Under English law the defences of insanity and automatism play an important role in the avoidance of Liability for crimes committed in a state of abnormal mental functioning. The reasons for these defences is that these people should be treated and not punished
Definitions of Insanity and Automatism
The defence of Insanity concerns that the accused was insane at the time of his alleged crime but is mentally fit to plead at trail. The definition of insanity has never been defined in statute but is defined By the House of Lords case of M’Naughton 1843 where the house held for insanity to apply the accused needs to be; “Labouring under a disease of the mind that causes a defect of reason and the accused does not know the nature and quality of his act or that it is legally wrong.”
In the case of Clarke A defect of reasoning was held to mean that a person must be deprived of his powers of reasoning, but does not include momentary lapses of judgement or confusion or forgetfulness.
In Kemp 1957 disease of the mind was defined by Devlin J When he sates; “the law is not concerned with the brain but with the mind, in the sense that mind is ordinarily used, the mental faculties of reason, memory and understanding. The condition of the brain is irrelevant and so is the question of whether it is curable or incurable transitory or permanent.”
In Quick in 1973 it was also for the of disease of the mind to apply it must come from an internal disease in this case the defendant had a violent reaction to his diabetes treatment and was held to be an external factor and not a disease of the mind as in Kemp.
As well as suffering from a from a defect of reason disease of the mind as stated above the defendant must also not have an unders...
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...when they clearly aren’t insane.
Bibliography
Books used
Jefferson Criminal Law
Unlocking Criminal Law Jacqueline martin 4th audition
Law Express Criminal law Emily Finch and Stefan Fafinski
Jonathan Herring Criminal Law
Journals
Reville N., ‘Automatisum and Diabetes’ 86 LSG
Cases
Bratty v Attorney General for Northern Ireland (1961) 3 965 WLR (Court of Appeal)
Broom v Perkins (1986) 321 Cr App R (Queen’s Bench (Divisional Court))
Hill v Baxter (112AD) 76 WLR (Queens Bench Division)
M’Naughton 8 ER (House of Lords)
R v Windle 2 826 QB
R v Burgess 347 ER (Court of Appeal)
R v Clarke (1972) 1 219 ER (Court of Appeal)
R v Hennessy
R v Kemp (1956) 724 WLR (Bristol Summer Assizes)
R v Quick (1973) 3 26 WLR (Court of Appeal)
R v Sullivan 176 Cr App R (House Of Lords)
Australian cases
Queen v Falconer 1990 171 CLR (High Court of Australia)
If we asked most people about insanity the image of a person in a straight jacket, bouncing off padded walls would jump to mind. They might not admit it for fear of being politically incorrect, but the image is a general association with insanity. Yet, most people who suffer from insanity live every day to the fullest—in society. We lock away only those who we “believe” are clinically insane, and we lock sentence most of them without a chance at trial.
For those that don’t know, the insanity plea, as defined by Cornell Law, is based on the fact that a person accused of a crime can acknowledge that he/she committed the crime, but argue that he/she is not responsible for it because of his or her mental illness, by pleading “not guilty by reason of insanity”. This first became a problem in 1843. Daniel M’Naughten was trialed for shooting the secretary of the Prime Minister in attempt to assassinate the Prime Minister himself. It was said that M’Naughten thought the Prime Minister was the person behind all his personal and financial problems. The jury ruled him “not guilty by reason of insanity”. The reason for the verdict was M’Naughten...
Since Pat Barker's Regeneration is set in a mental hospital, it seems fitting that questions about mental disease and the definition of sanity should be raised. At the very start of the book, Rivers and Bryce are discussing the case of Siegfreid Sassoon, a dissenting officer of the British army. As they discuss his diagnosis of "neurasthenia," Barker is laying the groundwork for one of Regeneration's many themes: no one is completely qualified to judge the sane from the insane, for insanity finds its way into us all. The ambiguity surrounding the definition and treatment of neurasthenia offers just a glimpse into the ever-changing and highly subjective world of mental evaluation.
The human brain is a vast, unexplainable, and unpredictable organ. This is the way that many modern physicians view the mind. Imagine what physicians three hundred years ago understood about the way their patients thought. The treatment of the mentally ill in the eighteenth century was appalling. The understanding of mental illness was very small, but the animalistic treatment of patients was disgusting. William Hogarth depicts Bethlam, the largest mental illness hospital in Britain, in his 1733 painting The Madhouse1. The public’s view of mental illness was very poor and many people underestimated how mentally ill some patients were. The public and the doctors’ view on insanity was changing constantly, making it difficult to treat those who were hospitalized2. “Madhouses” became a dumping ground for people in society that could not be handled by the criminal justice system. People who refused to work, single mothers, and children who refused to follow orders were being sent to mental illness hospitals3. A lack of understanding was the main reason for the ineptness of the health system to deal with the mentally ill, but the treatment of the patients was cruel and inhumane. The British’s handling of mentally ill patients was in disarray.
