Mentally Ill Defendants In Other Countries.

Factual Questions
1

Mentally ill defendants are usually cut no slack, in U.S. courts. Whether you think that is right or not, I think we can all agree on that. I live in Michigan. And we do still have the insanity defense. But it is rarely brought up. In fact I know of no case, recent, or even some years back, when the defense was even considered, by the defense team.

First off, I do have to bring one important fact up. Most mentally ill, are not violent, and typically not even criminal, for that matter. Most of them probably live quiet lives, just below the radar screen.

But the ones that do violent or even criminal acts have me wondering about something, though. How are mentally ill defendants treated in other countries? I’m of course thinking of western Europe. But also, Canada, and Mexico too.

And what about Muslim countries? By “Muslim”, I mean either with Sharia law, or even just with a majority Muslim population. That one really has me wondering, in fact. How do they get treated in those kinds of places? It might be very eye-opening to us. And thought-provoking too, I am sure.

Please make your posts as thorough, or as concise, as you think necessary, to answer the OP. As I said, I would really like to know about the Muslim question too.

:):):slight_smile:

2

In Vic.Aus, you never pleaded insane if you were sane enough to plead guilty. Because a guilty plea put you away for a fixed term, whereas a plee of insanity meant detained indefiniately.

In theory they’ve done away with indefinate imprisonment, but in practice it still seams to work the same way.

According to the head of the secure facility, when I heard him speak, crazy people are only slightly more dangerous than non-crazy people, and the difference is much smaller than other differences. You should always choose to live next door to the little old crazy woman, rather than the (sane) drug-addicted or alcoholic or young man, because any of those catagories is much more dangerous.

Having said that, it’s not unknown for psychotic young men to self-medicate with alcohol and illegal drugs.

His facility is and was nicer to live in than the general prison, but he only got the extreme cases, the ones who weren’t sane enough to plead guilty at trial. The general prison population is still (around 50%?) full of brain-dmaged, retarted, and mentally ill people.

3

This is going to vary from place to place, of course, but in most jurisdictions it’s entirely possible to be mentally ill, and still have the capacity to form the intent necessary to commit a crime. Thus you can be (a) mentally ill and (b) guilty. Mental illness will only ground a defence if it’s of a nature which prevents you from forming a criminal intention (whatever that may be in your jurisdiction). So, for example, if you are so mentally ill that you literally do not know what you are doing - I cut my victim’s throat in the insane delusion that I am slicing a loaf of bread - or if you cannot tell right from wrong, then you have a defence. But a lesser degree of mental illness, not necessarily.

A separate question is whether you are too mentally ill to be tried. If you lack the capacity to understand the charges you are facing, to instruct lawyers, to follow the proceedings, then a trial would be unfair and abusive, and so the question of whether you could be guilty of the crime will never be considered.

4

It’s the same way in the US. They did a study a few years ago, and on average people who successfully pleaded insanity spend more time confined in a mental institution than they would have spent in prison had they simply plead guilty.

In any case, the legal notion of insanity was formulated in a time when phrenology was considered a cutting edge science. It’s so outdated, the entire concept should probably be thrown out.

5

As to the OP’s assumptions, a little googling quickly turns up half a dozen cases where a defendant in Michigan was found not competent to stand trial. Note too that the homicidal Uber driver will probably attempt to invoke mental illness as well.

6

Australian prisons allow tarts? And even re-tarts? Wow!

7

Yes. The OP seems to me to be missing this point. You can’t plead “not guilty due to insanity” unless you can convince the court appointed psychiatrists that you weren’t capable at the time of judging right from wrong.

8

I don’t think we should receive any slack, honestly.

You imply that because we’re insane, we aren’t in control of our actions. The implication here is that the rest of you are in control of your own actions and that it’s just us, the diagnosed mentally ill folk, who are not.

I think every single one of you who rush to embrace that distinction should be required to post in each and every thread that pertains to “free will versus determinism”. (I’m tired of standing against the diehard determinists). But seriously, however you reconcile that particular Great Debate topic to your own satisfaction, do you doubt that each and every one of us is affected by our context, our plight, our resulting state of mind, and our concurrent emotional state? Rightly or wrongly, our criminal justice system says “Yeah, whatever. You still done what you done”. And whether the underlying rationale is deterrence, prevention of the same person committing the next crime, rehabilitation, or plain old retribution and vengeance, the criminal justice system says “Insofar as you done what you done, these are the penalties for doing that”.

The criminal justice system does NOT say “Oh, this person did this thing, sure, but there were forces acting upon them that coerced them into reacting, if not exactly like this in this specific instance, then in some fashion akin to this sooner or later, so we aren’t going to be vindictive about it”.

Maybe it should. But it doesn’t.

Why (you may be asking) don’t I wish to receive special dispensations as a consequence of being diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic? Wouldn’t I be better off if it were understood that I am not responsible for my actions?

Fuck no. Ten times over fuck no.

First off, as has already been alluded to by Melbourne, if you are a nutcase and get off the criminal-justice hook for what you did, yeah, you may not have to face criminal justice sanctions, but, my friend, do you think they’re gonna let you out of the nuthouse any time soon? Uh uh. In fact your odds of your sneaker bottoms hitting free sidewalk sooner if you did the criminal justice route make it the better gamble unless you’re facing likely capital punishment or life imprisonment for decapitating girl scouts and eating them in front of their tied-up mommies or something.

Second, if it is established that you have a status that makes you officially not responsible for your actions, how likely is it that your right to choose your own actions will be respected by law? Yeah. It seriously fucking sucks. We get labeled “mentally ill”. What it means in practice is that we’re treated as people who don’t get to make decisions about our own lives and how we want to live them. Do you have any fucking idea what it feels like to be treated as if anything your brain is capable of producing is tantamount to static, meaningless white noise produced by malfunctioning neurons?

We do not need this category. Because there is already a category. It’s called legal incompetence. It is also not perfectly safe from abuse. But the standards are more strict. They can’t just slap a label on you and say “therefore you can’t think”. They have to demonstrate it in front of the judge. The allegedly incompetent person gets to demonstrate that they actually have working grey cells. Yeah I know my name, I know where I am, I understand the purpose of this hearing. Yeah I can tell you who is current President and who is running to be the next one. I can tell you how I would navigate from here to home, or from here to Cincinnati if need be. I can tell you how I would cope with burglars in my home, fire in my back yard, ambulance sirens behind me while I’m driving.

I am not a lawyer. I’m under the impression that in American courts, in order to be absolved from responsibility for crimes one is alleged to have committed, one must effectively demonstrate incompetence, although I think some peculiar form of moral depravity will also qualify you, i.e, “does not know right from wrong”. Those of you who know more precisely feel free to chime in here. That much seems reasonable to me.

Psychiatric diagnosis should have no legal standing in a court of law. Either a person is incompetent or they are not. If you know what the fuck you’re doing in the most basic sense of the word, you should be held responsible using the same yardstick that applies to everyone else. Faulty though it may be. Far be it from me to defend the vengeance-based punishment-oriented criminal justice system, but don’t do me any fucking favors on the basis of my psych diagnosis, thanks.

9

Who do you suggest determine whether a person is incompetent or not?

10

Currently it’s the courts themselves that make that determination (informed, of course, by psychiatric evidence where appropriate).

I think the point is that “has a mental illness” and “lacks competence” are overlapping but by no means identical sets. Lots of people have a mental illness but are perfectly competent. Equally, lots of people are incompetent for reasons that have nothing to do with mental illness.

11

In Spanish, the code phrase is agravantes y atenuantes, “circumstances which make the crime more serious or less”. Many of Spain’s former colonies have a list very similar to ours, but I’m only giving Spain’s take.

Spain’s current edition Penal Code is from 1995 (Ley Orgánica 10/1995). Chapter 2 lists circumstances which automatically absolve someone, Chapter 3 those which lessen guilt.

Exemption 1: Those who at the time they committed the infraction, due to any psychic anomaly or alteration, could not understand that the action was illegal or act according to that understanding. This will not be valid if the mental state had been purposefully induced at the time the action took place or at a time when it could be expected that it would happen if the altered mental state took place.

Exemption 2 is the same for drug related alterations.

12

I know that. I was interested in AHunter3’s response, as the post was not particularly coherent in its address and message and the juxtaposition of those two sentences was particularly confusing.

13

In Germany diminished responsibility for mental disorders can be applied to defendants found criminally responsible, and there are notable cases of assault and homicide every year where the perpetrator was so clearly insane (went for a random person or a sibling/parent in a psychotic or schizophrenic state) that prosecutor and defence concur not to go for a criminal trial but for an outright court-mandated hospitalization.

As noted by others, being found insane is not necessarily to a perpetrator’s advantage.

For example, in 1990 two German politicians were gravely injured by mentally ill attackers:

  • Oskar Lafontaine, stabbing at neck - almost died but apparently no long time problems
  • Wolfgang Schäuble (the present Finance Minister), gunshots - paralyzed from the 3rd thoraic vertebra since

Lafontaine’s attacker was released from full time hospitalization in 2013; Schäuble’s in 2004 i.e. 23 and 14 years after the attack. Had they been sane the maximum penalty would have been 10 years in each case, with a good chance of release after two thirds served.

