Insanity Plea

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Insanity Plea

Insanity, comes from the Latin word sanus, meaning healthy. Insane is meant to be the opposite, sick or of unsound mind. # In the court of law, the jury must prove that at the time of the crime, the defendant was not in a sane mind. The attorneys job is to prove without a doubt, that the defendant was not in control of their actions, at the time the crime was committed. Once this is done and the verdict is given, if found guilty by reason of insanity, the person is usually sent to a mental hospital, where treatment can be give. Once at the hospital the patient is then give therapy and even drugs if needed. At the time when the person and the doctors feel he/she are capable of going back into society, and when they are no longer a harm, then they can be let out. This puts fear into society, because a once dangerous criminal might now be let out to the streets. However the insanity plea as been around for many years, and is not used in every court case, and there is long determination to prove that the person does have a mental illness, and to prove that its is not gear to get a harsher term.

In the eyes of the law, a defendant is legally insane if he or she is unable, because of a mental problem, to form a mens rea, a Latin term meaning a guilty mind.# Since the law only punishes people who are mentally responsible for their actions, most states allow juries to find a defendant not guilty if he or she was insane at the time a crime was committed. The insanity defense, states that at the time of the crime the defendant could not decide between right or wrong or could not keep from acting on their impulse, due to mental illness. Each state has its own definition of insanity, but most states fol...

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...ned that they are not in danger of hurting themselves or others.

Bibliography:

Bibliography

Dolan, Edward Jr, The Insanity Plea, New York, Library of Congress in Publication Data, 1984

Fingarette, Herbert The Meaning of Criminal Insanity, California, University of California Pres Ltd, 1972

Gerber, Rudolph J , The Insanity Defense, New York, Associated Press Inc, 1984

Goldstein, Abraham S, The Insanity Plea, New Haven, Yale University, 1967

Latzer, Barry, Death Penalty Cases, Boston, Library in Congress In Publications, 1998

Lewis, Dorothy, M.D., Guilty by Reason of Insanity, New York, The Ballantine Publishing Group, 1998

Szasz, Thomas S., M.D., Psychiatric Justice, New York, The Macmillan Company, 1965

Winslade, William J, Ph.D, and Judith Wilson Ross, The Insanity Plea: The Users & Abusers of the Insanity Defense, New York

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