![]() ![]() For some, that could be akin to a life sentence. ![]() ![]() In almost all cases, a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity prompts a judge to commit defendants to treatment centers until mental health officials determine they do not pose a danger to anyone. And often the trials involving an insanity defense get the most attention because they involve "crimes that are bizarre within themselves," said Baltimore defense attorney Cristina Gutierrez, who has defended a dozen such cases in as many years.īut studies by the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law have concluded that "the overwhelming majority" of defendants acquitted by reason of insanity suffer from schizophrenia or some other mental illness, said Howard Zonana, a Yale University psychiatry professor and the academy's medical director.ĭo people acquitted under an insanity defense walk free? "In the real world, it just doesn't happen," said Maryland Attorney General Joseph Curran, who as lieutenant governor in 1983 chaired a task force that helped tighten that state's insanity defense.Ĭritics argue that some defendants misuse it, effectively faking insanity to win acquittals or less severe convictions. One eight-state study of criminal cases in the early 1990s concluded that less than one percent of defendants pleaded insanity and, of them, only a quarter won aquittals. No, despite public perceptions to the contrary. Maryland's statute, the one Aron will employ, defines the plea as "guilty but not criminally responsible by reason of insanity." Some have amended their laws to include standards of "diminished capacity" or "guilty but mentally ill," but most have roots in the M'Naghten rule. Some states have abolished the use of an insanity defense, an action upheld by the U.S. Thus, it allows judges and juries to decide some defendants aren't "criminally responsible" for their actions even though those acts might be a crime under different circumstances, just as a child who accidentally starts a fire shouldn't be treated as an arsonist. ![]() It is an attempt to impose a moral check on a system largely designed to weigh facts and evidence. This is sometimes called the "irresistible impulse" defense. Some states also allow defendants to argue that that they understood their behavior was criminal but were unable to control it. It typically refers to a plea that defendants are not guilty because they lacked the mental capacity to realize that they committed a wrong or appreciate why it was wrong. The rule is the basis for most of the American laws permitting an insanity defense, including Maryland's. The M'Naghten rule says defendants may be acquitted only if they labored "under such defect of reason from disease of the mind" as to not realize what they were doing or why it was a crime. The public howled in outrage and, a year later, a panel of British judges set forth the legal standard that has been used for 150 years and might come into play as Aron's trial proceeds in Montgomery County. A jury agreed, declaring him not guilty by reason of insanity. During the ensuing trial, several psychiatrists testified M'Naghten was delusional. In 1843, M'Naghten traveled to 10 Downing Street to ambush Peel, but mistakenly shot and killed Peel's secretary. If Ruthann Aron escapes a prison sentence in her murder-for-hire trial, she might owe thanks to a 19th century Scotsman.ĭaniel M'Naghten was a woodworker who believed he was the target of a conspiracy involving the pope and British Prime Minister Robert Peel.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |