A Brief History of the Insanity PleaThe insanity plea is an affirmative defense. An affirmative defense means that the defendant acknowledges the crime happened, but does not believe he or she should be held fully responsible for one reason or other. As anyone could probably guess, a person who pleads insanity is arguing that he or she should not be held responsible because he or she is legally insane, or was at the time that the crime was committed. This plea has sparked much controversy over the centuries. Some people are appalled by the idea that a murderer or other dangerous criminal could be "let off the hook" by claiming mental illness. Other people are equally repelled by the idea of punishing a person who is not capable of fully understanding or controlling his or her actions. At the center of all this debate has been the attempt to settle on a legal definition of insanity. Many different standards have been proposed and used in different courts all over the world. Within the US, the legal understanding of mental illness has evolved into several different forms over time. In chronological order, these are the rules of thumb that have been used to settle insanity pleas in the US. The earliest attempt to legally define insanity originated in England in 1843. It became known as the M'Naghten rule, after a paranoid schizophrenic who was found not guilty after shooting and killing a politician. This rule stated that a person could not be held legally responsible for criminal actions committed while suffering a mental disorder that either a) prevented them from understanding what he or she was doing, or b) prevented them from knowing his or her behavior wrong. Some people in both the US and England felt this law was too lenient, and that a person should not be excused of crimes as long as he or she is capable of controlling his or her behavior. In 1887 the Alabama Supreme Court devised the "irresistible impulse test." Under this law, people who wanted to plead insanity had to demonstrate that they were incapable of controlling their behavior when their crimes were committed. Several states adopted this law, which was criticized both for being too strict and too lenient by various parties. Although the Durham Rule was first developed in New Hampshire in 1954, it was not widely used across the US until the 1950's. This short-lived law declared that anyone whose crimes were caused by a mental illness was not responsible for his or her crimes. It should be noted that rather than being set free, people found mentally ill were incarcerated in mental hospitals, often indefinitely. Today New Hampshire is the only state still using the Durham rule. The current definition of insanity used in every other state is an inability to understand the consequences of their actions or control their behavior. This may sound broad, but today the insanity defense is rarely attempted, and extremely rarely successful. |
