If someone is mentally weak in any way, such as those who would be eligible for the insanity plea, sending them to prison would be very dangerous indeed, for they would be more likely to be influenced into being worse criminals. Additionally, those with disabilities, physical or mental, are even more likely than the general population to the raped and sexually abused behind bars. Evidence shows that one out of four members of the prison population are sexually abused while in prison, and the chances for someone who is mentally challenged in any way is much higher. (SPR) Would a jury feel comfortable handing down a sentence of repeated raping and beatings to the defendant of a trial? Most likely, people would be outraged about this form of punishment, and therefore juries should not feel comfortable sending someone who is most likely going to be raped into the prison….

Hinkley was obsessed with the movie Taxi Driver, in which the main character -- a drifter like himself -- saves a teenage prostitute from her pimp through violence. Before his assassination attempt, Hinkley wrote a letter to Foster detailing how he was going to attempt to kill the president to win her attention (he had already sent her poems and love letters).
Hinkley refused to cooperate with his defense attorneys unless they asked Foster to testify, enabling him to be in the same room as himself. "All the government psychiatrists concluded that Hinckley was legally sane -- that he appreciated the wrongfulness of his act -- at the time of the shooting. All three defense psychiatrists diagnosed Hinckley as psychotic -- and legally insane -- at the time of the shooting. Further evidence of the severity of Hinckley's mental problems came in May, two days before his twenty-sixth birthday, when….

The Insanity Defense: Exploring Legal and Ethical Dimensions
Introduction

The insanity defense is a controversial legal strategy that allows individuals accused of committing a crime to claim that they were not mentally capable of understanding the nature of their actions or distinguishing right from wrong at the time of the offense. This defense is predicated on the belief that individuals suffering from severe mental illness or disorder should not be held criminally responsible for their actions.

The concept of the insanity defense has a long history in jurisprudence, with roots dating back to ancient Greece and ome. In the United States, the insanity defense has been a topic of much debate and scrutiny, with critics arguing that it is often used as a loophole to avoid punishment for criminal behavior. However, supporters argue that individuals with severe mental illness should be treated and rehabilitated rather than incarcerated.

The legal standard for establishing insanity varies….

If the Texas legislature would consider the addition of a volitional provision, no matter what form they might choose, would mark a substantial improvement to what presently exists. Such addition would represent a modernization in attitude and would allow the law in Texas to comport more closely with the prevailing societal views on mental health. Those with severe mental health issues deserve the opportunity of having their conditions treated. Lacking the capacity to make reasoned and rational decisions should not subject one to criminal sanctions.

In conclusion, convincing a historically conservative Texas legislature to enact significant changes in the insanity defense laws will be an uphill battle. Attempts have been made from time to do so and all such attempts have met with failure. The political climate in Texas is presently not conducive to radical or even moderate change on this issue. Law and order platforms are the popular choice in….

For example, there is currently a case in Florida were a 50-year-old woman shot and killed her teenage son and daughter. She said she did it because they were "mouthy" to her and she was tired of it. There is no word yet on whether she will plead insanity, but there is evidence that she purchased a gun days before the shooting occurred (Brennan, 2011). That could block her chances at having an insanity plea accepted by a jury, because the purchase of the gun shows planning on her part.
ules of the States - Cases

Each state sets its own rules about what makes a person "insane," because when used in this way it is a legal defense and not a medical defense. Whether a state wants to consider lesser degrees of mental difficulty as part of a person's defense (by reducing that person's punishment, for example) is up to….

This is the loophole that both side tried to exploit during both the initial trial and the re-trial.
No one questions the claim that Yates was mentally ill, either before or during the events that took place. However, in the trial, the decision and weight of prosecution's case lied in the ideal that she had some semblance of knowledge that what she was about to do was wrong. Her mental illness undoubtedly had an effect on how she perceived her actions. She felt that ending her children's lives early would save them from eternal damnation (Dix, 2005).

