Insanity defence

11 Key excerpts on "Insanity defence"

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  Legal Insanity and the Brain

  Science, Law and European Courts

  • Sofia Moratti, Dennis Patterson, Sofia Moratti, Dennis Patterson(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Hart Publishing

    (Publisher)

  The affirmative defence of legal insanity applies this fundamental principle by excusing those mentally disordered offenders whose disorder deprived them of rational understanding of their conduct at the time of the crime. 1 This principle is simple but profound. Indeed, in recognition of this, the Insanity defence has been a feature of ancient law and of English law since the fourteenth century. 2 It was universal in the United States until the last decades of the twentieth century and there is still almost near consensus among State and federal lawmakers that the defence must be retained. 3 It is a feature of almost every European criminal code, and even when there is no formal defence, severely mentally disordered defendants are treated differently from offenders with lesser or no mental disorder. The concept of responsibility is intimately related to our most fundamental convictions about human nature and human dignity and our everyday experience of guilt and innocence and blame and punishment. It also explains our common aversion to the idea that we might simply be like machines responding to neural activities in the brain, and our resistance to thinking of all wrongdoing as sickness. Failing to provide an Insanity defence confounds the meaning of what it is to be responsible for one’s actions. It cheapens the idea of being a responsible person by classifying and holding responsible persons intuitively regarded as fundamentally non-responsible. In both law and morals, the capacity for reason is the primary foundation for responsibility and competence. The precise cognitive deficit a person must exhibit can of course vary from context to context. In the criminal justice system, an offender who lacks the capacity to understand the wrongfulness of his actions as the result of severe mental disorder does not deserve full blame and punish-ment and must be excused in a sufficiently extreme case.

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  Criminal Law and Procedure

  • Daniel E. Hall(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  Copyright 2023 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Chapter 8 Factual and Legal Defenses 225 In reality, insanity is a mens rea defense. If a defendant was insane at the time of the crime, it is unlikely that they formed intent. It is generally held that one who is insane is incapable of forming a rational purpose or intent. In fact, in most jurisdictions, defendants may put on evidence to establish that insan- ity prevented the requisite mens rea from being formed. This is the defense of diminished capacity. It is a direct attack on the mens rea element of the crime, separate from the defense of insanity. If successful, the result could be conviction of a lesser, general-intent crime. However, a few states have made defendants choose between the insanity defense and the assertion of lack of mens rea due to insanity. The theory underlying the insanity defense is that no penological purpose is satisfied by punishing the insane. Because insane persons have no control over their behavior, they cannot be deterred from similar future behavior. Similarly, no general deterrence will occur, as others suffering from a mental or physical disease of the mind are not likely to be deterred. The one purpose that may be served, incapacitation, is inappropriate if the defendants no longer suffer from a mental disease, or if the disease is now controlled. If the defendants continue to be dan- gerous, there is no need to use the criminal justice system to remove them from society, because this can be accomplished using civil commitment.

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  Psychiatric Aspects of Justification, Excuse and Mitigation in Anglo-American Criminal Law

  • Alec Buchanan(Author)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • Jessica Kingsley Publishers

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 5 What Does the Law Allow to Excuse? The previous chapter examined ways in which psychiatric conditions contribute to the provision of excuses. This chapter will examine the mechanisms by which those excuses are accommodated by Anglo-American criminal law. These mech-anisms are several. The oldest examples of exculpation consequent upon a defendant’s mental state led to the development of what is now known on both sides of the Atlantic as the ‘Insanity defence’. A related doctrine – unhelpfully labelled ‘irresistible impulse’ – has a history which intertwines with that of the Insanity defence, and which has exerted considerable influence on legislation in the United States. The United States has also seen the adoption of an alternative to the traditional doctrine of insanity. This is referred to here and elsewhere as the ‘product test’. Also reviewed will be the defence of automatism. Finally, the offence of infanticide will be described. A conviction of infanticide has the same effect as a finding of guilty of manslaughter. Diminished responsibility also reduces what would otherwise be murder to manslaughter, but can only be introduced once the defendant has been charged with murder; it was discussed with mitigation (p.54). Infanticide is dealt with here because it stands as a piece of legislation in its own right and can be charged by the Crown in the first instance. INSANITY The earliest references to excusing the insane in England and Wales have been assembled by Walker (1968).

