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In a Criminal Trial , the insanity defenses are possible Defense s by Excuse , via which Defendant s may argue that they should not be held Criminally Liable for breaking the Law , as they were Mentally Ill at the time of their allegedly criminal actions. It is important to note that the legal definition of "insane" in this context is quite different from the psychiatric definitions of "mentally ill". Also, the definition of insanity varies from one jurisdiction to another.

The insanity defense is still in use in the United States, while Australia and Canada have renamed it the Mental Disorder Defence , as Commonwealth nations tend to shy away from it, partially due to the stigma of the word "insanity".

In England and Wales, for instance, the use of this defense is fairly rare. It is more common for someone with a mental illness to use the fact that they were mentally ill at the time of the offense as mitigation (which is distinct from a complete defense, which is what insanity is), or to use their mental state at the time of the trial to alter their sentence if found guilty (That is, once found guilty they receive an order committing them to a hospital rather than a prison sentence). When insanity is used, the person may still receive a hospital order.

The insanity defense is available in most jurisdictions that respect . Where the Self-defense defense is not available, a defendant may be forced to choose between an insanity defense and Provocation .

This defense is based on the principle that Guilt is determined by examining if the defendant was capable of distinguishing right and Wrong . A defendant making this argument might be said to be pleading "not guilty by reason of insanity" (NGRI).

Defendants may prefer to use the special defense of diminished responsibility because if successful, they will not be labeled as insane. For diminished responsibility, sentences can range from an absolute discharge to life imprisonment.

See also Diminished Responsibility .


PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENTS

Those found to have been not guilty by reason of insanity are generally then required to undergo Psychiatric treatment, except in the case of temporary insanity ( See Below ). Defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity are generally placed in a mental institution. Unlike defendants who are found guilty of a crime, they are not institutionalized for a fixed period, but rather they are held within the institution until authorities determine that they are no longer a threat. Authorities making this decision tend to be cautious; as a result, defendants can often spend more time there than they would have in prison (had they been convicted). In '' Foucha V. Louisiana '' ( 1992 ) the Supreme Court Of The United States ruled that a person could not be held "indefinitely".


Psychosis

In practice, a finding of "not guilty by reason of insanity" almost always requires that the defendant have been in a state of active Psychosis (at the time the law was broken) and usually such findings involve a Diagnosis of Schizophrenia or Schizoaffective Disorder , but may also involve Bipolar Disorder , particularly where the Bipolar disorder is accompanied by psychotic features. The use of the insanity defense in cases of Psychopathy ( Antisocial Personality Disorder ) is generally available only if the defendant has a co-occurring DSM-IV Axis I diagnosis, and then it becomes a difficult task for the forensic psychiatrist to determine whether the criminal act was the result of antisocial personality disorder or the Axis I diagnosis.


Incompetency, intoxication, and mental illness

An important distinction is the difference between competency and criminal responsibility. Competency deals with whether a defendant is able to adequately assist his attorney in preparing a defense, make knowing decisions concerning trial strategy and whether or not to plead guilty or accept a plea agreement. Criminal responsibility deals with whether a defendant can be held legally responsible for his criminal behavior. Thus, competency deals with the defendant's present condition, while criminal responsibility deals with his/her condition at the time the crime was committed.

In the United States , a trial in which the insanity defense is invoked typically involves the testimony of Psychiatrist s who will argue that the defendant is or is not insane. If there is agreement between the prosecution and defense that the defendant is insane then typically a jury trial is waived and a trial occurs in front of a judge in which evidence is presented and a judgment rendered. If there is disagreement between the prosecution and defense, each will typically present expert witnesses to a jury which will decide whose witnesses to believe.

