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Psychopathy And Sociopathy Inclusion In The Insanity Defense

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The insanity defense is available to those with serious mental illnesses as a legal excuse for criminal responsibility (Felthous, 2010). The insanity defense continues to be debated and has both legal and mental health professionals questioning whether psychopathic disorders should qualify under the defense or not. The history of criminal responsibility dates back to 1838 when Isaac Ray published his famous book in which he argued that those who committed criminal offences should not be found guilty due to their “moral mania” (Felthous, 2010). The most famous and influential case however was of Daniel M’Naghten who, in 1843, fatally shot the prime minister of England’s secretary while suffering from a paranoid delusion. This case led to the widely adopted McNaughton Rules (Felthous, 2010). …show more content…

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

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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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Insanity is an illness an individual cannot overcome and will make decisions without thinking. Lacking the further knowledge of a criminal's mental state does not endorse the fate of acquiring the death

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Before the court can evaluate the specific details of this section, they must first re-define what a mental disorder is based on case laws. There are three crucial cases which contributed in shaping the definition of a mental disorder: Cooper v. R., R. v. Bouchard-Lebrun, and R. v. Stone cases. In Cooper v. R. (1980), Justice Dickson defines disease of the mind— also known as mental disorder— as the following: ...“[D]isease of the mind” embraces any illness, disorder or abnormal condition which impairs the human mind and its functioning… [where of] such intensity as to render the accused incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the violent act or of knowing that it is

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Dr. Mark Nolan, Senior Lecturer at ANU College of Law, says that the NGRI plea “enables defendants to avoid criminal liability and standard criminal punishment” (Nolan 8). The main disagreement with America is the focus whether if the “guilty defendant” pursues to misuse the “Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity” as an alternative to imprisonment or if the criminally accused was at the time of committing the crime “clinically insane” and in need psychotherapy. Therefore, during this discussion of opposing viewpoints concerning the insanity defense being misused or ethical are going to be

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Dr. Hare proves that a mentally ill person has little to no emotion through crimes or thoughts they commit. Almost as a computer may act. This makes the person able to commit unbelieve crimes. This compares to the article, “A Revised Portrait of a Psychopath” by Peter Reuell. The article articulates the mindset of the mentally ill and does a case study on it.

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In the field of criminal law there is a certain type of criminal defense that comes to the court and has a low success rate. These cases concern the mental capacity of the defendant and if they have enough mental capacity, or are sane enough, to be aware of their crime and consequences of crime. The insanity defense is extremely rare because of how difficult it is for the defense to prove to the court and jury that the defendant did not have the mental capacity to understand what they did wrong and the consequences from it. The case of Myers III v. State of Indiana is one example of criminal responsibility and mental capacity. This case has information that can be connected to the textbook with the insanity defense tests, mental competence

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In his memoir Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson recounts the stories of many defendants whose mental illness was ignored during their trial. Whether they were intellectually disabled or were going through major trauma, all of the clients were seriously impacted. Logically, a major detail like the defendant's mental state should have been discussed and considered when issuing a punishment. Evidence of their mental illness was overlooked, however, leading to guilty verdicts and, in some cases, executions. Regardless of the individual cases, avoiding the topic of mental health shows a complete failure to understand how it can severely impact an individual.

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The Insane Psycho Ed Gein The American psycho Ed Gein, once said, “When I see a pretty girl walking down the street, I think two things. One part wants to be real nice and sweet, and the other part wonders what her head would look like on a stick.” People who are insane are mentally ill and have no control of what they are doing or saying. Pleading insane during a trial is called the insanity plea.

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“It was discovered that one psychiatrist, Park Dietz, had given testimony that turned out to be untrue. He had claimed that Yates got her idea to drown the children from an episode of Law and Order. It turned out that he had confused the plots of multiple episodes” (Andrea Yates, 2021). It was during this trial that Andrea Yates was found not guilty by the reason of insanity and was sent to a maximum-security state mental facility. The M'Naghten Rule, which states “all defendants are presumed to be sane unless they can prove that–at the time of committing the criminal act–the defendant’s state of mind caused them to (1) not know what they were doing when they committed said act, or (2) that they knew what they were doing, but did not know that it was wrong”

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However, by taking a look at the other side of the spectrum, it is clear to see that just because the insanity defense is used does not mean that all people believe it should be. One of the major arguments against the insanity defense is that defendants are only using the insanity plea in order to get out of their criminal charges by either faking or dramatizing a mental illness. It's also a common argument that there is no real way to measure someone's true sanity, and so it is very difficult to determine if someone is faking being insane. Morse states that this defense confuses “causation with excuse or moral and legal concepts with medical concepts.” This shows that many believe morals and ideals do not directly relate to medical ideals, so by using one to justify the other just isn't fair nor right to the legal system.

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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

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The volitional test was originally created as an addition to the McNaughtan test in order to equally protect those who realized that what they were doing was wrong but couldn’t control themselves. This portion of the insanity defense will be used in cases such as William Heirens’, who killed a large number of young females and then wrote on the living room wall in lipstick, “For heavens sake catch me before I kill more I cannot control myself” (Brooks 129). Although the volitional prong has good moral intensions, it clearly generates abuse to the insanity defense because there is such a slim difference between those who qualify for the defense and those who manage to control their behavior. Both the definition of “mentally ill” and the concept of the volitional prong are not backed by sufficient scientific knowledge. With this in mind, psychiatrists clearly don’t have enough bases to measure people’s ability to maintain self control.

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BOOM! To the front of the head. In a blink of an eye, she was gone. Betty Williams was a young Christian girl, but she also liked getting people’s attention by doing crazy things. Betty was well known for being in different plays.

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