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  Forensic Psychology

  • Matthew T. Huss(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  In either case, the person is referred to as acquitted, just as someone who is found not guilty of a crime. As described in Chapter 1, U.S. criminal law requires mens rea, a guilty mind, for someone to be found guilty or held responsible for most crimes. Mens rea refers to someone intentionally committing a criminal act with a guilty or wrongful purpose. This standard also is expressed in the Latin phrase actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea (“the act will not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty”). An act and the mental state must be present for someone to be guilty of many crimes. In instances in which someone lacks mens rea or it is reduced, criminal responsibility is eliminated or diminished. In the case of insanity, it is the presence of a mental illness that can remove criminal responsibility. Insanity is viewed as a legal compromise to a moral dilemma because society believes it is inappropriate for people who do not know what they are doing or who cannot control their behavior to be punished. As a result, insanity focuses on an individual’s mental state at the time of the criminal act and is often referred to as mental state at the time of the offense, or MSO. It is important to remember that insanity refers to someone’s mental state at the time of the criminal act, while competency focuses on someone’s mental state during the adjudication process. One misconception, among many misconceptions that we will discuss in this chapter, is that insanity is a mental illness or is equated with mental illness. Even though the presence of a mental illness or mental defect is central to the different laws that define insanity, insanity is not identical to mental illness. Insanity is a legal term, not a psy- chological or psychiatric term. You will not find the term insanity listed in the DSM with the diagnostic criteria alongside it as you would other mental illnesses. Someone may suffer from a mental illness and not be insane.

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  Crime, Reason and History

  A Critical Introduction to Criminal Law

  • Alan Norrie(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  For the latter group, it is sometimes better to plead guilty to the charge than to have one’s physical condition (for example, epilepsy: Sullivan (1983); or diabetes: Hennessy (1989)) forced into the law’s pigeonhole of insanity. There have been many attempts to reform the law to produce a workable defence of insanity, but these have yet to be acted upon. Indeed, despite sustained criticism and suggestions for change, famous trials of the 1980s 1 revealed a clear tendency to retrench the law around the traditional, much criticised rules. These continue to reflect the law’s orientation today. On the surface, what is at stake in this area of the law is the question of fairness to the accused and how 1 In Britain, the trials of Dennis Nilsen and Peter Sutcliffe; in the United States, those of Mark Chapman, the killer of John Lennon, and John Hinckley, the would-be assassin of Ronald Reagan. one draws the lines in order to reflect individual responsibility. The issue falls squarely within the orthodox liberal account of doing justice to individuals, and reflects the underlying link between responsibility in law and in morality. Liberal and legal ideology feed into and draw from each other: We are speaking, therefore, of responsibility in the sense of moral or legal accountability. A person is morally responsible if he can justly be blamed and perhaps punished when he does wrong. We do not regard a dog as responsible, or a babe in arms, or a gibbering lunatic. On much the same principle they are not regarded as legally responsible, ie legally liable to punishment through the agency of the courts. (Williams, 1983, 640) The concept of insanity appears to fit neatly into a liberal framework. The insane person is morally, therefore legally, irresponsible for his acts, and unpunishable.

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  Understanding Criminal Law

  • Rodger Geary(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge-Cavendish

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 8

  General Defences

  Insanity

  Where the defendant claims to have been suffering at the time of the offence from some sort of mental disturbance or impairment, then automatism, insanity and, in murder cases, diminished responsibility may all be considered. Automatism, a condition which consists of the body operating without the control of the mind, has been discussed in Chapter 2 and diminished responsibility in Chapter 5 . It should be noted that insanity unlike automatism will not provide a defence to crimes of strict liability (DPP v H (1997)).

  Although insanity may also be an issue where the defendant has been remanded in custody, or at the beginning of the trial itself, most undergraduate courses concentrate on insanity in relation to the defendant’s mental state at the time of committing the offence. It is insanity as a defence at the trial which is discussed here.

  Definition

  In 1843, Daniel M’Naghten, intending to murder Sir Robert Peel, killed his secretary by mistake. Following his acquittal on grounds of insanity, the judges formulated the so called M’Naghten rules which have since become accepted as providing a comprehensive definition of insanity (R v Sullivan (1984)).

  According to these rules, it must be proved (by the defence, on a balance of probabilities) that, at the time the offence was committed, the defendant was labouring under such a defect of reason, arising from a disease of the mind, so as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or, if he did know it, that he did not know that what he was doing was wrong.

