Defense Essays

required to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The most common criminal defenses fall under two categories, excuse and justification. An excuse is when a person admits to committing a criminal act but believes that he or she can’t be held responsible because there was no criminal content. Some excuses used in court today are; mental disorder, infancy (age), mistake of fact, mistake of law and automatism. In justification defenses, the accused admits to wrongdoing but argues that he or she should be

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

Dismiss the Defense How many criminals are we allowing to slip through the Law on the grounds of insanity and are they actually crazy or just crazy smart. The insanity plea allows criminals with a psychotic disorder to be reprieved of a trial because they weren’t working of their own accord during the time of their offense (Bikel, Ofra). Although psychosis can influence mentally and physically (IMH) the plea of insanity is an unjustified form of defense in the American Judicial System. The insanity

were mentally ill, and not being held responsible for the action they had done. Most people believe that the NGRI verdict is better than the guilty verdict, when really that’s not the case. There are many myths that the public holds about the NGRI defense which can be a serious issue in search for help with ones’ health. Because of this, it is important that the public is educated and non-bias when it comes to deciding a

Insanity Defense: villain or victim? A University of Florida law professor and former prosecutor, Bob Dekle, states, “In general, insanity is a desperation defense. You haven’t gotten anything else, so you act crazy.” He claims this after Eddie Ray Routh from Stephenville, Texas commits a murder while having a psychotic episode. Within two hours of checking through his trial, the jury found Routh guilty. This stirred up a collection of arguments whether people should return as guilty but mentally

most controversial questions in the Criminal Law. In fact, it is very controversial because insanity itself is difficult to define, and the circumstances in which insanity can be used as exculpatory evidence are difficult to characterize. Insanity defense appeared before so many centuries, and according to California Law review, Crotty (1924) stated “The insane offender has been dealt with from the earliest times in English law. Probably the earliest authority is Theodoric, Archbishop of Canterbury

Today in the United States, the insanity defense is recognized as an affirmative defense, meaning that the defendant provides a reason or excuse behind why they have committed a crime. The criminal in question must supply supporting proof in a trial. If the defendant proves their case by proving evidence, the verdict usually is changed from "guilty" to "not guilty by reason of insanity". This change in verdict will usually also result in a less harsh punishment because they have been found convicted

Insanity Defense in Criminal Courts When the criminally accused are set for trial, they must begin by choosing a plea at their arraignment. At the arraignment, the information and the indictment are read to the criminal defendant. After the information and indictment have been read, then the criminal defendant is asked for their plea. Defendants have four options to choose from for their plea: guilty, not guilty, nolo contendere, and not guilty by reason of insanity. Common Pleas The first and most

of this essay is to critically analyze the current status of the use of insanity as a defense within a court of law. In order to do so this essay will do the following ****. This essay will attempt to draw a conclusion as to whether or not the current legislation in place is sufficient to ensure that society is protected. In the recent decades within Ireland it had been called that the laws governing the defense of insanity were to be reformed. The factors that have led to the slowness are low

may use mental illness as a defense. This is called an insanity plea or insanity defense. What the insanity defense does is try to give the alleged perpetrator a fair trial. At least in extreme cases, society agrees with this principle.The Insanity defense is probably one of the most controversial of all criminal defense strategies, and at the same time is one of the least used. In many cases when it has been used it has tended to cause public debate. The insanity defense confirms that the criminal

reasonable to think that not guilty by reason of insanity (NGI or NGRI) is a common defense tactic. However, NGI, according to a 1991 study by the National Institute of Health, is used in approximately 1% of criminal cases. Out of the 1% of cases where the NGI defense is used, it is effective approximately 25% of the time. It seems a bit odd that with so much mental illness seen in the criminal justice system that this defense is not used more often or, when it is used, it’s not more

As a type of defenses of excuse that completely exonerates a defendant from conviction, insanity defense argues that defendant is not responsible for their actions due to the presence of psychiatric disorders that influence the normal functions of judgment and cognition. However, the prerequisite of the insanity defense, the insanity is hard to prove in criminal cases because the definition of psychiatric disorders is tricky, elusive and vague. To prevent its abuse, the successful exoneration based

The Insanity Defense Christian Hopkins Intro to the Legal Process 1020 L01 Leo Rowe March 15th, 2017 The insanity defense is used by criminals who plead that they are mentally insane to avoid a more serious sentence. In most of the insanity defense cases, the defendant typically has some sort of mental issue during the time of the crime that caused them to commit the crime. “A criminal defendant who is found to have been legally insane when he or she committed a crime may be found not guilty

Insanity Defense.

The insanity defense proves defendants not guilty by arguing that at the time of the crime they lacked the mental capacity to realize that they were committing a crime. This defense is currently used in 46 states, some of which allow defendants to argue that they had no control over their actions even if they realized that what they were doing was unlawful (Mental Health America). The insanity defense was created to impose a moral check on the judicial system; many people argued that if children

that tried to use the insanity defense. The role that the insanity defense played in conjunction with psychology was that the psychologist would have to choose diverse ways of stating that a defendant was insane. A long with providing expert testimony at trail or competence hearings the psychologists would inform

the lack of some mental capacity, rather than an avenue to be exploited to escape responsibility or punishment. Undoubtedly, the insanity defense is a multipart kind of case in proving that a person does not understand the nature of the unlawful act he/she was involved. It has developed considerably from being a mitigating factor in criminal cases to being a defense through the development of various tests adopted in different cases. The case requires that the accused person was suffering from mental

have banned the use of the insanity defense. It is misused to escape prison and extends the trial due to how difficult it is to prove. The insanity defense states that the person who has committed the crime was or is unable to differentiate between right or wrong. It is believed that the mentally ill cannot be deterred by punishment and that it will protect society if they are treated rather than imprisoned. Many people are suspicious that the insanity defense is easily abused and manipulated by

reason why people in society struggle to understand insanity pleas and can become enraged over the fact that criminals are being sent “free”. However, if presented with the full information of what is actually happening to criminals given the NGRI defense, I believe opinions would be different. When discussing a person who is found NGRI it is important to realize that their “punishment” can often be more severe than if they were sent to prison and that they are struggling immensely. But do to the crimes

Insanity Defense The insanity defense has the notion that some individuals are mentally disturbed that they are unable to understand their actions and it would be a violation to hold them responsible. Smith states that the insanity defense is a plea used by the defense to show lack of mental potential of a person when committing a crime. (Smith, 2012) This reasoning is based on willful intent, which is very essential to an insane person. This means they cannot form such intent. However, mental