The Insanity Defense - Are they getting by with Murder Essay

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 defendant is not guilty because of his insanity. The theory of defense tells that people who are insane cannot have the intent necessary to commit a criminal action because they either do not know that action is wrong or cannot control their behavior even when they know the act is wrong. However, this theory is rather controversial as it is complicated to define insanity itself, and the situations in which it can be used to excuse criminal responsibility are complex to define (Insanity Defense 2010).
An insanity defense is a strategy that is used in court to excuse criminal defendant from being punished for making a crime. It means that even after it is verified that a defendant has made a crime, he may avoid criminal liability using a legal insanity defense. An insanity defense constitutes different in all jurisdictions. In some jurisdictions the defendant s not obligatory to be sorry for committing the crime in order to become free of liability. Almost all jurisdictions oblige the defendant to have been sick with mental disease at the time of the criminal action happen, as opposed to at the time of testing.
The insanity defense is allowed to be used in most states around the US and in many other countries also. In the US such states as Montana, Idaho, Kansas, and Utah do not accept the insanity defense. In those states where insanity defense is permitted, the standard of proof necessary for a valid insanity defense is different. In federal courts, the defendant should prove insanity by very clear and convincing evidence. At the same time, in some state courts, the defendant should his prove insanity by a prevalence of the evidence, while other state courts require that the plaintiff disprove insanity beyond a reasonable doubt (Madison 2010).
The idea behind using the insanity defense is essentially that a person deserves the punishment for a crime he committed if he is able to understand the dissimilarity between right and wrong. As it is supposed that a mentally sick person is unable to make right decisions, many people are sure that such criminal defendants should not be legally responsible for their crimes. Usually, a person proclaimed not guilty because of his insanity is asked to go through psychiatric evaluation and treatment. Sometimes, in cases of temporary insanity, such psychiatric evaluation and treatment may not be required. Often the criminals, acquitted for reasons of insanity are sent in mental institutions for treatment (Madison 2010).
The insanity plea is considered to be a very affirmative defense. Using an affirmative defense means that the defendant recognizes and acknowledges the crime that was committed, but does not believe he should be held completely guilty in it. In such a case a person who pleads insanity doesn’t agree that he should hold responsible because he is legally insane, or was mentally sick at the time the crime happened. This plea has caused much controversy during the centuries. There are people who are sure that a murderer or any other unsafe criminal avoid punishment by pretending to have some mental disease. Some people are repelled by the initiative of punishing a person who is not able to understand or control his actions fully.
The key issue of this discussion has been the attempt to agree on a legal explanation of insanity. A lot of various standards have been offered and used in different courts through out the whole world. Inside the USA, the legal explanation of mental disease has evolved into several various forms during the last couple decades. In chronological order, these are the regulations of thumb that have been implemented to settle insanity pleas in the USA.
Over the centuries it was believed that the civilized society should not punish a person who mentally was not able to control his behavior. In 1724 in England, the court resolved that the man was not responsible for his actions if “he not more than… a wild beast knew what he was doing”. However, modern standards of legal liability were based on a decision by M’Naghten in 1843.
The first attempt to legally define insanity was made in England. That issue became famous as the M’Naghten rule, after the case of paranoid schizophrenic man who was proclaimes not guilty after killing a politician in 1843. Daniel M’Naghten was a Scottish woodcutter who killed the secretary to the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, in a failed attempt to kill the prime minister himself. M’Naghten truly was sure that the prime minister was the architect of the countless personal and financial misfortunes that happened with him. During his trial, nine witnesses proved that he was insane, and the jury acquitted Daniel, finding him “not guilty by reason of insanity” (Borum 1999). Queen Victoria does not agree with this result, and asked the House of Lords to review the verdict together with a panel of judges. Those judges reversed the decision of jury, and the formulation that appeared from their review proclaimed that a defendant could not be considered legally responsible for criminal actions he committed while having mental disorder that either a) prevented him from understanding what he was doing, or b) prevented him from understanding that his actions, behavior wrong and immoral. It became the base of the law governing legal responsibility in cases of insanity in England. The M’Naghten rule was implemented with almost no changes by US courts for more than a century, until the middle of the 20th century. In the year or1998, 25 states and the District of Columbia continued to use versions of the M’Naghten rule to check for legal insanity (From Daniel M’Naughten to John Hinckley 2010).
