Insanity Defense The insanity defense is primarily based on the concept of insanity, which shows the extent to which a person accused of a crime can avoid criminal responsibility due to mental disease. The terms for this type of defense can be found in special instructions given by the trial judge to the jury at the close of a certain case. These particular instructions can be potentially drawn from different rules and used in the determination of a degree of mental illness, which also influences whether the person will be sentenced to jail or not. Psychologists determine mental ability of a person in order to find is the person really sick or just claim to have mental disorders. However, the insanity defense had crated a lot of problems due to before mentioned reasons, because even today with all the scientific development it is still hard to find whether the person has mental problems or not. Therefore, due to the impossibility of proper diagnosis of insanity there is no actual need to have a law of using insanity defense. On the other hand, some people can be sick and it would be unfair to sentence them to prison. For this reason, insanity defense had become on of major issues of todays society.
That is why such a cases are widely covered in newspapers and on television. Insanity, however, is not a medical term. For this reason, mental illness and insanity should not be viewed as the same thing. It had been proved by psychologists that mental illness could rarely constitute to insanity. Insanity is rather a mental deficiency. The widely accepted concepts of mental illness and insanity bring up a question in a conflict between what are termed legalistic criminology and scientific criminology. It is just the same as punishment vs.
The Essay on The Insanity Plea Defense Guilty One
The insanity defense traces its history to an 1843 assassination attempt on British Prime Minister Robert Peel. Now, about a third of the states allow a guilty by reason of insanity plea (Witkin, 7). Fortunately, on the contrary to popular belief, only one percent of felony cases led to a ruling of not guilty by reason of insanity. When a killer is ruled not guilty by reason of insanity, they are ...
treatment, prisons vs. hospitals etc. However, it had been recognized that it is usually not acceptable to apply psychological theories to law. Mens rea, which is mental act, lies in the center of legal use of insanity concept. The problem is that is too difficult to completely, and adequately analyze this mens rea. I order actually to find out whether a person is insane or not, lawyers should apply some of the rules that psychologists use.
The main criteria for judging insanity are Irresistible Impulse Test according to the MNaghten Rule. However, these rules in their majority are not reliable. The MNaghten Rule is known as the right-wrong test. It came to use after the 1843 trial of Daniel MNaghten, who argued that he was not responsible for his criminal actions, because he was affected by delusions while killing a victim. The M’Naghten Rule reads: A defendant may be excused from criminal responsibility if at the time of the commission of the act the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from a disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and the quality of the act he was doing, or if he did know it, that he did not know that he was doing what was wrong. Thus, according to the rule, a person is insane if he or she is unable to distinguish between what is right and wrong as a result of some mental disability.
Finally, the judging of insanity is laid on the jury, which actually decides whether a person is guilty or notread sane or insane. Well, in my opinion it is a big mistake, because even professionals cannot determine whether a person is mentally ill or not. The pressure on the jury is quite strong, because all the smart lawyers can tell different stories and can make almost anyone to believe that the defendant is insane. Besides, there is a big pressure from the media. One of recent cases widely covered by media was the case of Andrea Yates. She was found to be guilty after murdering five of her children by drowning them in the bathtub. The woman believed that her children were possessed by devil.
The Term Paper on Person Centred
1. Promote person centred values in everyday work 1.1 Understand how to put person-centred values into practice in your day to day work Person-centred is about providing care and support that is centred or focused on the individual and their needs. We are all individual and just because two people might have the same medical condition, for example, Dementia, it doesn’t mean that they require the ...
This actually was the primary reason her lawyer claimed for the proof of her insanity. The woman was actually mentally sick, however prosecutors had claimed that she was absolutely sane of what she was doing (in my opinion only insane person can do such a thingkilling all own children).
For a jury it took less than four hours to reject Yates insanity plea. The jury found her guilty of murder. Another case that used insanity plea was the case of Heidnik, which happened in 1987. His lawyer was Charles Peruto, an experienced attorney with very good reputation.