Two key facts led to the decision in the first trial that she "knew" what she was doing, and that it was "wrong." The first is that she took precautions against being interrupted until she had completed the task. She locked the family dog in the cage when the dog raised protests to her….

Criminal Insane Defense
The insanity defense has been a topic of much controversy because of its perceived means of excusing someone from a crime that has been committed. Although much is perceived of the insanity defense as a way to avoid accountability, it is actually the least used defense strategy because of its extreme difficulty is proving it (Knoll & esnick, 2008). Every individual is different, but someone trying to plead criminally insane in current times would have to extreme case of insanity visibility and an immense amount of proof to demonstrate their case for not being guilty by reason of insanity. In actuality, of all the cases that enter the insanity plea, only 1% of those cases get the plea granted (PBS 2011). This puts into perspective not only the actual effectiveness of this plea, but also the hesitation that comes with actually granting this to any offender. In order….

hat is particularly important in connection with criminally insane defendants whose mental conditions are treatable but dependent on the individual's maintaining a prescription drug regimen. For example, it is an individual suffering from a known mental condition that qualifies for the criteria of criminal insanity may be able to control that condition by following his physicians' orders for prescription medication and then simply stop taking the medication. It is conceivably possible that he could commit murder while legally insane and then be returned to society relatively soon based on resuming the appropriate medical treatment.
Second, permitting the insanity defense deprives the community, especially the victims and survivors of violent crime, from another fundamental purpose of criminal justice, namely, retribution. A perfect example would be the injustice of the case of John Hinckley Jr., who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981, seriously wounding two law enforcement officers and ending….

Ethical Issues With the Insanity Defense
Ethical Issues w / Insanity Defense

The insanity defense may seem to have a distinct and real place in the legal world. However, defining who is insane, who is not insane, what the definition of insanity is, whether insanity is temporary or permanent, who should be liable and when and so forth are all burning questions that are extremely hard to answer in a scientific, dispassionate and objective fashion due to the rights and burdens of everyone involved. This report shall seek to answer questions about the ethics of the lawyers, defendants, prosecutors and even the clinicians involved in the insanity defense process and definitions.

Ethical Issues with the Insanity Defense

The Problem

There are numerous cases that exist currently and historically regarding the "Insanity Defense." In some cases, those convicted for committing heinous crimes, was said to be guilty by reason of insanity (NGI). In some cases, the….

Insanity' Defense
The John Hinckley Trial and the Impact on the Insanity Defense

Purpose of Insanity Defense

The theory that suffices the insanity defense involves the norm that most individuals can choose to follow the law. However, mental instability deprives individuals the ability to make rationale choices thereby they cannot be held accountable for their actions. Such groups of persons require special treatment as opposed to detention in prisons. The use of various forms of punishment does not necessarily deter future antisocial conduct of such mental unstable individuals. In the ancient oman society, legal codes distinguished between the sane and insane individuals depicting accountability and unaccountability of actions respectively.

The Aftermath of the John Hinckley Defense

Backlash and eform

In the John Hinckley case, the jury found the accused not guilty by the reason of insanity. As a result, backlash and public outcry emanated following the ruling. The ruling following the accused attempted assassination of….

hen does insanity excuse criminal liability?

A defendant has an excuse for liability, says Paul Robinson, in his book Criminal Law Defenses, when he or she is acting involuntarily and their own disability causes him or her to mistakenly or unknowingly violate a criminal prohibition. This person does not know whether his or her behavior is wrong or criminal (Robinson 222). This is in contrast to what is called a character-based approach, where a person's adherence to virtues or vices creates a character and a reputation for morality or immorality, upon which they are judged. Finkelstein argues that a system which bases its retributive punishment on a person's character, rather than on the act itself brings about social welfare. Just as one cannot judge a person's moral character upon a single act, one cannot decide the morality or immorality of a person by visible actions. She quotes George Fletcher as saying….

