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Insanity After A Crime Has Been Committed

Insanity After A Crime Has Been Committed

In criminal court cases a defendant may claim that he or she is insane at the time of the trial but was not insane at the time the crime was committed. In a criminal court trial involving insanity after the crime, several different actions may occur. 
 
 
The first is that a judge may order a competency hearing to determine the legitimacy of the insanity claim. If the claim is found to be legitimate the defendant may be held until he or she is found to have regained their senses, at which point the criminal court trial will proceed. The defendant in these criminal court cases will be held on the grounds of being "unfit to plead" if the defendant is unable to assist the attorneys assigned to the case in preparing a defense.
 
 
A developing concept in criminal court cases is what to do with defendants whose mental capabilities have diminished following their convictions. The issue most often arises with prisoners sentenced to long incarcerations. The 1986 Supreme Court case Ford v. Wainwright represented one such case.
 
 
Alvin Bernard Ford committed murder in 1974 and was found guilty of the crime. His mental status went unquestioned during the initial criminal court trial. During the trial, the court held him accountable for his actions and sentenced him to death in Florida. During his incarceration, Ford began to manifest symptoms present in other criminal court cases involving paranoid schizophrenics. 
 
 
The defendant believed he was John Paul II, that he prevented a conspiracy by the Klu Klux Klan to bury bodies within the prison walls, that guards were torturing his female relatives, and that he had appointed a new panel of judges to oversee his appeal.
 
 
While on death row in 1982 a panel of psychiatrists determined that although Ford understood the consequences of the actions that had lead to his earlier criminal court trial and understood that he would die if subjected to the death penalty, he suffered from psychosis and several other disorders. 
 
 
Despite the findings of the panel, Florida's Governor signed the order for his execution. The Court's decision in the case overruled the ordered execution, but provided for Ford to remain incarcerated.
 
 
Insanity in criminal court cases is subject to competency hearings. Standard hearings on insanity include hearings regarding the defendant's competency to stand trial, competency to enter a guilty plea, and when facing the death penalty, a hearing to evaluate if the defendant has met standards of competence to be executed, any of which might involve the court's insanity tests. This ensures that any insanity that begins after conviction is considered during the incarceration of the defendant.

A Brief History of the Insanity Plea

A Brief History of the Insanity Plea

Greek and Roman law allowed for a defense based upon an insanity of the defendant which constituted a diminished capacity to distinguish right from wrong. Insanity makes its first appearance in English common law in 1724, although the rights of the insane in English criminal law were not established until the passage of the M’Naghten Rule. However, some experts in criminal law at the time argued that the M’Naghten Rule had a serious shortcoming.
In 1984 the United States Congress passed a Bill which sought to abolish or severely limit the recognition of an insanity defense as a method to be cleared of charges under criminal law. The Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984 required a defendant’s insanity to be severe and the direct cause of his violation of criminal law. It also establishes that the burden of proving an insanity charge lies with the defense. Before this Act, the prosecution was required to prove a defendant’s sanity beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Act also limited the role of expert psychiatric witnesses under the belief that a preponderance of evidence from psychiatric witnesses took the decision out of the hands of jurors. One benefit that was granted to defendants who had successfully employed a defense based on insanity was the implementation of more strict procedures to protect the rights of individuals while hospitalized. The Insanity Defense Reform Act also provided for general guidelines governing when a person would be released after being placed in a facility for mental treatment.

The Legal Issues of Insanity Pleas You Must Know

The Legal Issues of Insanity Pleas You Must Know

The right of a defendant to attempt to reduce the charges facing him or her by entering an insanity plea has its basis in the earliest known criminal laws. Greeks and Romans believed that an insanity plea moved a person outside of the normal jurisdiction of everyday criminal laws, although this is because those people perceived insanity as the result of divine action.
 
 
Early English common law also provided a framework for a defendant to file an insanity plea after criminal laws were found to be deficient in their handling of the mentally unstable. An attempted assassination of King George III resulted in the first modern criminal laws providing special legal standing for individuals entering an insanity plea.
 
 
In May of 1800, James Hadfield failed in an attempt to assassinate the King. Criminal laws in effect in England considered the attempted assassination of the King a case of treason and criminal laws afforded a treasonous defendant with special rights. Hadfield was allowed to retain two lawyers for the treason trial, though criminal laws governing other charges would have required him to defend himself.
 
 
Hadfield chose Thomas Erskine, who was the best lawyer in England, to be his chief counsel. Erskine's defense presented the earliest modern example of an insanity plea. Erskine successfully argued that Hadfield was operating under the delusion that he needed to die by another's hand and thought the best way to accomplish this goal was to try to kill the King. Hadfield was found not guilty.
 
 
Criminal laws in effect only provided for the detention of dangerous individuals until their next moment of lucidity. There was concern in the Parliament that Hadfield would be released when his delusions faded and that then he would attempt assassination at a later time. As a result of their concern, a bill was presented in Parliament just four days after Hadfield's trial concluded. 
 
 
The Criminal Lunatics Act changed English criminal laws to provide for the detention of a person who appeared to commit a crime as the result of even temporary insanity, even if he or she did not enter an insanity plea.
 
 
Criminal laws in the United States share a similar foundation. Foucha v. Louisiana is a 1992 Supreme Court decision which provided some protection to an individual who is committed to a mental health facility as the result of entering an insanity plea. Prior to this ruling, criminal laws in Louisiana provided for the incarceration of a person who had entered an insanity plea or been found not guilty by reason of insanity in a psychiatric hospital until both the patient's psychosis faded and he or she was no longer a threat to others.
 