The legal concept of insanity is different from the )


HISTORY OF THE INSANITY DEFENSE

The concept of defense by insanity has existed since Ancient Greece and Rome . Edward II , under English Common law, declared that a person was insane if their mental capacity was no more than that of a "Wild Beast". The first complete transcript of an insanity trial dates to 1724 . The fate of insane defendants was uncertain in the United Kingdom until the Criminal Lunatics Act 1800 , following the acquittal of James Hadfield , provided for their indefinite detention.
The insanity plea was regularized in English law with the M'Naghten Rules , which came as a direct result of the attempted assassination of British Prime Minister Robert Peel in 1843 (1). The insanity plea can be used if "at the time of the commission of the acts constituting the offense, the defendant as a result of a severe mental disease or defect, was unable to appreciate the nature and quality of the wrongfulness of his acts." The key is that the defendant could not appreciate the nature of his actions ''during'' the commission of the crime, not before or after.

However, in the United States, the pioneer in the insanity defense could be credited to New Hampshire Chief Justice Charles Cogswell Doe. In '' Ford V. Wainwright '' 477 U.S. 399 (1986), the US Supreme Court ruled that insane Prison ers cannot be Executed .


CONTROVERSY OVER THE INSANITY DEFENSE


There are many different interpretations of "insane" and many different notions of how to deal with insane individuals.

Some opponents of the insanity defense, including Thomas Szasz , believe that psychiatry itself emerged as a way to justify mercy, of making persons "exceptional" and thus not deserving of the harsh punishment we would as a society wish to dole out to people who had extremely selfish or widely shared rationales for their actions. Since extreme selfishness ("self-absorption") or broadly shared resentments (e.g. envy of the rich, hatred of another ethnic group) are somewhat infectious behaviors, some argue that Schizophrenia and other "mental illness" were defined into existence to protect those whose motives and behaviors were not so infectious, and whose offenses were thus unlikely to be repeated by others. The cost of this system of mercy, however, was to classify the Psychiatrist and Patient in an ongoing Unequal-power Relationship (See Anti-psychiatry ).

In ancient Rome, Latin tribes held various religious beliefs that included considering the insane to be divinely blessed, and therefore beyond the reach of human jurisdiction. It is alleged that insanity as an excuse was introduced in the ancient Roman legal system based upon this tradition. Some modern critics claim that this precedent precludes the insanity defense's validity in a modern secular state like the United States .

The public tends to believe that the insanity defense is used more often than it actually is, possibly because insanity defense cases tend to be of a high-profile nature. The insanity plea is used in the U.S Criminal Justice System in less than 3% of all Criminal cases, and only one fourth of those defendants are found "not guilty by reason of insanity".

Some U.S. courts have begun to ban the use of the insanity defense and a 1994 Supreme Court ruling upheld the right of Montana to do so. Idaho and Utah have also banned this defense. In 2006, the Supreme Court decided '' Clark V. Arizona '', reaffirming the prerogative of the states to deviate from or even totally abolish the insanity defense.

One novel use of the insanity defense occurred in the case of Lee Boyd Malvo , who plead not guilty by reason of insanity in the autumn 2003 Beltway Sniper Shootings . Many legal experts believe that the purpose of raising the defense was not to gain an acquittal but to allow the defense to introduce otherwise inadmissible evidence about Malvo's upbringing, his relationship with John Allen Muhammad , and his mental state. This evidence was intended to gain the jury's sympathy so that they would not invoke the Death Penalty , and was successful at doing so.


RULES OF APPRECIATION

In this section, various rules applied in United States jurisdiction with respect to insanity defenses are discussed.


The M'Naghten Rules

The '' M'Naghten Rules '' (1843) 10 C & F 200, state, ''inter alia'', that a person may be "insane" if "...at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, arising from a disease of the mind, 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 what he was doing was wrong." During the mid- 20th Century the M'Naghten Rule was gradually superseded in most jurisdictions in the United States by other tests listed below. Ironically, following the attempted assassination of another prominent political figure (president Ronald Reagan ) the M'Naghten rule underwent a major revival such that, As Of 2006 , it is the rule in the majority of states.