Insanity evaluations represent the most challenging forensic assessments in the criminal domain" (ogers, 2008, p.126). This is due to the fact that insanity evaluations require the psychologist to assess whether a defendant had a mental illness at the time that an offense was committed, and, whether that mental illness was related to the commission of the crime in a way that would make the defendant "insane" under applicable state laws. First, whether or not the defendant is presenting as mentally ill at the time of the assessment is often not relevant to the assessment; most defendants, processed and in the jail system, have access to medications and treatment that they may have lacked at the time of the crime. Therefore, it is important to realize that a defendant's competency to stand trial is a different issue than whether a defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity. If a….

It also states that even if the court-appointed examination in a mental facility finds Holmes insane, he could still be found guilty. Once again, the tone of the article is factual, although it does not really present the arguments of the two opposing sides in a complete fashion as to how Holmes might meet or not meet the Colorado definition of inanity.
Another news article from CNN reveals that Holmes' psychiatrist was frightened by the information she received, and even went so far as to break client privileges by notifying the school where Holmes was still a graduate student. "When James Holmes' psychiatrist warned campus police at the University of Colorado how dangerous he was, they deactivated his college ID to prevent him passing through any locked doors" (Brumfield & Mungin 2012). The article offers a more complete picture of Holmes' relationship with his therapist, detailing how after their relationship….

Calling herself an "ill-fated woman" (1251), Medea told reporters through an emissary that the very sight of the children reminded her of her sacrifices to Jason, and the uncovered plot that Creon and the princess were ready to "throw me out of this land and get away with it" (1358).
The trial promises to be lively, with the prosecution asking for the death penalty with all due prejudice. Defense will have its own challenges, guilt is apparent and admitted, it will remain to see the defense's skill in making the Judge and Jury believe that the circumstance surrounding the crime were sufficient to explain the act. When asked what he'd like to see happen to Medea, her attorney commented, "Has she not suffered enough. Has she not spent years of her life awaiting a husband, faithfully executing her duties to him and never straying. To find out that she was….

This new reformulation of the insanity defense, a kind of a fusion of the earlier M'Naghten and Durham tests, was intended to be a less constrictive version of the right-wrong and irresistible impulse tests. Today, "most states in the union allow this 'right-wrong' test and some states also allow defendants to argue that that they understood their behavior was criminal but were unable to control it. This is sometimes called the irresistible impulse defense" (Martin 1998).
Insanity defenses are controversial amongst the public, just like M'Naghten's acquittal. Yet despite the perception the defense is misused, "less than one percent of defendants plead insanity and, of them, only a quarter win acquittals" (Martin 1998). The majority of defendants acquitted by reason of insanity suffer from schizophrenia or some other mental illness (Martin 1998). To be criminally committed to a state mental institution is not a 'gift.' In almost all cases, a….

In the argumentative essay, "Gender Matters in the Insanity Defense," it is crucial to analyze how gender bias and societal perceptions of mental illness influence the deliberation and application of the insanity defense, ultimately calling for a fair and unbiased approach that considers both the individual's mental state and their gender-specific experiences. One approach to formulating a strong thesis statement for your essay on "Gender Matters in the Insanity Defense" could be to focus on the ways in which gender stereotypes and societal expectations impact both the assessment of insanity and the outcomes of insanity defense cases. You could argue that....

Gender Matters in the Insanity Defense: Exploring the Interplay of Gender, Mental Illness, and Legal Outcomes

The insanity defense, a legal doctrine that seeks to exempt individuals from criminal responsibility due to their mental state, has long been a contentious issue in criminal justice. However, one aspect of this defense that has received less attention is the influence of gender on its application and outcomes. This thesis posits that gender plays a significant role in the insanity defense, shaping both the perception of mental illness and the legal treatment of individuals accused of crimes.

Historical Context and Gender Bias

Historically, the insanity defense....