14

Ah, OK.

I think the point is that “competence” is a legal standard, not a medical one. If questions about your competence arise because you have a mental illness, then obviously expert psychiatric evidence is required. But the psychiatrists won’t testify that “he’s competent” or “he’s not competent”; rather they’ll testify about how your mental illness impacts you; what effect it has on your cognition, your volition, your awareness of how others perceive you, etc, etc, and then the court will determine, in light of that evidence, whether you meet the (legal) standard of competence.

And Ahunte3 referred specifically to “diagnosis”. A simple diagnosis of bipolar disorder, of schizophrenia, of paranoia, etc, etc, doesn’t determine whether you are competent or not.

15

I’m not translating the whole thing unless payment in chocolate in involved, but I found a document listing agravantes y atenuantes in different Latin American countries.

Brasil specifically excludes “violent emotion” from the list of attenuating circumstances.

Argentina, Bolivia, do not indicate anything.

Colombia considers “extreme emotional states” as an attenuating circumstance.

Costa Rica does not list emotional or rational states but indicates that the judge can apply “other criteria” not listed in the law itself.

Cuba lists both “extreme emotional alteration due to offenses received” and “mental alteration in a woman due to pregnancy, menstruation, menopause or menarche”.

Chile is an exact copy of the Spanish law with regards to Chapter 1 (aggravating circumstances) and 3 (attenuating circumstances), but this particular document doesn’t list 2 (a bit confusing, as many countries begin by indicating “any condition listed in 2 which isn’t strong enough to provide complete exemption”). This other document, specifically dedicated to those exemptions in Chile, lists a first one which yep, is exactly the same as the Spanish one (letter by letter). Intoxication is treated as in Spain: aggravating if purposeful, exempting if complete and unintended, attenuation if partial and unintended. Similar responses for El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Perú, Uruguay, Venezuela.

Ecuador defines that exempting and attenuating circumstances are those which diminish responsibility, “such as the infractor’s mental ability”. Intoxication as in Spain.

El Salvador, intoxication as in Spain. Intense rage or “loss of mind” linked to being attacked also considered (either one personally or people for whom one is responsible, such as your spouse or children).

Guatemala, “losing one’s head” can be an exemption or an attenuation. The usual re. intoxication.

Mexico doesn’t indicate anything regarding mental state directly, although they do list “personal circumstances” and “reasons to commit the offense”.

Puerto Rico takes a prize for vagueness. “Penalty must fit the crime” is about it.

For the Dominican Republic, the document only contains information on when can a minor be judged as an adult, including “when they understood the severity of their actions”.

16

[QUOTE=French penal code]
A person is not criminally liable who, when the act was committed, was suffering from a psychological or neuropsychological disorder which destroyed his discernment or his ability to control his actions.

A person who, at the time he acted, was suffering from a psychological or neuropsychological disorder which reduced his discernment or impeded his ability to control his actions, remains punishable; however, the court shall take this into account when it decides the penalty and determines its regime.
[/QUOTE]

As for how it’s implemented in practice in France, I wouldn’t know.

17

Puerto Rico would also be subject to any US constitutional standards, though.

18

^^^ What UDS said. I thought I was clear about that but apparently not so much.

19

You have to remember insanity is NOT a medical nor psychological term. It is a legal term. And legal terms are not necessarily what we think they are or reason them to be.

The insanity defense started out centuries ago, it was first successfully argued based on the accepted fact, that mentally ill people are indeed ill.

For instance, if Jane had smallpox and gave John smallpox, if John died, Jane was not prosecuted for his death, because illness is an “act of God” and Jane has no real responsibility or fault, for causing John’s death, because she was ill.

The reasoning was then extended to mentally ill people. Let’s use the above example, if Jane is mentally ill and kill John, then Jane is not responsible, because she is ill and society doesn’t prosecute people for being merely sick.

This worked out fairly well more or less for centuries (with some notable exceptions) till after WWII when mental illness became more understood and we stopped warehousing mentally ill people in institutions. After all if someone killed someone else or committed a crime while mentally ill, it meant little difference if we locked them away in a jail or let them rot in an institution.

The real blow in America for the “not guilty by reason of insanity” defense came with the John Hinckley case. I would venture to guess had that not “worked” we would have a different path than today.

Now insanity is defined legally and it is not in my opinion as a psychologist in synch with what a mental health professional would say it is. But it is what it is and you have to use the legal systems definitions.

20

I don’t agree on that. What evidence do you have?

It is very difficult for a defendant to prove they were mentally incapable of controlling their behavior or comprehending why what they did was wrong. And that is how it should be.