The irresistible impulse

There is also an idea of an Irresistible Impulse , which argues that a person may have known an act was illegal; but, because of a mental impairment, they couldn't control their actions. In 1994 , Lorena Bobbitt was found not guilty of the felony of "malicious wounding" (the equivalent of Mayhem ), when her defense argued that an irresistible impulse led her to cut off her husband's penis. In the late nineteenth century some states and federal courts in the United States, dissatisfied with the M'Naughten rule, adopted the irresistible impulse test. This test, which had first been used in Ohio in 1834, emphasized the inability to control one's actions. A person who committed a crime during an uncontrollable "fit of passion" was considered insane and not guilty under this test.


The Durham rule

The '' Durham Rule '' or "product test" was set forth by the United States Court Of Appeals For The District Of Columbia Circuit in 1954 and states that "... an accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or defect". After the 1970s , US jurisdictions have tended not to recognize this argument as it places emphasis on "mental disease or defect" and thus on testimony by psychiatrists and is argued to be somewhat ambiguous.


The Brawner rule

The Brawner Rule, from the case of ''United States v. Brawner'', 471 F.2d 969 ( 1972 ) by the United States Court Of Appeals For The District Of Columbia Circuit set aside the Durham ruling arguing the ruling’s requirement that a crime must be a “product of mental disease or defect” placed the question guilt on expert witnesses and diminished the jury’s role in determining guilt. Under this proposal, juries are allowed to decide the "insanity question" as they see fit. Basing its ruling on the American Law Institute ’s (ALI) Model Penal Code , the court ruled that for a defendant not to be criminally guilty for a crime the defendant, “(i) lacks substantial capacity to appreciate that his conduct is wrongful, or (ii) lacks substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the law.”

It is noteworthy that this case was (1) decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit and not the United States Supreme Court , and is thus not a national precedent, and (2) not based on constitutional arguments and was thus superseded by Congress in 1984 with the Insanity Defense Reform Act Of 1984 .


The Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984 (U.S.)

There was widespread public outcry over John Hinckley Jr.'s successful use of the insanity defense in his trial for the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan . The Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984, enacted by Congress in 1984 in response to the verdict in the Hinckley trial, and codified at Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 17, states that a person accused of a crime can be judged not guilty by reason of insanity if "the defendant, as a result of a severe mental disease or defect, was unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts."

The Insanity Defense Reform Act mirrors the M'Naughten rules except that it requires the defendant suffer from ''severe'' mental defect, and places the burden on the defendant to prove by Clear And Convincing Evidence (higher than the Preponderance Of The Evidence standard required of the defendant by most states following the M'Naughten rules).


The substantial capacity test

The Substantial Capacity Test was defined by the American Law Institute , in its Model Penal Code . This argues that insanity should be defined as a lack of substantial capacity to control one's behavior. Substantial capacity is defined as: "the mental capacity needed to understand the wrongfulness of {Link without Title} act, or to conform...behavior to the...law." This is related to the M'Naghten Rule and the idea of 'irresistible impulse'.


Temporary insanity

The notion of temporary insanity argues that a defendant was insane, but is now sane. A defendant found to have been temporarily insane will often be released without any requirements of psychiatric treatment. This defense was first used by U.S. Congressman Daniel Sickles of New York in 1859 after he had killed his wife's lover, Philip Barton Key , but was most used during the 1940s and 1950s . Since then, it has not been as successful.


SCOTTISH LAW

The Scottish Law Commission in its Discussion Paper No 122 on Insanity and Diminished Responsibility (2003) {Link without Title} pp.16/18 confirms that the law has not substantially changed from the position stated in Hume's Commentaries:
:We may next attend to the case of those unfortunate persons, who have plead the miserable defense of idiocy or insanity. Which condition, if it is not an assumed or imperfect, but a genuine and thorough insanity, and is proved by the testimony of intelligent witnesses, makes the act like that of an infant, and equally bestows the privilege of an entire exemption from any manner of pain; ''Cum alterum innocentia concilii tuetur, alterum fati infelicitas excusat''. I say, where the insanity is absolute, and is duly proved: For if reason and humanity enforce the plea in these circumstances, it is no less necessary to observe a caution and reserve in applying the law, as shall hinder it from being understood, that there is any privilege in a case of mere weakness of intellect, or a strange and moody humor, or a crazy and capricious or irritable temper. In none of these situations does or can the law excuse the offender. Because such constitutions are not exclusive of a competent understanding of the true state of the circumstances in which the deed is done, nor of the subsistence of some steady and evil passion, grounded in those circumstances, and directed to a certain object. To serve the purpose of a defense in law, the disorder must therefore amount to an absolute alienation of reason, ''ut continua mentis alienatione, omni intellectu careat'' - such a disease as deprives the patient of the knowledge of the true aspect and position of things about him - hinders him from distinguishing friend from foe - and gives him up to the impulse of his own distempered fancy.
The phrase "absolute alienation of reason" is still regarded as at the core of the defense in the modern law (see '' HM Advocate V Kidd '' 1960 JC 61 and ''Brennan v HM Advocate'' (1977) JC 38).


INSANITY DEFENSE ORIGINS


According to Mark Gado, a writer for Court TV ’s Crime Library, the insanity defense has developed from centuries of legal standards. The legal definition for insanity continued to adjust as new events took place. However, it did not become an official defense until the 1843 case of Daniel M’Naughten.

Daniel M’Naughten (many spelling variations but "McNaughton" is on original court and hospital documents) was a wood turner from Scotland. He became convinced, for whatever reason, that there was a conspiracy to kill him. He shot and killed Edward Drummond, Prime Minister Robert Peel ’s secretary, when he was in London thinking he was one of a crew that had been following him. M’Naughten’s lawyers argued in court that he was insane - using all variations of insanity argument and expert testimony by the defense was not rebutted by the Crown. A jury acquitted him of the murder charge by reason of insanity but McNaughton spent the remainder of his life incarcerated in a mental facility.

The British House Of Lords released a ruling based on M’Naughten’s case that stated the definition of the insanity defense. The ruling, which became known as the M’Naughten Rules, became the general guidelines by which the insanity defense was judged for decades in most common law and even some civil law countries.


DETERMINING LEGAL INSANITY


Insanity is purely legal in definition when it relates to its usage as a defense. Frank Schmalleger, author of Criminology Today, wrote that there are several tests that exist today that are used to measure whether or not a criminal is insane.

The M’Naughten Rule was one of the first insanity tests and is still widely used today. It states that a person can not be guilty of a crime, if at the time they committed it they were unaware of what they did or did not realize that it was wrong.

A unique argument for the insanity defense is the issue of irresistible-impulse. This prompted the irresistible-impulse test which states that a person is insane if their mind prevented them from resisting the urge to commit the crime that they are charged with. Schmalleger says that this test is used by only eighteen states.

The 1954 Monte Durham brought about another insanity test. The Durham Rule says that someone accused of a crime can not be convicted if that crime was the result of a mental disease or defect that they possess. It does not state what the difference between a mental disease and a defect is though, so it is difficult to know which definition a particular offender falls into.

A rule that is completely different from all of the other insanity tests is the Brawner Rule. The 1972 United States vs. Brawner case allows the jurors to be the people who decide whether or not the defendant is insane. They have to decide if a defendant could be fairly convicted of the crime they are accused of doing. Because juries have virtual free reign in defining insanity, this rule has not been used very much.

The fact that mentally unstable people weren’t being sentenced properly and that people were falsely using the insanity defense prompted many states to create a new verdict, guilty but mentally ill (GBMI). The GBMI allows for a mentally unstable person to be convicted of a crime. Judges are allowed to give any sentence to defendants who receive a verdict of GBMI, but offenders are usually sent to hospitals where they can get help for their illness.


INSANITY DEFENSE USAGE AND SUCCESS RATE


Media coverage in the United States tends to dictate how situations are perceived by the public. A case using the insanity defense usually receives a lot more media attention because it is considered unusual or dramatic. The increased media coverage gives the impression that the insanity defense is used a lot, but this is not the case. In fact, according to an eight-state study the insanity defense is used in less than 1 percent of all court cases and was only successful in 26 percent of cases. Of those cases that were successful, 90 percent of offenders had been previously diagnosed.