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I live in Ireland and have lived in the United States. I remember countless stories of mentally ill people committing murder and it seems that it's way more likely for someone diagnosed with an illness to get off here in Ireland than in the U.S.
There was a recent story here of a man with Aspergers who got off with an insanity plea because according to the jury and defense counsel, he didn't understand his actions. I imagine that wouldn't fly in the U.S. and the generally throw the book at people who commit homicide, even mentally ill ones except in the extreme circumstance.
A lot of people will understandably feel that the insanity plea is letting criminals get away with murder. I don't know how to feel about that. What do you think?
The greater majority of people who commit murder; child abuse, and a few other crimes are mentally insane; however for me that is not a defense, but a greater reason to bring back the death penalty in all states.
Some states have eliminated the insanity defense- Kansas, Montana, Idaho,and Utah. Many advocates for the mentally ill want it eliminated because people can spend many years locked up after being accused of minor offences. It's NOT a get out of jail free card. I worked in a psych hospital and saw people locked up for YEARS after being accused of disorderly conduct. I know 6 people who were found not guilty on murder charges and released. None of them have re-offended again. Studies show that patients who have killed almost universally have stayed crime-free.
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defendants who are found insane spend as much, or more, time in state custody than their criminally convicted counterparts.
I just heard on the radio that a guys execution was halted because his lawyer says the guy has dementia ?
Does it really matter if the guy doesn't know where he is or why they are strapping him to a chair/gurney?
Did the person that he murdered know why he was being murdered?
I'm so sick of how these murderers can sit on death row for sometimes decades while the appeals process slowly chugs along. If there is no doubt, if the person admits the crime then why are we being nice to these people? Put them down.
Their victims never had a chance to appeal their sentence of death and many of them were murdered in the most violent of ways. Where is their justice?
Still each case needs to be carefully weighed and insanity is a legitimate plea but it has also been abused by those looking to dodge judgement.
"The Criminal Defense of Insanity
Defendants who are determined to have been insane at the time they committed a crime are entitled to the criminal defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. This defense has been controversially applied over the years, for it has resulted in not guilty verdicts in several high-profile cases. As a result, there is often a general public sentiment that the insanity defense is too frequently applied to criminal defendants. In reality, however, various criminal studies have established that only about one percent of all felony cases in the United States involve use of the insanity defense. Moreover, even when the defense is asserted, it is successful in only about 30 cases every year."
No. There are truly insane people, psychotics out there who do damage. They might be higher functioning than others (to plan and commit the act). But, prob. there are a few who are really out of their minds. Most aren't though.
I just heard on the radio that a guys execution was halted because his lawyer says the guy has dementia ?
Does it really matter if the guy doesn't know where he is or why they are strapping him to a chair/gurney?
Did the person that he murdered know why he was being murdered?
I'm so sick of how these murderers can sit on death row for sometimes decades while the appeals process slowly chugs along. If there is no doubt, if the person admits the crime then why are we being nice to these people? Put them down.
Their victims never had a chance to appeal their sentence of death and many of them were murdered in the most violent of ways. Where is their justice?
Still each case needs to be carefully weighed and insanity is a legitimate plea but it has also been abused by those looking to dodge judgement.
We cannot write it off but we can limit it.
Yep. This was last week in the case of Wesley Purkey. But the Supreme Court allowed the execution to go forward. The guy's lawyers said that he was so demented that he didn't understand why he was being executed (https://www.kansascity.com/news/loca...244268387.html), yet media transcripts from the execution chamber showed that the guy knew exactly why he was being executed.
These were among Purkey's last words before being executed:
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But in his last statement, Purkey apologized to his victim's family. "I deeply regret the pain and suffering I caused to Jennifer's family. I am deeply sorry," he said, according to The Associated Press.
He also expressed remorse for the pain his actions caused his own daughter. "I deeply regret the pain I caused to my daughter, who I love so very much," he said.
