Probably, you have never read a crime drama without hearing a defense lawyer rise and utter the two words: not guilty by reason of insanity. The courtroom gasps. The jury looks confused. And somehow the murderer is free from the mental asylum rather than the prison cell.

And this is what TV tells you.

Life in real life is quite different.

One of the most misconceived defense mechanisms in criminal law is the insanity defense. The majority believe that it is always in use. The majority of the population believes that it works. The majority of the people are mistaken. This post disaggregates the nature of the insanity defense, how it is judged by a court, what happens when it is successful, and the reason why it is nearly never successful.

Who This Matters To

This is significant to anyone who would desire to know the way the legal system treats mental illness. It is important to families of individuals with severe mental illnesses. It is of importance to anybody who is a follower of real crime cases. And it is relevant to the citizens who desire to be informed about the way justice works, not the way it is represented on cable TV.

Let us get into it.

What Is the Insanity Defense, Exactly

Insanity defense is a legal argument that an individual cannot be wholly responsible for committing a crime because, during the crime, they were severely mentally ill, hence they did not realize that what they were doing was wrong.

Take notice of that: at the time of the crime.

Not before. Not after. Right at that moment.

Individuals are allowed to have a lengthy history of mental illness, but that does not qualify them. An individual may be obviously disturbed, violent, and dangerous, and yet legally sane. The reason is that the law does not inquire whether one is sick or not. It poses a very narrow question.

Was this individual aware, at that time, that they were committing something wrong?

That is the core of it.

The History Behind It

The modern insanity defense comes from a case in England in 1843. Daniel M’Naghten was a man who killed the secretary to the British Prime Minister. He thought that the government was against him. His mental state made him not guilty by the courts.

The masses were outraged. Queen Victoria herself was inconvenienced. Thus, the courts established a clear test that is being applied to date in numerous other parts of the world.

According to the M’Naghten test, one is considered legally insane when, due to a mental illness, they did not know what they were doing or because they did not know that it was wrong.

This test sounds simple. In reality, it is the opposite of that.

The Different Tests Used in Courts

Not all countries and states have the same test. The following are the primary ones.

The M’Naghten Test

This is knowledge-oriented, as explained above. Did the person know what they were doing? Were they aware of doing something wrong? This is used in many countries and states in the U.S. and the UK.

The Irresistible Impulse Test

Some places add a second layer. Would the individual have been able to prevent the act even though he was aware that it was wrong? This includes instances where an individual is aware that stealing is bad, but a mental illness deprives him or her of the power to restrain himself or herself. Consider it as having the knowledge that you must not walk into a train, but you find a voice in your head that you cannot hear telling you to go on.

The Model Penal Code Test

This is a little more general, and is used in certain states of the U.S. It states that an individual cannot be held accountable when, due to a mental illness, he or she was incapable of knowing that his conduct was criminal or legal compliance.

The Durham Rule

This older and seldom-used test merely indicated that a criminal act is not punishable when it was the result of mental disease or defect. The reason why this was abandoned by courts is that it was too imprecise and gave too much to a matter of expertise.

Common Myths People Believe

Myth One: The Insanity Defense Is Used All the Time

Research indicates that in the United States, it is elevated in less than one percent of all criminal cases. It is rare. Defense attorneys are aware that it is not easy to win. They apply it only when they are sure that it is applicable and when the facts prove it.

Myth Two: It Almost Always Succeeds

In cases where it is raised, it is successful in approximately a quarter of the instances. That is to say that it does not work in most cases. Juries are skeptical. It is a battle that prosecutors give. And judges hold the bar high.

Myth Three: People Use It to Escape Punishment

This is probably the largest myth. An individual acquitted due to insanity simply does not walk out of the door. They are nearly invariably taken to a safe psychiatric home. They end up spending more time in custody than they would have served in prison if they were found guilty. They remain until the state is convinced that they are no longer a threat. That may take decades. Some never leave.

Myth Four: Any Mental Illness Qualifies

It is not enough to have depression, anxiety, or even a personality disorder. There are harsh conditions sought by courts, such as schizophrenia or profound psychotic disorders, which have a direct bearing on the individual losing touch with reality at the time of the crime. Being sad, angry, or even deeply troubled is not a pass.

Myth Five: Defendants Always Fake It

Some try. Courts, however, have forensic psychiatrists who have been trained to identify individuals who are faking mental illnesses. These specialists spend hours with the defendant, examine documentation, interview relatives, and administer clinical tests, which are difficult to deceive. Faking mental illness convincingly enough to fool a court is much harder than it looks.

What Actually Happens in Court

A battle of experts starts when a defendant pleads insanity.

The defense introduces a forensic psychiatrist or psychologist who has examined the accused and feels that he or she fits the legal definition of insanity.

The prosecution presents an expert of their own who does not agree.

The jury is then left to make a decision on whom they believe.

This is not an easy task. Such cases can be characterized by piles of medical records, years of medical history, family member testimony, security footage, and in-depth interviews. The jurors must balance complicated medical terminology and also use a legal standard that differs depending on their place of residence.

It is tiring, costly, and unpredictable.

Real Cases That Show How It Works

The John Hinckley Jr. Case

In 1981, John Hinckley Jr. shot President Ronald Reagan outside a Washington hotel. He was so crazy about the film Taxi Driver, and he desired to impress a film star, Jodie Foster. During the trial, his defense team claimed that he was legally insane. The jury concurred in 1982.

The public was furious. The federal law was soon amended by Congress to make the standard much more difficult to satisfy. The federal standard today holds the defense to demonstrate insanity by clear and convincing evidence. Before Hinckley, the burden was on the government to prove sanity.

