The Insanity Plea

Abstract

In this research we try to discover the insight of “Insanity Plea” in a holistic perspective. The key heart of the study is on “Insanity Plea” and its relation with “Justice”. The research also examines various characteristics of “Insanity Plea” and tries to measure its effect. Lastly the research illustrates a variety of factors which are responsible for “Insanity plea” and tries to describe the overall effect of it.

.

Table of Contents

Introduction4

Discussion5

History of the Defense6

Insanity Defense Reform Act of 19846

The Supreme Court Gets Involved7

Pro: Arguments in Support of the Insanity Defense7

Con: Arguments Against the Insanity Defense8

Conclusion9

The Insanity Plea

Introduction

Controversy is endemic to the insanity defense. The term insanity routinely attracts widespread public attention that is far out of proportion to the defense's impact on criminal justice. Part of this public fascination results from a few truly gruesome and highly bizarre crimes that tend to be sensationalized in the mass media. For example, in the 1990s, the Wisconsin case of Jeffrey Dahmer attracted widespread media and public attention.

Dahmer murdered 17 young men from 1978 to 1991. Commonly, he would drug his victims, sometimes torturing them before killing them, often by strangulation. He dismembered his victims' bodies and attempted to have sexual relations with their corpses. He kept part of the corpses, particularly the skulls, in his apartment. When charged with murder, Dahmer raised the insanity defense, claiming he should be found “not guilty by reason of insanity.” His defense was based in necrophilia, a serious mental illness in which a person has urges to have sexual relations with dead persons. Dahmer claimed that he could not control his necrophilia and hence required a regular supply of corpses, which in turn led him to commit the murders. The jury, however, rejected the defense and chose to find Dahmer guilty of murder, for which he was sentenced to life in prison. In 1994, Dahmer was beaten to death by another prisoner (Maeder, 1985).

If the jury had accepted Dahmer's defense, he could have been found not guilty strictly on the basis of insanity at the time of the murders. Public perceptions often question how someone who commits crimes as brutal and inhuman as Dahmer's should even be allowed to raise a defense like insanity. How could a severely depraved person like Dahmer be considered for exoneration of his crimes because of his profound mental illness? If Dahmer wasn't considered too insane to be criminally punished, who should? On the other hand, if a clearly crazed serial killer like Dahmer, who had sexual relations with corpses and even ate some of their body parts, was found not insane, who can possibly qualify as insane?

Discussion

The criminal law presumes a defendant is sane at the time of the crime. Thus, insanity is usually an affirmative defense; that is, it is the defendant's obligation to raise it. If successful, a defendant may be found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI). This verdict reflects a societal preference for mental-health treatment over criminal punishment for persons whose mental illness ...