There were people in the US and England who understood that such a law was too lenient, and that an individual was not to be excused of criminal actions as long as he was capable of controlling his actions. In 1887 the Alabama Supreme Court developed the “irresistible impulse test.” According to the law, people who tried to plead insanity had to show, prove that they were unable to control their actions when their crimes were committed. There were several states that adopted the law, that was criticized both for being extremely strict and very soft by different parties.
Nevertheless the Durham Rule was first devised in New Hampshire in 1954, it was not commonly used in the USA until the 1950’s. That law stated that anyone whose criminal actions happened because of his mental disease was not responsible for those crimes. It is interesting that rather than being set free, some people found mentally sick were imprisoned in mental hospitals, usually for an indefinite period. Nowadays New Hampshire is the only state that still uses the Durham rule (Devine 2010).
In the 70-s a number of state and federal courts adopted a broader legal definition of insanity, proposed by the American Law Institute and meaning: “Man is not responsible for criminal action if at the moment of such behavior as a result of mental sickness or defect he did not have essential opportunities to estimate the illegality of his action or to subject his behavior to the law” (White 1985). The word essential means that not every failure is sufficient to avoid criminal liability, but that a complete failure is also not required. Using the word “estimate” instead of “know” means that the intellectual understanding of right and wrong is not enough, a person must understand to some extent the moral and legal consequences of his action before he can be held criminally liable.
Since late 1970-s the US began feeling dissatisfaction with the used criteria of insanity. In that regard, that time several U.S. states have either abolished the defense based on the insanity (Montana), or significantly restricted its criteria (Utah), or started using a new type of verdict to supplement the traditional alternative – a conviction or acquittal: “guilty but mentally ill” (Michigan). But the greatest impact on the current state of American law and jurisprudence relating to the insanity defenses, had a case of John Hinckley who assassinated attempt on President Ronald Reagan and wounded him and three other men on March 30, 1981 (Robin 1997).
An attempt, which saw a large number of witnesses and millions of people on their television screens, happened at the time when Ronald Reagan was walking from the Hilton Hotel in Washington to his car. John Hinckley had tried to protect himself using the insanity defense and the case was examined using the criterion of the Model Penal Code, adopted at that time in the federal courts of the District of Columbia. Prosecution and defense differed in their assessments of the nature and severity of mental disorder of John and his ability to coordinate his behavior with the requirements of the law. Defense’s arguments were more compelling for the jury and they made a verdict “not guilty by reason of insanity” (Gerard 1999). Jury’s verdict and, accordingly, the justification of John Hinckley were roundly criticized and led to increased legislative activity throughout the country.
Many Americans were outraged by that verdict and felt that the protection under the guise of insanity became a legal loophole that allowed too many guilty people go free. In response, Congress passed the Insanity Defense Reform Act in 1984, which contained several provisions that impeded the release of the defendant from legal responsibility. For example, the Act replaces the wording of the American Law Institute, “there was no essential opportunity… to estimate…” to the phrase “not able to estimate”; it stipulates that a mental disease or defect should be “serious” (this excludes non-psychotic disorders such as antisocial personality) and it carries the burden of proof from the prosecution to defense (now not the prosecution must prove that the man was undoubtedly sane at the time of the offense, but the defense must prove that he was insane, and present “clear and convincing evidence”) (Steury 1991). This law applies to all cases considered in the federal courts, and approximately half of the state courts. The result of its introduction, is too early to be evaluated.
Another attempt to clarify the legal insanity defense is the verdict “guilty but mentally ill”. Originally proposed in Michigan, it was accepted in 11 states (in some of these states it replaces the verdict of being not guilty based on insanity; in other is an additional option). In general, the law permits to recognize the person guilty but mentally ill, if the defendant was found to have a significant mental or mood disorder, he suffered from it at the moment of crime and it significantly violated his sanity, behavior, ability to understand reality or ability to cope with the ordinary demands of life. The action of the verdict “guilty but mentally ill”, however, achieves the same effect that the verdict of legal insanity. The verdict of “guilty but mentally ill” allows judges to condemn a person whom they consider dangerous, and at the same time seeks to guarantee the provision of psychotherapeutic treatment to him. Such a person may receive treatment in prison, or first to undergo treatment at a psychiatric clinic, then go back to jail when he is deemed fit to serve the sentence. The problem remains the same: whether the treatment in any of these places can be sufficient for the rehabilitation of this person.