  The Nature and Quality of the Act

  As we have noted, one of the two grounds for establishing insanity under the M’Naghten rules is that the defendant’s disease of the mind prevented him from being aware of his actions. For example, in R v Kemp

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  Forensic Medicine in Western Society

  A History

  • Katherine D. Watson(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  4 Criminal responsibility and the Insanity defence

  From the earliest times in Western jurisprudence there has been a tension between the law’s recognized duty to expose and punish the guilty, and those medical, philosophical and psychological theories concerning the determinants of human conduct. The ancient courts took the criminal act itself as evidence of mental capacity and saw to it that damages were compensated, crimes punished and society protected against the deeds of the mad. Ancient Greek and Roman law made specific provision for the insane, and Roman law had precise terms for insane defendants: non compos mentis , fanaticus , ideotus , furiosus . It even recognized that a furiosus might not be mad at the particular time an act was committed, thus accepting that some forms of madness are episodic. However Roman law never defined insanity: rather, it regarded it as a matter of fact, to be settled according to community custom. In practice, however, the insane could not be held accountable for their deeds.

  1

  References to the insane in Justinian’s sixth-century Digest , the part of the Corpus Juris Civilis intended for judges and magistrates and which included selections from classical jurists, noted that uncontrollable lunatics and murderers who were insane at the time of the crime, and not merely feigning, should be imprisoned or confined in their homes, but not punished; insanity was itself punishment enough.

  2

  Ancient Greek law dealt with madness as a practical matter, accepting that some actions were controlled by the gods or by factors beyond individual control, but others by a person’s own deliberate choices. Insane people who committed offences were therefore required to make restitution to the victims or their families, but on a lesser scale than someone who was sane.

  3

  The most influential medical writers of the classical period, the members of the Hippocratic school, argued for naturalistic theories of disease, including mental disease,

  4

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  Mental Health Law 2EA Practical Guide

  • Basant Puri, Robert Brown, Heather McKee, Ian Treasaden(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  3. If an individual was suffering from a delusion, then his actions would be judged by their relationship to the delusion, i.e. if he believed his life to be immediately threatened, then he would be justified in striking out, but not otherwise. Technically, this plea may be put forward for any offence but, in practice, it is put forward usually only for murder or other serious offences. In fact, such a plea is rare. Evidence from two or more medical practitioners, one of whom is approved under Section 12 of the Mental Health Act, is required before the return of the verdict not guilty by reason of insanity. Such a verdict implies lack of intent. However, a psychiatrist can only give evidence regarding an individual’s capacity to form intent (a legal concept), not the fact of intent at the time of the offence. Under the Criminal Procedure Act 1991, if the defendant is found not guilty by reason of insanity, the judge has freedom to decide on the sentencing and disposal of the defendant, i.e. discretionary sentencing, including detention in hospital under forensic treatment orders of the Mental Health Act. Diminished Responsibility As a reaction against the fact that mentally disordered people who had killed were still being hanged despite the McNaughton rules, a movement was created to bring in a defence of diminished responsibility, i.e. the responsibility of the offender is not totally absent because of mental abnormality but is only partially impaired; therefore, the offender would be found guilty but the sentence modified. This was made law in the Homicide Act 1957 and applies only to a charge of murder. The murder charge is reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Under the 1957 Homicide Act (Section 2), as a defence against the charge (only) of murder, the offender could plead that at the time of the offence he had diminished responsibility. Section 2(1) states that:

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  Litigating Morality

  American Legal Thought and Its English Roots

  • Alice Fleetwood Bartee, Wayne C. Bartee(Authors)
  • 1992(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  The matter became even more difficult when related to crime and more complex with the development of modern medicine, especially psychiatry and psychology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. All could agree that some persons were born mentally deficient, some became permanently men- tally disordered, and some suffered fits of intermittent madness; all could agree that on occasions, actually very rare, such persons might commit or attempt to commit crimes. But beyond that, centuries of theological, medical, and legal thought have produced little agreement. The Angles and Saxons who settled in England very early adopted the legal principle that two elements were necessary for a major crime or felony: the act itself and intent maliciously to do it. They allowed lesser penalties for acts committed by a person who might "fall out of his senses or wits." 5 When Christianity and its canon law came to England in the sixth century, it taught that people possess the freedom to choose good or evil and the ability to recognize the difference: it emphasized the importance of a person's intent. The church also taught that while some surrendered their free will to become demon-possessed, witches, warlocks, heretics or traitors, others for reasons known only to God were born or fell into madness which was itself judgment enough on them. The tradition gradually developed in which insane persons were con- The Criminal Insanity Defense 85 victed for their crimes like anyone else, but frequently, even routinely, granted royal pardons. Since they lacked sound reason (non compos mentis), they could not harbor malicious intent (mens rea). 6 Cases involving insanity were rare and case precedent, establishing a common law tradition, accumulated very slowly.

