When is someone legally insane

Under this test, defendants are insane if, because of mental disease or defect, they lack the substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of their actions or to conform their behavior to legal requirements. Some states supplement the M'Naughten or Brawner test with the irresistible impulse rule, under which offenders are insane if a mental disorder prevents them from resisting the commission of an illegal act that they know is wrong.

Manion hurries inside and finds his wife Laura lying on the floor, raped and beaten by Quill. Manion picks up a gun, walks to Quill's place of employment, shoots and kills him, then calls the police. A defense psychiatrist testifies that Laura's injuries caused Manion to suffer a sudden psychic shock called dissociative reaction, and that dissociative reaction creates an unbearable tension that people may try to alleviate by taking immediate and often violent action.

The psychiatrist's testimony supports a conclusion that Manion was legally insane under the irresistible impulse test. This example is loosely based on the classic film, Anatomy of a Murder. Defendants have to advise prosecutors prior to trial if they plan to rely on an insanity defense.

Typically, defense lawyers and prosecutors each obtain their own psychiatrists to examine a defendant and testify at trial. Judges appoint government-paid psychiatrists for indigent defendants. Defendants have the burden of convincing judges or juries by either a preponderance of the evidence or by the tougher standard of clear and convincing evidence that they were insane at the time they committed a criminal act.

Evidence rules forbid defense psychiatrists from testifying to an opinion that a defendant was legally insane at the time a crime was committed. They can only provide a medical diagnosis concerning a defendant's mental illness. Defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity are rarely set free. Instead, they are almost always confined in mental health institutions.

They may remain confined for a longer period of time than had they been found guilty and sentenced to a term in prison. States may compel defendants adjudged insane to remain in a mental health institution until they convince a judge that they are no longer legally insane.

Guilty, but mentally ill GBMI is a hybrid verdict that some states have adopted in response to widespread and largely inaccurate popular beliefs that the insanity tests let too many guilty people escape punishment. The general purpose of GBMI laws is to imprison offenders rather than place them in hospitals, and afford them appropriate mental health services while they are incarcerated.

In criminal cases, a plea of "not guilty by reason of insanity" will require a trial on the issue of the defendant's insanity or sanity at the time the crime was committed. In these cases the defendant usually claims "temporary insanity" crazy then, but okay now. The traditional test of insanity in criminal cases is whether the accused knew "the difference between right and wrong," following the "M'Naughten rule" from 19th century England. If found to be insane, the defendant will be ordered to a mental facility, and the trial will be held only if sanity returns.

They are usually sentenced to special facilities for sex offenders, supposedly with counseling available. There are any number of different approaches that various states use to determine whether or not a person is or is not insane at the time of a crime he committed.

These approaches, or formulations, vary dramatically between different states. Because each method has its own pitfalls and is highly complex, the description of each cannot be provided here.

Nonetheless, in the vast majority of cases, the defense of insanity cannot just be used over and over by a person who continues to commit crimes. Many of the methods used to determine whether or not a person was or was not insane prevent this kind of thing from happening. In fact, one of these approaches specifically prohibits the insanity defense from being used repeatedly.

Under the formulations used by many states to determine whether or not a person is or is not insane, persons who are psychopathic or sociopathic are more or less exempted from asserting it.

The formulations used exempt or exclude mental illnesses or conditions that are only really seen through repeated behavior that can be considered antisocial, such as repeatedly committing crimes.

Have questions for Brendan Bukalski? E-mail him at askthelawyer gmail. Editor's note - the answers provided in this column are general in nature, and should not be relied upon as legal advice or interpreted as creating an attorney-client relationship. Most Popular.