It is worth recalling that after the case of John Hinckley, the American Bar Association and the American Psychiatric Association recommended to narrow criteria of the defenses based on insanity due to the exclusion of its volitional trait, and the American Medical Association suggested to opt ​​out of this mode of defense in criminal cases. In following the verdict three years, the U.S. Congress and more than half the states have substantially changed the laws concerning the defense on the basis of insanity. The main justification for these changes was the need of finding a proper balance between individual rights and safety of the society.
As a result, the formulation of the Model Penal Code has lost its significance as the most widely used: at the end of 1990 it was preserved in 21 states. In some states, the only criterion was the inability to understand or be aware of the nature or the blameworthiness of his behavior, which excluded the independent role of volitional trait of insanity to justify the subject. Thus, by the end of 1990, the M’Naghten rules in traditional or modified formulations were used in 25 states and the District of Columbia. New Hampshire has saved its criterion, and two states (Idaho and Utah) joined the State of Montana, canceling the defense on the basis of insanity. In addition to protection on the basis of insanity 12 states, 8 of them after the case of Hinckley, added a verdict of “guilty but mentally ill” (Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, etc.). In accordance with this verdict the defendant is deemed to be criminally responsible despite his mental disorders. In other words, a mental disorder is recognized, but not regarded as serious enough to be able to mean his insanity in a legal sense. As a result of this verdict, the convicted person is sent to prison, where he must undergo psychiatric treatment (Spiegel 2000).
Fears of the public that the defense on the basis of insanity may become a convenient loophole in the criminal law are almost unreasonable. This defense is rarely used, and real cases of an acquittal by reason of insanity are even rarer. Judges are not inclined to believe that people do not have the moral responsibility for their actions, and lawyers, knowing that the reason of insanity, rather, will be rejected, use it only as a last means. Less than 1% of defendants charged in serious crimes, were found not guilty based on their insanity. Newer the less there are enough cases when murders used insanity defense and avoided capital punishment, being sent to the hospital for treatment. This paper provides reports about several such cases when murderers were successful with this defense.
One of the most vivid examples of insanity defense use is given in the case of Andrea Yates, a former resident of Houston, Texas, known for the murder of her little children on June 20, 2001, drowning them in the bathroom of her house. For many years she has been gravely affected by postpartum depression and psychosis. Her case was the first serious attempt to systematize the motivation of the mentally sick people in the criminal law, to reveal the legal test of sanity under close public scrutiny in the US (Jordan 2003).
An assumption that the mother-killer just became crazy arose from the very beginning of the investigation. After the detention Yates said to the prison psychiatrist that she considered herself to be a bad mother that had “the Devil inside”; and since children were “properly developing” – the killing was the only way to send them to paradise. However, the investigation has decided not to share the ideas of the criminal. Yates was denied in medical examination: Prosecutors argued that she “was able to determine what is right and wrong”. In the first trial, the prosecutor Kaylynn Villford said that Yates “wait, when her husband left for work”, and acted “calmly and deliberately” when she called the police. The prosecutor was sure that Andrea Yates had been planning the murder of her children for two years (Kennett 2002).
In 2002, the Texas court found Andrea Yates guilty in a felony and sentenced to life imprisonment. However the sentence had to be canceled. It became known that the expert acting for the prosecution gave false testimony. Forensic psychiatrist Park Deets argued that Yates in the killing of children had acted as the heroine of one of the episodes of criminal TV show “Law & Order”. As it turned out, there was not a single similar episode. So last year the Court of Appeal sent the case back for reconsideration.
This time, defense lawyers managed to prove that Yates killed kids in a state of “severe postpartum psychosis”. According to experts, the defendant had “a long history of mental illness”. Previously, she repeatedly tried to commit suicide. “Mrs. Yates is one of the five most severe patients I have ever seen” – told the psychiatrist Eileen Starbranch (Skeem 2004).
Prosecutor Joe Owmby said he was “extremely disappointed” the current court decision. According to him, the police and some experts, psychiatrists still believe that Yates is well aware of what she does. “She knew that she was committing a sin, knew that it was contrary to all laws, she knew that the community would condemn her actions!” – said Owmby (Skeem 2004). At the same time, the prosecutor stated that the court was unlikely review the case for the third time: over the past five years, the public began to sympathize with Yates, none doubts her mental illness.
The former husband of Andrea – Rusty Yates – said he was pleased that the judge took into account the insanity of his wife and did not send her to jail. Unfortunate father sat out almost the entire process again. He was outraged how prosecutors showed the judges photos of children, trying to prove that the prison was the only true solution. Andrea Yates looked shocked while she was being read an acquittal; attorney George Parnham helped her to wipe the tears pouring down her cheeks. The rest of the life Andrea will spend in a psychiatric hospital. Occasionally she still has to visit the judge in order he could make sure that the punishment was lifted right.
So, she was examined by forensic medical commission at a public hospital of North Texas, the campus Vernon, a mental health facility with a high degree of security, which is located in Vernon, Texas, where she received medical help and had a roommate Dena Schlosser – another female child-killer. In January 2007, Yates was transported to a psychiatric hospital with a low degree of security in Kirwill, Texas (Knoll 2008).
In continuation of the topic, there is a need to tell about Dena Schlosser – a woman from Texas who in 2004 killed her eleven-month-old daughter, amputating the child’s arms with a knife and probably thinking that she was making a gift for God. Her daughter later died in the hospital. During the investigation, the psychiatrist David Self informed a court that Dena Schlosser had taken a TV news story about a little boy being tormented by a lion as a sign of the apocalypse beginning. Schlosser told that she heard God commanding her to remove her child’s arm and then her own (Benders 2006). That attack was later called a “religious frenzy” (MSNBC News 2004).
Dena Schlosser was found not guilty by reason of mental illness and was sent to the North Texas State Hospital. She shared a room with Andrea Yates, another murderer of children who was not found guilty thanks to successful use of insanity defense. In 2008, it was known that Schlosser would be released into outpatient care for some period of time. The order makes her to see a psychiatrist once a week, take medicine, and not have any contact with kids. The 2005 documentary The God Who Wasn’t There mentions Schlosser, in a list of people who have conducted or incited others to conduct criminal actions because of their Christian beliefs (Torry 2010).
The case of Beverly Allitt who killed 4 children is a vivid example how it is possible to use insanity defense successfully. The murderer of children Beverly Ellitt got a nickname the “Angel of Death.” She was a professional nurse and killed children by injecting them potassium chloride or insulin into the blood to induce cardiac arrest. She killed 4 children and tried to call 9. All 13 attempted murders have taken place in a very short period of time, during just two weeks! Some of her victims were not older than two months old, and the eldest was 5 years old. The psychiatrists who studied the case of Ellitt concluded that the nurse suffered from a strange mental disorder known as “Munchausen syndrome”. She killed and hurt others to attract attention from others. Even as a child she liked to pretend to be seriously ill. Ellitt is still in the hospital for the criminally insane. She was given 13 life imprisonments and the families of killed children have promised to crack her down, if she ever release (Aharoni 2008).
The case of Susan Leigh Vaughan Smith is also one of the examples how a murderer could avoid sentence to life using insanity defense. Susan Smith was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering her two sons, Michael and Alex. She tried to behave like a mentally ill person, arguing that the murder happened because of her religious beliefs, but the facts indicated otherwise. Just before the tragedy, the beloved man of Susan, Tom broke with her. Then Smith brought their children to the river, removed the hand brake and pushed it into the water. She stood and watched the car with two babies inside sinking, and then called the police and stated that the black man committed the crime. She made statements on television, wishing to return her children. And after 9 days, her car with children was found drowned at Lake John D. Long Lake.
