The Pros And Cons Of The Insanity Defense

1302 Words6 Pages
Insanity is difficult to thoroughly define, causing great controversy, especially when accusing a defendant of a crime. It needs to be known that this term is not a psychological term, but a legal term (Chiacchia 1). The Insanity Defense is a plea for convicted defendants that apparently lack the mental capacity to realize they committed a crime that was wrong, and could not tell right from wrong at the time of the crime. Dating back to the roman empire, it has been viewed as immoral to punish a mentally ill person when they did not know what was going on (Chiacchia 1), hence the Insanity Defense, also called the “Irresistible Impulse” defense (Martin 2). This plea has a bigger role in sentencing rather than convicting, and almost protects…show more content…
Evidence of this includes: the Insanity Defense is not accurate as it could be, merely because of who is sentencing the defendant. It is argued that personal opinions of jurors may influence decisions because they will not follow the local legal definitions of insanity, but their own (Shroeder 4). Treatment is sometimes neglected, and defendants are jailed as if they were completely guilty of a crime, which makes an “easy out” for jurors to convict (Chiacchia 1). To refute this idea, because this defense is used so little, there would be no reason for a jury to make an easy conviction because it’s not like they get this type of trial all the time. Also, bias is a factor in almost everything that comes to crime, the Insanity Defense is just included in all of the other aspects of crime and trials. Bias is actually a big deal in almost every subject, because it is unlikely a person will not use their personal opinion to make judgement on
Show More
Related

  • Ted Bundy Research Paper

    3432 Words  | 14 Pages

    clown and perform at parties, while at the same time murdering, at least 33, young men and burying their bodies under his home. He was a true psychopath that attempted to claim insanity as a defense for his crimes. However, Gacy chose his victims ahead of time, which qualifies as premeditation, which ended his hopes of an insanity plea. Had there not been profilers at law enforcement’s disposal then this serial killer may have continued his killing for decades (Hendricks, 2012). Aileen

    Read More

More about The Pros And Cons Of The Insanity Defense

Open Document