Hinckley was a patient in a mental hospital for more than 30 years. In 2016, he was conditionally released, and in 2022 was fully released.

The Andrea Yates Case

In 2001, in Texas, Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub. She had a long history of well-documented postpartum psychosis and was hospitalized several times.

She was found guilty in her initial trial. However, such a verdict was reversed because of the false testimony of a prosecution expert. In her second trial in 2006, she was acquitted on the grounds of insanity. She was even taken to a state mental hospital, where she is to date.

Her case is frequently used in law schools as an example of how complicated such cases may be and how the same facts may result in different verdicts.

The James Holmes Case

James Holmes was a gunman who killed 12 individuals in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado in 2012. His defense case stated that he was affected by schizophrenia and did not know that what he was doing was wrong.

Prosecution claimed that he had premeditated the attack, which was a sign of awareness.

The insanity defense was turned down by the jury. Holmes was convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. His case indicates that planning and preparation usually cut across insanity cases.

Why the Defense Fails So Often

There are several reasons why the insanity defense is not trustworthy to courts and juries.

To begin with, moral insanity is confused with legal insanity. A person may be behaving in a manner that appears monstrous, irrational, and sick, yet he or she may still be considered legally sane under the law.

Secondly, the process of planning a crime indicates awareness. When you purchased a gun, drove somewhere, selected a target, and escaped the crime scene, the courts consider that as evidence that you knew that what you were doing was wrong.

Third, juries fear letting violent individuals go free without what they consider to be substantial punishment.

Fourth, the standard is genuinely high. Courts are not questioning whether one was mentally ill. They are questioning whether that sickness, at that particular time, took away their capacity to realize that the act was wrong. That is a narrow window.

What Happens After a Successful Insanity Defense

The phrase “not guilty by reason of insanity” sounds like freedom. It is not.

The individual is taken straight to a safe mental institution in most locations. They must reappear in court to demonstrate that they are no longer a threat to themselves or other people before they are allowed to leave. The fact that hearing may take place months or years after the commitment.

Many people found not guilty by reason of insanity are held far longer than the prison sentence they would have received for the same crime. It does not have a predetermined release date. You stay there until the doctors and the courts declare you safe.

This is a very important aspect that television hardly displays.

The Guilty but Mentally Ill Verdict

Some places have added a third option between guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. It is referred to as guilty and mentally ill.

Under this verdict, the person is still held responsible for the crime. They are convicted just like any other convicted individual. Yet mental health treatment is to be included in the sentence.

Critics argue that this decision is not usually practically effective, as prisons do not have the facilities to offer adequate psychiatric treatment. Its proponents claim that it keeps people responsible and at the same time does not deny their sickness.

How Mental Illness and the Legal System Interact More Broadly

The insanity defense is merely a piece of a much larger picture.

The issue of mental illness also appears in criminal law in other forms.

The insanity defense is distinctly different from competency to stand trial. This questions whether a defendant is now aware of the charges being leveled at them and is capable of cooperating with his/her lawyer. In case they are not, the trial cannot be continued till they are treated and made competent.

Diminished capacity is a related but different concept. It does not justify the crime, but may reduce the grade of the charge. An example is that one may be found guilty of a lesser offense when one’s mental illness prevented him/her to constitute the specific intent necessary to commit a more serious offense.

Sentencing considerations enable the courts to take into account mental illness to determine the number of years a person should serve or to include treatment in the sentence.

The Criticism the System Faces

The insanity defense has real critics on both sides.

Others claim that it is too difficult to meet. They claim that they are sending people with serious mental illness to prison instead of receiving treatment. A 2017 report from the Treatment Advocacy Center found that people with severe mental illness are ten times more likely to be in prison than in a hospital bed. That is an alarming figure.

Others maintain that defense can be abused, that rich defendants have greater access to expert witnesses, and that the case can be decided by who has the best psychiatrist rather than the facts.

The two criticisms address the same issue. The legal framework was constructed to deal with intent and choice. Mental illness makes both of those difficult in a way that has never been resolved by the law.

What This Means for How We Think About Justice

When we question whether or not one should be punished, we are essentially questioning whether they made a choice to do something wrong. Punishment assumes choice. It assumes someone could have done differently.

Mental illness may deny that decision. Not always. Not even the majority of the time. However, there are some instances when an individual is so caught up in a state of break from reality that requesting him to be responsible for what he is doing is like requesting a person with no legs to run.

The insanity defense is the juridical system attempting to find space for that reality. It does not always get it right. No system does. But it is also a true ethical dilemma, which has been debated in societies over centuries.

Are we supposed to punish individuals who did not know that they were doing what was wrong?

Most legal systems, when pushed to their core values, say no.

Final Thoughts

The insanity defense is an uncommon, difficult-to-obtain, and poorly understood defense. It does not allow individuals to get away with it. It redirects them. And it compels courts to grapple with one of the most difficult questions of law.

What is the meaning of being responsible for what you do?

The next time you hear a defendant claiming the insanity defense as a way of escaping a crime, you can recall what you have now learned. The bar is high. The result is frequently decades of enclosed psychiatric treatment. And the law system does not laugh it off, where popular culture does.

When you are studying a particular case, supporting a loved one that is navigating the legal system, and even simply trying to learn how mental health and the law relate, the most important thing to remember is that the law does not ask whether one is sick. It poses the question of whether, at the very moment of the crime, their sickness had deprived them of the knowledge of what was right and what was wrong.

That is extremely difficult to demonstrate. And that is exactly the point.

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