are people who are entirely in a clear state of mind. Nevertheless, there are some cases in which the line between sanity and mental instability blurs. For example, there is an ongoing debate regarding the mental health of the main character in William Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily.”

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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

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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.

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