Insanity Defense Overused

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. While he still stood trial and was sentenced to six twenty-five-years-to-life terms, it was a strange case none the less. In recent times of the 2010’s it seems that every mass shooting, somebody pleas insanity but this extends way back

Instead of getting a pass, it would reduce punishment for the criminal. It turned into the “wild beast” which referred to the defendant not being able to separate from good and evil (Fersch 3). In England during the mid-1800’s, it would be refined and called the M’naghten Rule because a man named Daniel M’naghten tried assassinating Prime Minister Robert Peel under the notion he thought Peel was trying to kill him (Insanity Defense – History Par. 5). According to The Insanity Defense by Abraham S. Goldstein, that nearing the turn of the century, criminals that were considered insane is now the more modern way we view said criminals (10). It would eventually travel over the United States and become what it is today during Durham v. United States. This case, while Monte Durham wasn’t able to be proven insane, lead to reformations of the M’naghten Rule that would eventually be called the Durham Rule. Going back to Fersch’ book, this would implement more scientific approaches to determine if somebody was legally insane (3). Later in 1984, President Reagan would implement the Comprehensive Crime Control Act that required criminals to prove that they are mentally insane. With the history of the insanity defense concluded, let us take a look at some cases where the insanity defense is involved as the criminal’s reason for their

Back in 2012, James Holmes entered the Aurora Theater in Colorado, killing twelve and injuring seventy. During his court appearance, they were looking to give him the death penalty until he decided to plead insanity. After a couple psychiatric evaluations, they did find him severely mentally ill but not enough to be legally insane. Due to this, it came down to whether he would see a life sentence for each murder or the death penalty rather than be sent to a mental institute. The jury concluded with Holmes getting twelve life sentences and 3,318 years more for those wounded (CNN Library Par. 30). This case will later be one used to evaluate future pleas of insanity due to how it was ruled. He was found severely mentally ill but not enough to be legally insane so he was charged with all 165 counts against him. One other case where the insanity defense failed would be in the murder of American Sniper, Chris Kyle. In 2013, Eddie Ray Route murdered Chris Kyle who is better known for inspiring the movie, American Sniper, and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Despite a history of having post-traumatic stress disorder and taking medicine for schizophrenia making him mentally ill, by admitting he knew what he did was wrong when he was asked, it meant he knew what he did and got sentenced to life in prison (McCoy Par. 14). What these two cases show are two very important things. First of all, just because one is severely