The Mental Insanity Plea

Mental insanity, as referred to as a plea in the courtroom, is a legal term rather than a medical term. Three laws regulate who is capable of using the insanity plea: the M’Naghten law states that a person must be unaware that their actions are incorrect, the Durham law states that if the crime is a product of their mental illness they can utilize the insanity plea, and the Model Penal Code Rule states that at the time of the crime they lacked capacity to decide if their actions are right or wrong as a result of their mental disease. Each of these laws can be used independently and each state dictates which law is to be used in the courtroom. While these laws are very precise, it is rather difficult to regulate insanity via these laws due to the nature of mental illness.

When a person using the insanity plea is acquitted, the person will then be placed into a psychiatric ward rather than the prison system as an alternative consequence. Often the sentence to the ward is longer than a prison sentence for the same crime. Failure to win the insanity plea results in the person ending up in prison, and therefore their mental illness not being treated. This leads to the flaws in both the mental health and prison systems.

Many that support the mental insanity plea do so because they believe that punishing the insane is wrong from a moral standpoint because they cannot be held responsible for a crime if they were not aware of the circumstances. Supporters often believe that the mentally ill should receive treatment at the psychiatric ward rather than simply being put into the prison system. While placement into the psychiatric ward is appealing due to treating the mental illness, this does not punish the individual in ways that some opposers of the insanity plea believe they should be. Some of the worry that opposers have is that individuals can be provided a loophole to account for their actions while they are perfectly sane. The psychiatric ward is not effective at isolating the individuals who are able to utilize this loophole, creating uncertainty in the opposers of the plea.

Media plays a large role in the understanding of the insanity plea to the public. It portrays the insanity plea as popular when in reality it accounts for less than 1 percent of all felony court cases. Popular opinion about the insanity plea is swayed by the media portrayal of current cases, fictional and nonfictional. This plays a large part in whether or not the public supports the usage of the insanity plea.

Overall there are pros and cons of the insanity plea. It is hard to decide who should and should not be able to utilize this claim due to the inadequate laws and non-standard procedures. Media’s representation of the insanity plea hinders the overall ability of this claim to be used in court cases. Currently there is no distinct way to identify someone as insane; therefore, research needs to be completed to create concrete evidence that would support a person pleading mentally insane. (by SN and BH)

Quick References

NowThisWorld. 2015. Does pleading insanity work [video]. Youtube. 

VanDercar AH, Resnick PJ. 2018. The insanity defense: Historicalprecedent and modern application. Psychiatric Annals. 48(2): 95-101. (full text not available without subscription)

Yoong G [internet]. 2012. Top 10 Most Notorious Insanity Defense Cases. Listverse. [updated 2012 Apr 11, cited 2019 Mar 26].