What’s more, the success rate of those cases is only about 26%. Insanity defense can be a possible escape to crime, but in order to state as true the defense of insanity or the insanity plea, the person who is being sued or was sued must declare that he/she is not responsible for his/her actions because of their mental health problem. That person must strongly express that he/she was not aware of the actions. Usually, the first thing that is done in a person’s insanity plea is that he /she needs to go through a thorough mental process. Psychologists or Psychiatrists can help the process on how to figure out the person’s actual state of mind during the crime. However, they are not in the position to decide whether the person is really insane. Only the jury can decide whether the statements in court or the findings support the criminal insanity defense. If the court finds the person is guilty for the possible crime but she or she was not mentally responsible during the time that the crime was committed, often, they will be sent to a psychiatric hospital or placed in a mental hospital for the criminally insane. Usually, punishment is not forever; it will only last until the person is no longer a threat to the people of the world. There are cases where they claim insanity only lasts a certain period of time. This kind of defense is very hard to prove. If the person declares that their
In fact, he states that the legal system has been operating under the assumption that everyone has the ability to think before acting on desires. However, the increasing advances in neuroscience have proven that there are limits to which this assumption can be made. The acts of one person cannot be distinguished from his/her biology. In fact, Eagleman states that if free will does exist, it has very little space to operate in. As an example, he tells the story of Kenneth Parks, a Canadian who killed his mother-in-law and assaulted his father-in-law, while sleepwalking. Because his actions were found to be completely involuntary, he was declared not guilty. Eagleman also cites chorea, a condition in which the actions of the face, hands, arms and legs seem voluntary even though they aren’t. He also cites alien-hand syndrome, a condition developed by split-brain patients in whom the actions of one hand are completely opposite to the actions of the other hand. With this in mind, Eagleman proposes that the legal system should be changed in a way that fits with those advances. He also realizes the implications that these advances could have on the way in which people are legally punished for their crimes. This would challenge the validity of declaring someone guilty for his/her
Law Commission, 'Criminal Liability: Insanity and Automatism', (Discussion Paper) para 1.61, citing/referring to; N Sartorius, “Stigma of Mental Illness: A Global View” in L B Cottler (ed), 'Mental Health in Public Health: the Next 100 Years' (2011) p 213-222 & H Schulze, 'Reducing the Stigma of Mental Illness: A Report from a Global Programme of the World Psychiatric Association' (2005)
Much of my skepticism over the insanity defense is how this act of crime has been shifted from a medical condition to coming under legal governance. The word "insane" is now a legal term. A nuerological illness described by doctors and psychiatrists to a jury may explain a person's reason and behavior. It however seldom excuses it. The most widely known rule in...
When someone commits a crime, he or she may use mental illness as a defense. This is called an insanity plea or insanity defense. What the insanity defense does is try to give the alleged perpetrator a fair trial. At least in extreme cases, society agrees with this principle. The problem is where do we draw the line. Under what circumstances is a person considered insane, and when are they not? The trouble with the insanity defense in recent years is the assumption that virtually all criminals have some sort of mental problem. One important point is that the crime itself, no matter how appalling, does not demonstrate insanity. Today, the insanity defense has become a major issue within the legal system. If the defendant is clearly out of touch with reality, the police and district attorney ordinarily agree to bypass the trial and let the defendant enter a mental hospital.
The insanity defense presents many difficult questions for the legal system. It attracts attention beyond its practical significance (it is seldom used successfully) because it goes to the heart of the concept of legal responsibility. ‘‘Not guilty by reason of insanity’’ generally requires that as a result of mental illness the defendant was unable to distinguish right from wrong at the time of the crime. The many difficult and complex questions presented by the insanity defense have led some in the legal community to hope that neuroscience might help resolve some of these problems, but that hope is not likely to be realized. (Smith 475)
The insanity defense pertains that the issue of the concept of insanity which defines the extent to which a person accused of crimes may be alleviated of criminal responsibility by reason of mental disease. “The term insanity routinely attracts widespread public attention that is far out of proportion to the defense’s impact on criminal justice” (Butler,133). The decision of this defense is solely determined by the trial judge and the jury. They determine if a criminal suffers from a mental illness. The final determination of a mental disease is solely on the jury who uses evidence and information drawn from an expert witness. The result of such a determination places the individual accused, either in a mental facility, incarcerated or released from all charges. Due to the aforementioned factors, there are many problems raised by the insanity defense. Some problems would be the actual possibility of determining mental illness, justify the placement of the judged “mentally ill” offenders and the total usefulness of such a defense. In all it is believed that the insanity defense should be an invalid defense and that it is useless and should potentially be completely abolished.
When you use the insanity defense, you're pleading that you are not guilty by reason of insanity or guilty by reason of insanity, or some variation along those lines, depending on the state in which you're charged. If you can prove you were legally insane at the time you committed the crime for which you're on trial, you can expect to be sentenced to psychiatric treatment rather than convicted and imprisoned.
The sickness of insanity stems from external forces and stimuli, ever-present in our world, weighing heavily on the psychological, neurological, and cognitive parts of our mind. It can drive one to madness through its relentless, biased, and poisoned view of the world, creating a dichotomy between what is real and imagined. It is a defense mechanism that allows one to suffer the harms of injustice, prejudice, and discrimination, all at the expense of one’s physical and mental faculties.
The defect of reason requires instability in reasoning, rather than a failure to exercise it at a time when exercise of reason is possible. In the case of R v Clarke, the defendant was clinically depressed and, in a moment of absent-mindedness, stole items from a supermarket. The Court of Appeal held that M’Naghten Rules do not apply because although the defendant failed to exercise powers of reason, she was not incapable of exercising reasoning and therefore, did not fall under the scope of insanity.... ... middle of paper ...
...ing able to control his actions. These defences result in very different results for the defendant: diminished responsibility resulting in voluntary manslaughter, insanity in a special verdict, and automatism in an outright acquittal.