All residents who previously sympathized her and tried to help felt cheated that time. The woman not only killed their children, but also tried to blame the black man, sparking interracial struggle. Susan told that when she was a child her raped stepfather her. Her stepfather committed suicide when she was 6 years old. She committed suicide attempt at age of 13 and after graduation in 1989 she committed 2nd attempt. Growing up, Susan was dreaming about ideal love, at the same time feeling the need for regular sex. Already behind the bars, Susan managed to have sex with two prison guards, one of whom infected her with syphilis. Her attempt to use insanity defense failed and she will spend the rest of her life in jail (Butler 2006).
Discussing the insanity defense, it is worth recalling the case, which was widely discussed in the newspapers during the 2007. It was written that a resident of Hutchinson, accused in putting his two small children to the clothes dryer was sent to a psychiatric hospital. The court found the man not guilty by reason of insanity. November 28, 2006, the 27-year-old Aaron Pritchard put a 3 year-old boy and 2 year-old girl into a hot clothes dryer. Pritchard himself didn’t see anything wrong in his actions.
The prosecution insisted that the man had put his children into the dryer in order to punish them. As a result of the accident the boy received second degree burns, the girl was not hit. Pritchard insisted that he wanted to ride children in the dryer, and he even placed a pillow in order kids had a more comfortable ride. At the beginning of the trial, the court wanted to release Pritchard on bail because the court found that the investigation did not have enough evidence that the man intentionally wanted to cause harm to children. However, recently a man was found mentally incompetent and sent to the hospital. The hearing will continue after Pritchard will be mentally healthy (Kinscherff 2010).
In January of this year, all newspapers reported that the Arizona shooter might avoid deserved punishment because of insanity. The case is that on Jan. 8, 2011 Jared Lee Loughner appeared at a meeting with U.S. Congressman of Arizona Gabrielle Giffords, where he shot six people, including a girl born on the day of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 and federal Judge John Roll. In addition, Jared Loughner wounded thirteen people, including Gabrielle Giffords. After committing the crime Loughner tried to escape but he was stopped.
As part of the criminal case “U.S. vs. Jared Lee Loughner”, Jared was blamed in five counts: two concerned the murder of federal civil servants, while the other three – the attempts of murder of government officials, including Giffords. The public defender of Loughner was Judy Clarke, who earlier defended Theodore Kaczynski and Zakaria Moussaoui.
On the 19th of January 2011 instead of the original charges against Loughner made by Tucson prosecutors, there appeared the first accusation made ​​by the “grand jury” – a special jury. At that moment Loughner was charged only in an attempt to kill Giffords and her assistants. The final list of accusations was formulated in March 2011: Loughner was accused of killing six people and wounding of 13 people while shooting. Experts were sure that Loughner deserved the death penalty. Nevertheless there were fears that the lawyer of Loughner would try to use insanity defense and thereby help to avoid the capital punishment. Loughner himself refused to plead guilty. This case is not closed and the possibility of using insanity defense still exists (Lacey 2011).
Summarizing everything was written above, it is possible to say that the rule for claiming a criminal defendant is not guilty because of his insanity has been varying during the years from strict procedure to a more lenient version, and back to a more strict set again. Even though definitions of legal insanity are different in different states, in general an individual is considered insane and can be not responsible for his crimes if, at the time of the crime, because of a serious mental disease or defect, he was not able to realize the nature or the wrongfulness of his actions. As unruly intent is an important part of almost all offenses, an individual who is insane is not able to form such intent. His mental illness or defect does not alone form a legal insanity defense. The defendant feels difficulty in proving the defense of insanity by obvious and persuasive evidence (Montaldo 2010).
The modern history of the insanity defense comes from the case of Daniel M’Naghten happened in 1843, who made an attempt to murder the prime minister of Britain and was not found guilty for the reason that he was insane at that time. It influenced the implementation of a clear and exact definition of legal insanity which is recognized as the M’Naghten Rule. Even though insanity defense is used rather rare, comparing to other defense technologies, there are still a lot of examples how it helped to avoid capital punishments. Successful use of insanity defense often causes debates and disagreements in the society as it is and will be a controversial defense strategy.