John Allen Rubio Insanity Defense

Cases that go to trial are because of some sort of criminal act. In order for a criminal act to have taken place there had to have been some violation of the elements of that specific crime or crimes. While at trial, however, the defendants can offer up excuses or reasons of why they did what they did. This paper will rest mainly on the insanity plea. This paper will look at the case of John Allen Rubio and the insanity defense. This paper will provide a brief overview of the case, giving the events that lead up to the murder and the court appearances that followed. The original verdict will also be discussed and how it leads to the final verdict of the case. This paper will furthermore discuss the defense that was used and the reasoning behind

Many of them are commonly used at trials. Duress, involuntary intoxication, mistake, age, entrapment, insanity, and diminished responsibility are the most commonly used excuses (Schmalleger & Hall, 2014). Keeping these listed excuses in mind, the one that stands out the most is the insanity excuse. Insanity is a social and legal term that, when used, may result in a finding that the required culpable mental state to commit a crime may have not been met. It may also lead to a showing that the defendant should be excused from legal responsibility of the crime because of mental disease or defect (Schmalleger & Hall, 2014). In other words, the defendant may have committed the crime but was not in his senses at the time the crime was committed so he should not be held liable for the crime that was

Maybe murder is short of what really happened. The children who were all under the age of four were smothered, strangled, and decapitated according news reports and court documents. The Rubio trials were extensive and went through a couple of appeals already and the case is still awaiting yet another appeal. Copies of the original statements made by Rubio and Comacho were obtained by news reporter Marcy Martinez in 2009. These statements, which were obtained by local police detectives, describe how the children were killed (Martinez, 2009). According to the reports posted on the site, Rubio believed that his children were possessed and that he had to behead them in order to get rid of the evil that possessed them. The statement provided by Rubio was very graphic in nature. Camacho’s statements, however, went somewhat with Rubio’s but added that they were experiencing lots of financial problems and that is why the children were