As many of you may know, there is a general tendency in this country to do away with the insanity defense. Or if not that, at least to limit it.
This generally based on people’s ignorance. People think it is the most used defense. It actually is the least, at less than 1% of all cases (and then only successful about a third of the time). The M’Naughten test makes it apply in only the most extreme cases, when the defendant couldn’t possibly know the difference between right and wrong. If you want to talk about a ridiculous affirmative defense, consider the entrapment defense. And that one is probably used far more often too.
Anyway, this is not a debate about the insanity defense. My question is simply, how is the insanity defense handled in other countries? And is there indeed any other country that has completely eliminated it too?
I do recall reading somewhere (sorry, I forget exactly where:)) that Sweden did away with it. But mentally ill people there who are found guilty are just put in mental institutions anyways. So I don’t know if that would be within the general implications, at least, of my question. And while we’re at it, how is the insanity defense handled in Muslim countries?
Sorry, I have no cites. As I said, I don’t remember where I read some of this. Much of it is common knowledge. I may add more later.
I am late for a doctor’s appointment. So I will hover around the boards for a couple of minutes. Then I may not get back on them till tomorrow:).
Remember this is NOT a debate. Facts only please:).
It’s talked about far more often, but most online legal fora which accept questions from lay people have a rule: “That isn’t entrapment, you goddamned idiot.”
That is, it’s common to hear non-lawyers claim things to be entrapment. It’s common for those people to be wrong. Apparently, the idea that the police can take you right up to the edge of criminality and then lie like Hell to get you to step over, and that’s not only permissible but encouraged, is very alien to quite a few people. Hell, the idea that people lie is alien to a surprising number of people, given how many of them seem to think urban legends and scams have to have a kernel of truth to them, as if the Universe itself wouldn’t allow something which was completely bogus to exist.
But entrapment as a concept is one of the defenses against police overreach, and as such is quite important, in the few cases the police are stupid enough to entrap someone.
The fact someone, or a lot of someones, is wrong about a thing doesn’t make that thing any less useful.
I don’t know much about other countries and their insanity standards, but wanted to point out that the M’Naughten test is not the only one in use in the US. A number of states use or used the Model Penal Code, which includes a “policeman at the elbow,” test – did the accused, by reason of mental disease or defect, lacks substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the law. In other words, was he so compelled that he would have done the crime even knowing a police officer was standing right there?
See here for relevant Spanish law. That specific post was triggered by a question about a different sentence modifier, but hey, I already did the work once
The TLDR for insanity is that it can lead to reduced sentences but not if purposefully self-induced: in that case, the sentence can get higher. And if someone is apprehended and suspected of being psychotic, they’ll be processed by the judiciary while housed in the nearest psychiatric hospital rather than the local jail.
In England and Wales, the Law Commission produced, some years ago, some discussion points on reforming the relevant law, but no firm legislative proposals seem to have developed from that.
John Hinkley shot Ronald Reagan and got off with an insanity plea. I often wondered - here’s a guy who followed the president with a handgun and went back and forth across the country, yet was aware enough of right and wrong to not get arrested for attempting to bring a weapon on an airplane. You would think demonstrated sufficient knowledge of right vs. wrong (or more accurately, what the law forbids you to do regardless whether you agree) that it should negate an insanity plea.
Have you read about all the terrorists the FBI has created? So someone is down on their luck, disgruntled, and hanging around a mosque. An informant working for the FBI gradually coaxes them out of their slump and helps them build a bomb and supplies all the materials and so on. (with fake explosives the FBI can supply)
Anyways I have heard that the supposed principal for entrapment is the defendant would not have otherwise committed a similar crime, and given that there are not terrorist bombings weekly in New York, this looks like smoking gun entrapment to me. Go read articles on it.
Not much different than the Crack House scam. Undercover or a paid informant gets a bunch of guys to raid a (fake) crack house; promises them "this is a drug distribution place, so they’ll have twenty pounds of the good stuff and a hundred thousand cash. The feds arrange for the firepower, then when they are ready to do the crime, arrests them. Then the coup de grace - since we said it had X pounds of drugs and Y thousands of dollars, that’s the level of crime we ask the court to sentence you for, even though that never existed.
it comes in common law like that, probably, but just like the UK, where Scotland, Wales, etc are equivalent of states of a federation, and have their own crimes and courts laws, it varies from state to state … and Australia also has 6 states in its Federation.
For example , just the other day in Victora, they changes the wording of the verdict
of mental illness from “Not guilty by reason of mental illness” to “Facts proven but due to mental illness”.
However the law then applies that they are held at the gov’s determination, which is basically just like a parole board , but its for the mentally ill detained due to the criminal law and they basically want to know that the crime was totally due to delusion, and the person got better and extremely unlikely to revert. Eg if the disease was somatic, caused by some internal malfunction. someone had a teratoma (a type of tumour) making them mentally ill due to immune system attack of the teratoma’s neurons (the teratoma contains tissue which was brain matter, or similar enough to, basically ) also attacking their real brain.
Now if you plead mental insanity upfront, then there is no trial but the verdict is the same. Varies from state to state, but probably they all allow guilty but mentally insane, and anyway these days there are no seperate institutions for the criminally insane, and if you don’t improve to be very nearly completely sane, or cause is of the brain not the body, they keep you in jail anyway.
Just to clarify, “got off” in this instance meaning found not legally responsible due to insanity. “Got off” might be thought to mean “wasn’t imprisoned,” but Hinckley was imprisoned in a mental hospital for 18 years, and mostly imprisoned for 17 more years (“mostly” because of visits to family in their care/responsibility.) After his release in 2016, he still must live with his mother, and has limits on his ability to travel, use the internet, and other restrictions.
Ironically, Hinckley served more time than most murderers convicted in the 1980s, even though his insanity defense was part of the impetus for increased mandatory sentencing in the 1980s. None of this is bad - he was a murderer and a proven danger to other people - but it does demonstrate that his insanity ‘defense’ certainly didn’t give him any freedom any faster than other murderers of his time.
But it’s a bit of a digression from what other countries do about insanity and criminality.
[sub]*James Brady didn’t die until 2014, but it was still considered a result of the gunshot wound from 1981.
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At least in Victoria, there is a separate institution for the criminally insane: “Thomas Embling Hospital” And yes, it does have a big wall around it. And no, you don’t get to go there just be being a criminal, and insane. Most convicted schizophrenic criminals wind up in the general prison population.
In Victoria it is still the case that no sane person would plead insanity. If you’re just criminal, you get a release date. If you’re criminally insane, you don’t.
Article in Spanish regardingpeople with mental disabilities in the Spanish penal system. It’s from El País Semanal and I don’t think they usually translate those to English.
Someone with a mental disability can be considered “not responsible by reason of not understanding”, inimputable, untriable. If it’s detected but not that high, accomodations are supposed to be made to ensure they understand what’s going on. There are three prisons with specific wings for the mentally disabled (plus some others who are there as their in-prison job), but some aren’t sent there because that would send them too far from their families. Those who are untriable can be sent there or to psychiatric hospitals, but these are considered very much a worse option. In a flip of the classic punchline, “he’s stupid, not crazy!”