Heidnik was charged with rape, aggravated assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent exposure, kidnapping, unlawful restraint, simple assault, indecent assault, and murder. Heidnik first raped women, and then killed them. Later police had found the remains of Heidniks victims in his refrigerator. Chuck Peruto had his own strategy of the defense. He was going to plead his client guilty on all charges; however, he was going to try to prove that Heidnik was insane. Psychiatrist Dr. McKenzie and psychologist Jack Apsche were answering Perutos questions after spending approximately 100 hours with Heidnik. Peruto managed to ask the opinion of McKenzie on the most important aspect of an insanity defense.” At the time of the offences, did Gary Heidnik know the difference between right and wrong?” – “No, he did not.” The following day, the defense case received another setback when Judge Abraham refused to admit most of Jack Apsche’s testimony on Heidnik’s mental history, ruling it inadmissible.
Peruto was caught completely off guard by the ruling as most of his insanity defense was based on the testimonies of Apsche and McKenzie but in a short time, McKenzie had undermined his own credibility and Apsche was not allowed to table the results of weeks of painstaking research into Heidnik’s medical history, the details of which Peruto believed would prove that his client had been insane for most of his adult life. Peruto then played his final card by calling Dr. Kenneth Kool, another psychiatrist. Kool was able to give part of his professional opinion regarding Heidnik’s sanity but in a closed session, Judge Abraham ruled that his testimony was “confusing the jury” and ruled that most of it be stricken. Kool also had his testimony damaged in cross examination when he admitted that he had only spent twenty minutes with Heidnik and had “left in frustration,” when Heidnik refused to talk to him. When Gallagher asked what he had based his analysis on, he admitted that he had relied on Heidnik’s previous medical history.
The Research paper on Individual Criminal Defense Case Analysis
This paper will locate two cases that discuss various types of criminal defenses. The two choices are: (1) The Jeffrey Dahmer Case, and (2) State v. Fisher Involuntary Manslaughter Case. The two cases analysis in which this paper identifies and examines the types of criminal defenses that were used. This paper will also explain the nature and types of defenses used in the cases and what evidence ...
There were many witnesses called in the court, many hearings took place, and finally on June 30, 1988 after sixteen hours of deliberation over two-and-a-half days, the jury was ready. As Betty Ann Bennett, the jury foreperson stood to read their verdict, Chuck Peruto was confident that his client would be found guilty of the lesser charge of second-degree murder and thereby escape the death penalty. His hopes were dashed, however when Bennett began reading the verdict. With the verdicts announced, Judge Abraham retired the jury until nine a.m. the following day when the prosecution and defense attorneys would have the chance to address the jury before the sentence was decided. By 12:15pm the next day, the jury had made a unanimous decision; Gary Heidnik should be sentenced to death for the murders of Deborah Dudley and Sandra Lindsay.
Just as he had throughout the trial, Heidnik showed no sign of emotion when the sentence was read. Another case was when the 40-year-old Xerox Corp. repairman pleaded not guilty on Saturday to murder in the shooting deaths of seven co-workers in the worst mass murder in Hawaii’s history. Byran Uyesugi handcuffed and wearing a white jail jumpsuit, kept his eyes downcast and studiously avoided looking at anyone as the charges against him were read in Honolulu District Court. He was charged with seven counts of second-degree murder, one for each man he allegedly killed, and one count of first-degree murder for carrying out the multiple slayings. Following his appearance in court, Uyesugi’s lead defense attorney, Jerel Fonseca, refused to say whether his client had divulged any motive for the killings. Fonseca said: “In a case like this, you have to consider all possible defenses that can be raised by the defendant and certainly the incapacitation mental defense should be explored, and it may be raised at some point in time. Prosecutor Peter Carlisle said he did not think the insanity defense would work in Uyesugi’s case, based on the evidence.
The Essay on Aaron Hernandez Murder Case
Aaron Hernandez Murder Case On the night of June 17, 2013 former New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez allegedly committed murder on 27-year-old Odin Lloyd less than a mile from his home in an industrial park. Police believe that the murder was premeditated by Aaron Hernandez and was also the man who shot Lloyd. The state’s case says that Hernandez felt betrayed by Lloyd, a semi-pro football player ...
This case is in the process. Generally, media portrays such a cases in light of disbelief in the persons insanity. Media has a great impact on the public opinion in such cases. Over the last 15 years public tend to mostly against the insanity defense..
