Insanity Defense IFP Week 5

Insanity Defense

IFP WEEK 5 WA

Insanity case study

The federal definition of insanity is considerably more stringent and considerably more difficult for a defendant to use than that of the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code definition. The federal definition states that "at the time of the commission of the acts constituting the offense, the defendant, as a result of serious mental disease or defect, was unable to appreciate the nature and quality or wrongfulness of his acts. Mental disease or defect does not otherwise constitute a defense" (U.S. Code, Title 18). Mental illness is not a defense for heinous actions: otherwise every person with a mental illness, however mild, would have grounds to argue they were 'not in their right mind' when they committed a crime.

The classic example of someone who cannot appreciate right from wrong and is not guilty by reason of insanity would be a schizophrenic who genuinely believed he was killing a robot or an alien, not a human being, when he committed murder. In contrast, merely suffering from a disorder like depression that does not distort one's perception of reality does not automatically exonerate someone. The American Law Institute states that insanity means "a person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law." This makes it far easier for someone who is mentally ill to argue he or she did not have the capacity to resist the urges to act violently, like Dahmer.

However, by using this more encompassing definition, it is very easy to enter into a tautological rationalization: anyone who commits a terrible crime like a serial killer would be excused 'by reason of insanity' because such crimes are by definition the result of perversions like sexual sadism. According to the federal definition, even if Dahmer suffered from a mental illness, there is no evidence that he could not separate right from wrong in his mind (as evidenced by his concealment of his crimes).

Another famous case which hinged upon the definition of insanity was that of John Hinkley, the would-be assassin of President Ronald Reagan. "The prosecution contended that Hinckley suffered only from 'personality disorders' of the type affecting five to ten percent of the population, whereas the defense saw the same evidence as demonstrating Hinckley's serious mental illness" (Linder 2008). Hinkley was obsessed with the movie Taxi Driver, in which the main character -- a drifter like himself -- saves a teenage prostitute from her pimp through violence. Before his assassination attempt, Hinkley wrote a letter to Foster detailing how he was going to attempt to kill the president to win her attention (he had already sent her poems and love letters).