Arguments Against The Insanity Plea

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According to Jennifer Feehan, a notable authors, it is nationally “estimated that less than 1% of all criminal defendants enter insanity pleas in felony cases, and only a fraction of those are found to have been insane at the time they committed the offense” (Feehan 1). The insanity plea is one of the many issues that troubles the American Justice System and is a controversial topic to many. Why is this a topic so popular if it is such a rare defense used in court? One possible answer may be that the public may misinterpret what actually happens to someone who is found “not guilty by the reason of insanity” (NGRI) (Gilligan 135). The insanity plea is a defense mechanism used in trial to say that the defendant is not responsible and not consciously aware of what he did at the time of the crime. Some …show more content…

The insanity plea could be traced back to the 18th century when “some courts looked to whether the defendant could distinguish between good and evil, while others asked whether the defendant did not know what he did” and by the “19th century, it was generally accepted that the insanity was a question of fact, which was left to the jury to decide” (Francone). There are 4 different parts to the plea which include the M'Naghten rule, the Irresistible Impulse test, the Durham rule, and lastly the Model Penal Code. One of the “first famous legal test for insanity came in 1843, in the M’Naghten case” where Daniel M’Naghten ,an Englishman, killed the secretary of the British Prime Minister. He was acquitted “by reason of insanity, and was placed in a mental institution for the rest of his life” but it did not end there (Francone). After the case was over, the event caused a public uproar, and the court was ordered by Queen Victoria to develop a stricter test for insanity. The M’Naghten rule is used to analyze the person's cognition and tell whether they are in fact insane at the time of the crime. The test that is

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