Misconceptions about insanity pleas

I realize that it's unfathomable to people that someone can kill someone and not be in their right mind, but an insanity plea is not the cop-out the majority of people try to make it out to be. It gets fairly annoying watching people who know little to nothing about either mental illness or the law pronouncing that all these people are faking and are really just monsters and should be tortured to death.

http://www.healthyminds.org/insanitydefense.cfm

Feel free not to listen to the American Psychiatric Association, of course, it's not like they're the experts on the subject...

Questions and Answers on Using “Insanity” as a Legal Defense

How can a person who admits committing a crime be found "not guilty by reason of insanity?"

In this context, "not guilty" does not mean the person did not commit the criminal act for which he or she is charged. It means that when the person committed the crime, alleges he or she could not tell right from wrong or could not control his or her behavior because of severe mental defect or illness. Such a person, the law holds, should not be held criminally responsible for his or her behavior. The legal test for insanity varies from state to state.

Are "sane" and "insane" medical terms?

No. The word "insane" is a legal term. Because research has identified many different mental illnesses of varying severities, it is now too simplistic to describe a severely mentally ill person merely as "insane." Although most people with mental illness do not commit crimes, of those who do, the vast majority would be judged "sane" under current legal tests for insanity.

Don't many criminals try to use the insanity defense to escape severe punishment?

No. First, the insanity defense is not often raised, and when raised, it is usually unsuccessful. According to a 1991 eight-state study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the insanity defense was used in less than one percent of the cases in a representative sampling of cases before those states' county courts. The study showed that only 26 percent of those insanity pleas were argued successfully. Most studies show that in approximately 80 percent of the cases where a defendant is acquitted on a "not guilty by reason of insanity" finding, it is because the prosecution and defense have agreed on the appropriateness of the plea before trial. That agreement occurred because both the defense and prosecution agreed that the defendant was mentally ill and met the jurisdiction’s test for insanity. Clearly, the implication is that the insanity defense is rarely used successfully by malingerers.

Other studies over the past two decades report similar findings. According to Myths and Realities: A Report of the National Commission on the Insanity Defense, in 1982 only 52 of 32,000 adult defendants represented by the Public Defender's office in New Jersey--less than two tenths of one percent--entered the insanity plea, and only 15 were successful. A similar number of insanity defense pleadings--"far less than one percent"--were entered in Virginia during the same period. A 2001 study in Manhattan (Kirschner and Galperin) noted that over a ten year period, psychiatric defenses were offered by only 16 out of every 10,000 indicted defendants. More than 75% of the time that a psychiatric defense was successful, it was the result of the prosecutors’ consent. Out of nearly 100,000 felony indictments during that period, only 17 juries heard arguments concerning the insanity defense and their deliberations resulted in only 4 insanity acquittals. These authors concluded, “if the prosecutor does not accept the defense, the judge or the jury is not very likely to accept it either.”
The insanity defense is used in defending against many charges, not just murder. The eight-state study found that while half of those pleading insanity in the surveyed cases had been indicted for violent crimes, less than 15 percent were charged with murder. The rest were charged with robbery, property damage, or minor felonies. Of the 15 New Jersey cases described above which successfully used the defense, only three involved murder. More than 25 percent of Missouri insanity verdicts reviewed by the National Commission for its report involved less serious crimes such as auto theft or bad checks, and one involved the theft of a cheap pen.

How long are persons found "not guilty by reason of insanity" committed to a mental hospital?

What happens to a defendant after a judge or jury returns a finding of insanity depends on the crime committed, and on the state in which the trial takes place. Usually, those found "not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI)" are confined for treatment in a special hospital for severely mentally ill persons who have committed crimes. After a period of time, the person may request a hearing to determine if he or she is no longer a danger to self or others or no longer mentally ill, and is therefore eligible to be released.

Studies show that persons found not guilty by reason of insanity, on average, are held at least as long as--and often longer than--persons found guilty and sent to prison for similar crimes. In a 1983 case (Jones v. United States), the US Supreme Court held that an NGRI acquittee “could be confined to a mental hospital for a period longer than he could have been incarcerated had he been convicted.”

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Are we seeing the numbers, here? Statistics seem to show that it's less than one percent of all pleas entered that are insanity pleas, with less than 1/4th of those pleas being successful. That's an insanely small fraction of these pleas being found acceptable to judge/jury. And, when they are found insane, they don't just walk, they generally go to a facility for the mentally ill who have committed crimes - otherwise a prison for the mentally ill... How is this a cop-out?

I get that people don't understand how someone can kill their children or their families or whatever other horrendous crime they've committed... but it's not a cop-out when people use it as a plea... it's so unlikely to be successful that a lawyer won't use it as a defense unless they're very certain that it will succeed... Do you think judges and juries are just waiting around to let people "off the hook" for horrendous crimes? They only rule that a person is mentally ill when there's overwhelming evidence in court showing such.

Do you really think that all these psychiatric experts, and judges/juries are wrong, and just didn't put enough thought into these verdicts?

I don't get it.

C.

Thank you for posting this.

Some of that I was aware of, but some I wasn't.

My cousin was let go after stabbing his own brother... I dont consider him crazy, I really just dont think he was thinking at the time.

He did serve 1 yr in a mental hospital but was released about 3 months ago.

I was the only one in the family (besides his dad) who still talks to him.



** edited to add:
if he would have been charged with a "sane" mentality he would have had to serve20 years without possibility of parole

interesting.

i think my "beef" w/ the insanity plea is not one founded on the actual results of using it (e.g. what you've posted here, which was very informative and i'm glad to know that legally insane people may be incarcerated for a longer period than they might have been otherwise) but the actual fact it exists as a defense in the first place.

psychiatric evaluations are a touch and go thing in the first place. and i don't think our legal system (or any legal system) should necessarily be concerned w/ intent beyond the actual facts that lead to the crime in question (e.g. the defendant wanted to kill his brother b/c he slept w/ his wife.)

but i suppose there's the rub...

if psychosis creates the intent then it becomes part of the trial... but personally, i have a hard time comprehending preciesly why that means the person is not directly accountable for their actions despite being mentally unstable.

if i am very angry (for whatever reason) when i commit a violent crime this would not count as mentally unstable/insane b/c-- according to standard psychiatric thinking, i am typically in control of myself. whereas a person w/ a known history of depression/bi-polarism/what-have-you, may have a case-- where in the end, they would not be considered in control of their actions b/c they have been classified as suffering from a mental/emotional disorder that left them a passive agent in their own body.

as far as i can tell, what the insanity plea boils down to is the fact that modern society is willing to pathologize emotional and mental disorders to the degree that we create a scenario of passive victimhood to our own emotions and cognitive states. this is model i personally disagree for a number of reasons , and in this case, specifically b/c the insanity plea-- in all its subjective glory, really hangs on the evaluation of psychiatrists (very subjective stuff here) and our acceptance of their people-are-passive-victims-of-cognitive disorders model.

anyway, thanks for posting this data, i had a very lousy understanding of how the insanity plea has actually been used in court.

You are welcome.

Thank you for your insight as well  

C.

YES! I actually got to link this somewhere. Awesome.