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Research Paper On The Insanity Plea

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Running head: THE INSANITY PLEA AND ITS USAGE 1

The Insanity Plea and its Usage in Large Scale Trials
PSYC2003 Fall 2015 (01)
Isaiah Cash
North Arkansas College THE INSANITY PLEA AND ITS USAGE 2
The Insanity Plea and its Usage in Large Scale Trials
Discussion
The insanity plea is defensive tactic used by perpetrators of violent crimes to place the blame of their actions on mental instability. In some cases, this defense is appropriate and legitimate. Other times, the plea may be used by a truly guilty party who is seeking out a lighter sentence than execution or life in prison with no parole. This tactic though, goes back farther than the recent Colorado theater shooting or even the attempted Reagan assassination. The earliest use of the insanity plea can be found in 1843 when a man named Daniel M’Naghten killed an …show more content…

A young gunman by the name of James Holmes sat in a theater of four hundred people, pretended to take a phone call, and exited the theater. Eighteen minutes later, he reentered the theater, wearing armor, a gas mask, and was equipped with a twelve gauge shotgun, an AR-15 assault rifle, and a block handgun. He threw tear gas into the crowd and opened fire, killing 12, including a six year old girl. He also injured seventy others in the attack. When his gun jammed, he calmly walked outside and surrendered to the police. In Holmes’s subsequent trial, he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecutors believed he was simply trying to escape the death penalty by pleading insanity, while a neuropsychologist who ran tests on Holmes said that there were no signs of him faking his supposed insanity that prevented him knowing right from wrong during his

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