CIVIL COMMITMENT AND THE MENTALLY ILL

Civil Commitment and the Mentally Ill

Civil Commitment and the Mentally Ill

Insanity statutes being used in Florida

Due to the reason of insanity, to have a particular defendant to be found not guilty, the law of Florida requires the defense to come up with a prove that the defendant is diagnosed with a Mental illness or disease that had kept the accused defendant from not knowing the difference between wrong and right. The state of Florida uses the M'Naghten Rule, which basically states that the state has the burden to come up with proof that the defendant is mentally ill or not, unlike many other states like Illinois and Indiana where the burden of the proof is on the defendant as they use a modified version of the Model Panel Code rule (Findlaw, n.d.).

How often the insanity defense is used and how successful is it

Insanity defense are used rarely and are rarely successful. A defendant might be crazy as hell, but that does not necessarily make him or her criminally insane. Many of the Jurors feel that the people are dangerous who kill other people and therefore need to be incarcerated in person, rather than to be sent to a mental hospital and given proper treatment for such behavior. Pre Meditation of the crime is one of the key issues that is often the key in a case where insanity defense is tried to be used (TBO, n.d.).

Major criticisms of the insanity defense

One of the most major criticisms that are used against insanity defense today is that the criminal use it to either win acquittals or lessen their sentences. Many of the people feel that on trial attempts the defendants try to fake their way in for mental illness so that they are able to escape the punishment ...