Does the insanity defense serve a useful function today? If you could create your own rule for determining insanity in criminal trials, what would it be? How would it differ from existing rules?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Many believe that the mechanisms by which insanity is determined are flawed. There is a sense of frustration engendered when one set of psychiatrists (the prosecution’s) evaluates an offender as mentally competent while another set (the defense’s) finds the same offender mentally impaired. The uncertainty caused by such conflicts leads to overwhelming mistrust of the process itself. Additional mistrust results from the fact that the process of evaluating an individual’s mental state is an inexact science that can be manipulated. The fact that practitioners can be—and have been—fooled into making incorrect diagnoses further diminishes public confidence in the system’s ability to achieve a just solution.
The media coverage of insanity and insanity in criminal trials has strongly impacted public perceptions of this defense. Although it is rarely a significant issue in trials and few defendants plead insanity, the public thinks it is far more common and that guilty offenders are set free on a “legal technicality.” The John Hinckley trial is a good example of the use of the insanity defense in criminal trials and also the public backlash caused by this verdict.
Any modification of the rules for determining an offender’s mental state would
have to meet due process requirements. Given that due process affords the opportunity
to challenge any claims made against the accused, any new rules would have to include comparable provisions. Consequently, the form of such rules would likely be similar to the existing forms. Here are the existing rules covered in the chapter:
• M’Naghten rule: A rule for determining insanity, which asks whether the defendant knew what he or she was doing or whether the defendant knew that what he or she was doing was wrong.
• Irresistible impulse: The argument here is essentially that the defendant couldn’t stop doing what he or she knew was wrong.
• Durham rule: A person is not criminally responsible for his or her behavior if the person’s illegal actions were the result of a mental disease or defect.
• Substantial-capacity test: Defined as the lack of a substantial capacity to control one’s behavior.
• Brawner rule: The jury must decide whether the defendant could justly be held responsible for the criminal act in the face of any claims of insanity. Juries are guided by their own sense of fairness.