percentage rate of successful of instanity defense

Percentage rate of successful of instanity defense trial#

From what I could tell, he had never seen his victim before, but he was convinced that she had been persecuting him for many years. He was within a stone's throw of half a dozen police officers. In a delusional rage, he had attacked a stranger in broad daylight. Take the homeless man I evaluated several years ago. Elizabeths, many of the cases I saw were straightforward in terms of criminal responsibility. But whether he does or not, it is important to keep the issue of the insanity defense in proper perspective.ĭuring the seven years that I worked at St. We don't yet know whether he will be permitted to make the defense. I am not in a position to judge Kaczynski's sanity. Gelernter, the Yale professor of computer science who was one of the Unabomber's victims, see this possibility as a perversion of justice: The nation is 'weak,' Gelernter was quoted as saying recently in the New York Times, if it 'shrinks from imposing the ultimate penalty.' If he is indeed found to suffer from schizophrenia - a disease that gives rise to both disturbed thinking and distorted perceptions - it is likely that his lawyers will attempt to plead insanity and have him committed to a mental hospital rather than face the death penalty. Defense psychiatrists have portrayed him as a 'paranoid schizophrenic' who is unwilling to admit his psychological problems. Kaczynski, who has been linked to 16 attacks between 19 which left three dead and 29 injured. The subject of the insanity defense is coming up again now - as it did in the infamous cases of would-be Reagan assassin John Hinckley and mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer - because of the pretrial debate over the mental of Unabomber defendant Theodore J. That sort of escape brings to the fore issues of moral responsibility and personal responsibility that are very different - and much vaguer - matters, than criminal responsibility. Elizabeths Hospital, where I used to work.

People are 'let off' in the sense that they escape being formally condemned as 'responsible' for their acts, but that is small comfort, I suspect, to a defendant in his 10th or 15th year at St. Indeed, some of those found not guilty by reason of insanity spend more time confined in a locked mental hospital than those sane criminals who are convicted of similar acts and imprisoned for them. (It is raised in approximately about 1 percent of felony cases and is successful only about one-quarter of the time.) Among those who are found not guilty by reason of insanity, virtually none are 'let off' - in the sense that they remain free. In fact, very few defendants actually succeed with the insanity defense. Each time, there is the same focus on the possibility that the perpetrator might be 'let off,' often accompanied by a hue and cry about a criminal justice system that would permit such a thing to happen.

Percentage rate of successful of instanity defense trial#

Thus, I'm often struck by the public outcry accompanying a high-profile trial that raises the question of whether the defendant was legally sane when he or she committed the crime.

The law sets fairly straightforward standards for criminal responsibility, and usually I have little difficulty in deciding whether an accused individual qualifies for the insanity defense. Drawing a Clear Line Between Criminals and the Criminally InsaneĪs a forensic psychologist, I am often asked to evaluate men and women accused of committing crimes in order to assess their competency and whether they can be held criminally responsible for their acts.