Review the history of legal precedents on the insanity defense. Describe the current standing of this defense

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Criminal law is based on the assumption that criminal behavior is freely chosen and the responsibility of the person who commits it. If, because of mental illness or intellectual disability, a person is not able to control his or her behavior or appreciate that what he or she is doing is wrong, that person should not be held as responsible as someone who has such control and understanding. One of the first cases to make this distinction was in 1843, when Daniel M'Naghten attempted to kill the British prime minister. Because he was quite delusional, M'Naghten was found not guilty by reason of insanity. At the time of the crime, he did not know right from wrong. This is a strictly cognitive standard for deciding insanity. A second major standard that developed was the irresistible impulse test. This says that defendants are not responsible if they cannot control their behavior.

In 1954, Judge David Bazelon ruled in Durham v. United States that defendants are not responsible if their behavior is the product of a mental disease or defect. This so-called products test or Durham standard put considerable influence in the hands of mental health professionals, who, as experts, could testify as to whether a mental illness existed and whether it produced the criminal behavior. Eventually, Bazelon himself withdrew his support for this position.

In 1962, the American Law Institute (ALI) produced guidelines to help jurors judge insanity. This code says that if, due to mental disease or defect, a person lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of conduct or to conform conduct to the requirements of the law, the person is not responsible. Antisocial personality disorder was specifically excluded from the mental diseases or defects that might apply. The ALI code supported both the M'Naghten and irresistible impulse tests. In 1982, John Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity when he was tried for attempting to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. The outrage that followed this verdict led to the Insanity Reform Act of 1984, which bases insanity totally on the M'Naghten cognitive standard. Still, some states have adopted alternative pleas, most of which involve a merging of guilt and disorder such as "guilty, but mentally ill." Despite attempts at reform, the insanity tests vary widely, and the use of the insanity plea remains controversial.