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  Criminal Trials and Mental Disorders

  • Thomas L. Hafemeister(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • NYU Press

    (Publisher)

  As discussed below in conjunction with the temporary insanity defense, another iteration of the insanity defense is what may variously be referred to as the “rubber band,” “psychological duress,” or “defendant snapped” defense. Also addressed below in conjunction with the mens rea “defense” is the intoxication defense.

  Other Issues and Trends Regarding the Criminal Responsibility of Defendants with a Mental Disorder

  As indicated earlier, considerable attention has been given to the insanity defense in the United States, particularly following the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley Jr., with most of the ensuing changes seeking to limit the availability of the defense. The following describes various approaches, beyond the insanity test itself, implemented to address and resolve the criminal responsibility of offenders with a mental disorder at the time of the crime.

  Abolition of the Insanity Defense

  The legislatures in four states—Idaho, Kansas, Montana, and Utah—have taken the most dramatic step and abolished the insanity defense entirely. However, as discussed below, Idaho, Montana, and Utah do permit a guilty but mentally ill verdict, while Kansas has authorized a “lack of mental state” defense (that is, a mens rea defense).52 Indeed, the USSC has indicated that a state must allow evidence regarding the presence of mental illness at the time of the crime to be a factor in some manner in determining a defendant’s verdict.53 The Nevada legislature similarly abolished the insanity defense, only to have the Nevada Supreme Court strike down this legislation as being unconstitutional under both the United States Constitution and the Nevada Constitution, and thereby reinstate, the defense.54 The state supreme courts in Idaho,55 Kansas,56 Montana,57 and Utah,58 however, have upheld the abolition of the insanity defense pursuant to their state constitutions.

  Abolition of Mental Health Evidence

  Some of the criticism of the insanity and related defenses has focused on the related expert reports and testimony provided by mental health professionals. The criticisms are varied but include arguments that these professionals are overly sympathetic to defendants; that their evaluations and conclusions lack scientific rigor, consistency, and validity; that their reports are cursory or filled with mental health jargon that is unresponsive to the legal question; or that the professionals are simply “hired guns.”59 Some jurisdictions, as a result, have considered abolishing the introduction of mental health evidence generated by mental health experts in conjunction with these defenses, thereby necessitating that these determinations be based solely on lay testimony.60

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  Principles of Indonesian Criminal Law

  • Topo Santoso(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Hart Publishing

    (Publisher)

  As previously explained, in order to be convicted, fault must exist. To prove the existence of fault, responsibility must also be proven. This is, of course, very difficult, time- consuming, and it is also costly, if in every case evidence of responsibility must be provided. However, in general, the people who become defendants in court are mentally healthy people who are able to be responsible, thus the element of ‘responsibility’ is deemed inherently present, unless there are signs indicating that the defendant may have an ‘abnormal’ mind. In such a case, the judge must order a special examination of the mental state of the accused. 7 This can also be requested by the defendant’s legal counsel. If the defendant does not ask for an examination, but the judge deems it necessary, the judge can nevertheless order the examina- tion to be carried out. If the results of the examination are indeed ‘abnormal’, then, according to Article 44 of the Criminal Code, the sentence cannot be imposed. 8 Jan Remmelink writes that legislators in the Netherlands have not dealt with this incompetency issue in a thorough manner in comparison to, for example, the German Penal Code, which states that: Innocents are those who act as a result of an illness that interferes with their mental abilities/consciousness, causes profound disturbances to their mental awareness or because of mental disability or other serious mental aberrations, and are therefore unable to understand the unlawful nature of their actions or make decisions based on that understanding. 9 160 Excusatory Defences 10 Remmelink, Hukum Pidana (2003) 216–17. 11 Abidin and Hamzah, Pengantar Dalam Hukum Pidana Indonesia (2010) 183. 12 Soesilo, Kitab Undang-Undang Hukum Pidana (1995) 60–61. See also EY Kanter and SR Sianturi, Asas-Asas Hukum Pidana di Indonesia dan Penerapannya (Jakarta, Storia Grafika, 2018) 258. 13 Remmelink, Hukum Pidana (2003) 220. See also van Bemmelen, Hukum Pidana 1 (1987) 212.

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