The Insanity Plea by Winslad and Ross: Summary
The Insanity Plea is a book about the Uses & Abuses of the Insanity Defense in various cases. The book is by William J. Winslade and Judith Wilson Ross. In this report, I will basically summarize the book and tell you different ways people have used and abused the Criminal Justice System using The Insanity
Plea.
I will first talk about the case of Dan White. On November 18, 1978,
Preliminary reports began broadcasting news of the events in a town called
Jonestown, at first all that was known, was that people of a religious cult shot and may have even killed California Congressman Leo Ryan. Then on
November 27, 9 days after the news of the death of Congressman Ryan another 2 deaths happened. George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco, and Harvey Milk, a city supervisor and the leader of San Francisco's politically active gay community, had been shot and killed at death in the San Francisco City Hall.
The Police then sniffed-out and charged Dan White with the murders of the 3 people. In 2 years the trial ended with the verdict of guilty on the account of manslaughter. He was later sentenced to 7 years and 8 months in a Prison, with a possibility of parole after 5. After the verdict there were Riots breaking out in the streets because of the verdict. Before hand he was elected a Supervisor and resigned because he didn't like the way that Politics worked.
The point before, that I may not have mentioned, is that the defense argued that he was insane and that "a person with a normal background who was brought up in a good home, something is obviously missing." Since he was being charged on 3 accounts of Murder in the 1st, they somewhat bought the insane defense so they lowered his charges to 1 account of voluntary manslaughter, where he received 7 years and 8 months with a possibility of parole after 5 years.
In the summer of 1978, Lyman Bostock seemed to have it made very good. He was one of the 3 highest paid players EVER in the American League and he was highly regarded by fans and sportscasters alike. Then one errie, summer night at 10:30 Lyman Bostock was gunned down at Fifth and Jackson in downtown Gary,
Illinois while he was riding in the back seat of his uncle's Buick with a twelve gauge shot gun, that was fired by a Mr Leonard Smith. Leonard Smith was a 33 year...
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Houses. He searched the house and found nothing. He undid the leather to allow easy access to his gun as he came out of the building. A group of black teenagers, including Randy approached the building and shouted out to Torsney and asked if his apartment had been searched. Torsney immediately pulled his gun and shot him in the head. Torsney was found with 5 years in a Loony Bin with help from other people.
The book itself only gave the plain hard facts on the case and the author did not say anything about his oppinion on any case so I will expand my oppinion. I think that the Insanity Plea is often mis-used, ordianary people just like you and me get of with only 4 years in a mental home for killing people. Also the people who actually ARE insane sometimes get ruled down and are put in jail, where they commit even more crimes.
So as you can see, sometimes the Insanity plea was put to good use and some bad, well I guess that is just an opinion. There were more cases left in the book but those were the most important ones in the book, if I took the time to do all of them, This report would be 20 pages long. I thank you for reading it, adios.
He was claiming to be innocent at all times but he didn’t have a good legal representation, his lawyer never visit him in jail, as punishment he was in solitary confine for 2 years consecutives,
good player that was recognized in the MLB. In the 2012-2013 season they ended up getting
He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but some thought he might actually be suffering from drug-induced toxic psychosis. He visited the emergency room for testimonials that bones were coming out the back of his head, someone stole his pulmonary arteries, his stomach was backwards, and his heart stopped beating sometimes. He was also diagnosed with hypochondria, where he believed his heart was in danger of shrinking until disappearance. He then came to the solution that drinking blood of animals or humans would stop the shrinking. He was also interviewed and said that he killed to stay alive. He was admitted to a mental institution and was prescribed antidepressants. He was allowed to leave anytime he wanted. He was left unsupervised and his mother told him that he did not need the
among the American League's best players but Charles Comiskey paid most of them no more than
In other words, photography can be used to present objectivity, to facilitate treatment and for future re-admissions of the insane. With his presentation Diamond’s application of photography to the insane in asylums became widespread. Just a few years later in 1858 British psychiatrist John Conolly published, “The Physiognomy of Insanity,” in The Medical Times and Gazette. In this series of essays Conolly reproduces photos taken by Diamond and provides a detail of each photo selected. I have included four of the plates Conolly used in his essay below.
good, in fact, that it is questioned if he was acting insane or if he
Several illustrations that prove insanity does not always mean having a mental illness has been exposed. One example is cruelty. Joseph Stalin
In order for someone to be found guilty of a crime they must have actus reus and mens rea. The insanity defense did not deal with the actus rea, but the question is whether or not the defendant knew wrongfulness of his crime. The right of this defense come from the fact that a person should not be liable if he is not capable mentally to know what he is doing and able to conform his conduct to the requirements of law. Although the insanity defense tactic is rarely used and rarely successful, defense lawyers sometimes have strategy behind the weak insanity defense. The success in the insanity defense will not be to prove that the defendant was insane at the time of the crime, but to achieve other goals based on the defendant
quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not
Slobogin, Christopher. "The Integrationist Alternative to the Insanity Defense: Reflections on the Exculpatory Scope of Mental Illness in the Wake of the Andrea Yates Trial." American Journal of Criminal Law (2003): Vol. 30 Issue 3, p315-341.
The last goal is engaging and retaining mentally ill offenders in appropriate treatment resources so they can maintain themselves stabilized (Yuma County Superior Court Mental Health Court, 2013). This will not only secure mentally ill individuals from snapping, it will also help them maintain a regular life. With these goals, comes great benefits for both the mental ill person and society itself. Benefits such as having a mentally ill defendant not being sentences on
discussed as one that focuses on madness, when it deals with two of the most insane and depraved
Answer each question, using complete sentences. When you have finished, submit this assignment to your teacher by the due date for full credit.
Chicago because of a job he accepted as an MD at some University. His family
The basis of insanity is upon M’Nagten Rules (1843) which set forward the principles of a defence when the “defendant had a defect of reason” or a “disease of the mind” and was not able to understand the nature of the act they did or did not know what they were doing was wrong. These three conditions must be proved for the defence of insanity to become available. Insanity is available for the all cases that require mens rea except for strict liability cases.