This, to me, shows that Purkey's attorney presented false information to the courts (whether intentionally or not is another story) as he knew exactly why he was being put to death.
But this is a big problem that I have with people arguing that someone is so mentally diminished that they should be spared from a sentence or from a finding of guilt in some cases. You can always pay some lacky "expert witness" to come to a desired conclusion.
That aside, while I do believe that if you truly did not know what you were doing then you shouldn't be held criminally liable for the crime committed, I also believe if you were so insane as to not know what you were doing, then perhaps you STILL need to be locked away for life in an asylum so that you do not offend in such a way ever again. The way things stand now, folks will get sent to an asylum often until they are medically cleared after treatment/meds, at which point they will be released. But that's a huge gamble that relies entirely on the person not having another episode and continuing to take their meds, which is unacceptable for me.
Yep. This was last week in the case of Wesley Purkey. But the Supreme Court allowed the execution to go forward. The guy's lawyers said that he was so demented that he didn't understand why he was being executed (https://www.kansascity.com/news/loca...244268387.html), yet media transcripts from the execution chamber showed that the guy knew exactly why he was being executed.
These were among Purkey's last words before being executed:
This, to me, shows that Purkey's attorney presented false information to the courts (whether intentionally or not is another story) as he knew exactly why he was being put to death.
But this is a big problem that I have with people arguing that someone is so mentally diminished that they should be spared from a sentence or from a finding of guilt in some cases. You can always pay some lacky "expert witness" to come to a desired conclusion.
That aside, while I do believe that if you truly did not know what you were doing then you shouldn't be held criminally liable for the crime committed, I also believe if you were so insane as to not know what you were doing, then perhaps you STILL need to be locked away for life in an asylum so that you do not offend in such a way ever again. The way things stand now, folks will get sent to an asylum often until they are medically cleared after treatment/meds, at which point they will be released. But that's a huge gamble that relies entirely on the person not having another episode and continuing to take their meds, which is unacceptable for me.
First - you think all it takes is any old "expert witness" and the jury is automatically swayed? That belies that fact that VERY few defendents plea insanity successfully.
And in terms of re-offending - Is it really that different than the recidivism rate for other criminals? Very few are behind bars forever...they do their time and they get out - what then? You are only concerned about THIS very small number?
First - you think all it takes is any old "expert witness" and the jury is automatically swayed? That belies that fact that VERY few defendents plea insanity successfully.
And in terms of re-offending - Is it really that different than the recidivism rate for other criminals? Very few are behind bars forever...they do their time and they get out - what then? You are only concerned about THIS very small number?
The problem is that this isn't something that has to be done at trial or before a jury. As we saw with the case of Wesley Purkey, two lower courts (the federal district court and the court of appeals) were willing to entertain the argument--based on expert witness testimony--that Purkey was too mentally diminished to understand why he was being executed and, thus, executing him would violate the 8th Amendment. So, yes, we see that this is all it can take to make a difference.
Note, the Wesley Purkey example goes more to diminished mental capacity (which I lump in with insanity) being used as an excuse as a constitutional 8th Amendment argument, but I hold my position regarding the defense at trial all the same.
Fundamentally, though, yes, I am concerned with the insanity defense, regardless of how "few" people use the defense successfully or otherwise. When we talk about the United States, a "few" people can be a fair amount of people in total number who are now free to continue roaming the streets. According to an eight-state study, the insanity defense is used in less than 1% of all court cases and, when used, has only a 26% success rate. See citation #4 for the following wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insani...ntal%20illness.
I remain against allowing such people to roam free on account of their insanity. As I've mentioned, that's all the more reason to keep them locked up in an asylum from where I stand.
In terms of recidivism, while it may not be different from criminals in general, at least criminals in general are being kept off the streets for a while (in the case of some sentences), thereby bringing some peace to their communities; the same is not inherently true for those who found not guilty by reason of insanity.
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