 
Criminal laws had allowed trial courts handling the appeals of people in psychiatric hospitals to be kept in these facilities, even if these people had been medically deemed sane, if they could be considered a danger to themselves or others by the court. Terry Foucha, the petitioner in this case, had been committed on the grounds that he had a mental illness and was dangerous. 
 
 
After treatment for the psychosis induced by his dependency on drugs, he continued to be hospitalized on the grounds that he had an anti-social personality. Anti-social personality disorders, however, are not considered mental illnesses nor are they treatable by psychiatrists. The Court ruled that an individual acquitted due to an insanity plea cannot be held for reason that would not also hold an individual who entered a guilty plea.
 
 
There are several other laws and rulings that address the rights of an individual who enters an insanity plea. Wainwright v. Greenfield ruled that a defendant invoking his or her Miranda rights does not invalidate his or her ability to enter an insanity plea.
 
 
The most broad reaching law governing individuals seeking to enter an insanity plea is the Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984. This law overturned many of the criminal laws which defined the circumstances under which an insanity plea could be filed by a defendant. 
 
 
It establishes that the insanity must be severe, and made it the responsibility of the defense to prove that there are grounds for the judge to allow an insanity plea instead of the prosecution's responsibility to prove that the defendant is sane.

Should the Insanity Plea Be Abolished?

Should the Insanity Plea Be Abolished?

The criminal court process is faced with determining if it should abolish the insanity plea. Those in favor of abolishing the insanity plea claim that psychiatrists have hijacked the criminal justice system. Furthermore, such opponents of the insanity plea claim that the criminal court process has been corrupted by the ease with which an insanity plea can be made. They claim that the ease with which an insanity plea can be filed means that the criminal court process will soon cease to recognize degrees present in criminality of different acts.
 
 
Opponents of the insanity plea claim that it violates the original process under which juries operated. The early English legal system, specifically that in practice before 1800, recognized only two jury findings: guilty and not guilty. A not guilty verdict meant simply that the prosecution had failed to prove its case. A guilty verdict meant that the jury had determined that the defendant had committed the crime. A guilty finding, however, could recommend a pardon if the jury believed that the defendant was insane.
 
 
The essential aspect of the criminal court process of this time period for opponents of the modern day insanity plea which uses the explanation of insanity to plead not guilty, is that the defendant was found guilty of having committed the crime before any leniency based on the insanity of the perpetrator affected the judgment of the court.
 
 
After 1800 the criminal court process became concerned with the mental status of defendant. This growing concern has led away from "guilty but insane" pleas to the recent "not guilty by reason of insanity" plea. Proponents of judicial conservatism believe that the criminal court process should return to the more narrow construction of insanity.
 
 
Opponents to the abolition of the insanity plea contend that attempting to remove the possibility of an insanity plea from the criminal court process would not only be difficult, it would likely also be met with opposition on grounds of being unconstitutional. The argument that it would be unconstitutional arises from the fact that most laws require the defendant have the mens rea, or element of motive, for the action to be considered criminal. 
 
 
As it currently exists, the criminal court process contains several different levels of culpability based on mental state. The elimination of the insanity plea from the criminal court process would require the complete reevaluation of the criminal court process, as well as the civil court system, which also allows for different levels of liability based on the mental status of the litigants.

Using the Plea of Temporary Insanity

Using the Plea of Temporary Insanity

A claim of temporary insanity in a criminal court case is often related to a defense claiming that the act was a crime of passion. Crimes of passion and temporary insanity defenses are very difficult to prove. Temporary insanity can only be found by evaluating the actions in hindsight.
 
 
Witnesses are essential in a criminal court case that deals with a crime of passion. The tests that are normally used to determine insanity, such as the M'Naghten Test, the Irresistible Impulse Test, and the Durham Test, are all of limited use in such a case as well because the insanity supposedly had such a short duration.
 
 
A defense can only establish that the defendant was suffering from a bout of temporary insanity by comparing the actions the individual engaged in at the time with the actions the individual took both before and after the crime. A defense of temporary insanity was first used successfully in 1859 when a man killed his wife's lover in a fit of rage. 
 
 
Temporary insanity was most likely to have been successfully invoked in a criminal court case in the middle of the 20th Century, but has become less frequently successful since then. Temporary insanity cases are invoked in less than one percent of all violent offenses. A criminal court case in which the defendant attempts to plead not guilty by virtue of temporary insanity results in a not guilty verdict less than one quarter of the time.
 
 
Temporary insanity claims have become less successful due to the tendencies of many juries to see a criminal court case when the defendant invokes the defense as an attempt to escape prosecution. Most juries consider temporary insanity claims as a method to excuse vigilante justice.
 
 
A criminal court case is likely to return a verdict of not guilty by reason of temporary insanity if two circumstances are met. The first is if the defendant has been diagnosed with a confirmed mental disorder, such as schizophrenia. If the schizophrenic is currently on medication which treats the disease, has been vigilant in maintaining compliance with an approved course of treatment, is not likely to repeat the behavior, and currently appears to be sane, it is likely that his or her claim of temporary insanity would be upheld by the jury.
 
 
A criminal court case involving a schizophrenic with a history of medical noncompliance and who appears to continue to pose a threat would likely not be found not guilty due to a bout of temporary insanity. A person with no discernible cause for the actions they undertake may also have his or her claim of temporary insanity supported by jurors.