Those that have committed crimes and suffer from schizophrenia have been at the face of altering due process Supreme Court Cases. The Due Process Clause acts as a procedural protection from the government from arbitrarily removing human rights granted by the 5th and 14th amendments by way of legal punishments (Ely, 2012). Political and legal issues took face in the courts surrounding Schizophrenia in 1960 when the Supreme Court decided Dusky v. United States. Dusky committed the crime of kidnapping and raping a young female. Dusky, suffering from schizophrenia was sentenced to forty-five years in prison by the lower courts. When his case was brought to the Supreme Court, the justices ruled that Dusky was not competent to stand trial. Dusky’s case set new standards of competency to stand trial. …show more content…
United States, 1960). In another case, Alvin Bernard Ford was sentenced to death by a Florida court for committing first-degree murder. Ford suffered from mental deficiencies that began to worsen during his trial with the Florida courts.His case was brought to the Supreme Court in Ford v. Wainwright which ruled that the death penalty was a “cruel and unusual” punishment, violating due process for the criminally insane (1974). These cases demonstrate the legal issues that individuals with schizophrenia endure at the face of the courts. While these cases have worked to limit those with mental illnesses from entering our jail and prison system instead of receiving the health care that they need, there are still what was estimated to be 356,268 inmates in 2012 with severe mental illness in prisons and jails (Fuller et al.,
Facts: Rex Marshall testified that the deceased came into his store intoxicated, and started whispering things to his wife. The defendant stated that he ordered the deceased out of the store immediately, however the deceased refused to leave and started acting in an aggressive manner; by slamming his hate down on the counter. He then reached for the hammer, the defendant states he had reason to believe the deceased was going to hit him with the hammer attempting to kill him. Once the deceased reached for the hammer the defendant shot him almost immediately.
Her little boy wasn't expected to make it through the night, the voice on the line said (“Determined to be heard”). Joshua Deshaney had been hospitalized in a life threatening coma after being brutally beat up by his father, Randy Deshaney. Randy had a history of abuse to his son prior to this event and had been working with the Department of Social Services to keep custody over his son. The court case was filed by Joshua's mother, Melody Deshaney, who was suing the DSS employees on behalf of failing to protect her son from his father. To understand the Deshaney v. Winnebago County Court case and the Supreme courts ruling, it's important to analyze the background, the court's decision, and how this case has impacted our society.
In the book Crazy in America by Mary Beth Pfeiffer, she illustrated examples of what people with mental illness endure every day in their encounters with the criminal justice system. Shayne Eggen, Peter Nadir, Alan Houseman and Joseph Maldonado are amongst those thousands or more people who are view as suspected when in reality they are psychotic who should be receiving medical assistance instead, of been thrown into prison. Their stories also show how our society has failed to provide some of its most vulnerable citizens and has allowed them to be treated as a criminals. All of these people shared a common similarity which is their experience they went through due to their illness.
My opinion on this case was debatable. My initial thought was Ford should be executed even though he is insane. At the moment he committed the crime he was sane and knew it was wrong. My question was why should Ford get away with murder if he became insane after? After reviewing the cases plea, I began to understand the decision for the reconsideration. It would be inhumane to send someone to their death bed mentally unstable. Ford needed mental help to rationalize what he had done. As Ford grew mentally unstable he should have been granted the right to prove his case, every citizen has rights no matter the crime.
The defense in this case will argue that the government was required to acquire a valid search warrant before obtaining their personal business records pursuant to the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. The government will argue that they did not violate any of the individual’s Fourth Amendment rights by obtaining the defendant’s business records without a search warrant because the business records gathered was not protected under the Constitution.
This paper will discuss whether or not mentally retarded criminals should be held accountable for their actions with the punishment of execution when the crime is murder. I do not believe that mentally retarded criminals should have a blanket exemption from the death penalty because of their mental incapacity. Although all cases of murder involving a mentally retarded suspect are unique, the lives extinguished by these murderers are of no less value than those whose lives taken by mentally competent murderers. Presently, the Supreme Court of the United States upholds the execution of mentally retarded defendants and holds the belief that capital punishment does not violate the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Federal Constitution's eighth amendment (Wilson 345-346). While several states have passed laws exempting all mentally retarded defendants from execution, the Supreme Court has not changed its view on the matter (Shapiro, "Innocent, and": 43). Could it be that many states are focusing on the individual, while the Supreme Court is focusing on the crime itself? If this is the case, I have to agree with the Supreme Court. Law and justice must focus on what the person has done, not on who the person is.
Prior to taking this course, I generally believed that people were rightly in prison due to their actions. Now, I have become aware of the discrepancies and flaws within the Criminal Justice system. One of the biggest discrepancies aside from the imprisonment rate between black and white men, is mental illness. Something I wished we covered more in class. The conversation about mental illness is one that we are just recently beginning to have. For quite a while, mental illness was not something people talked about publicly. This conversation has a shorter history in American prisons. Throughout the semester I have read articles regarding the Criminal Justice system and mental illness in the United States. Below I will attempt to describe how the Criminal Justice system fails when they are encountered by people with mental illnesses.
The issue of executing mentally ill criminals has been widely debated among the public. They debate on whether it is right or wrong to execute a person who does not possess the capacity to think correctly. The mental illness is a disease that destroys a person’s memory, emotion, and prevent one or more function of the mind running properly. The disease affects the way a person thinks, feels, behaves and relates to others.When a person is severely mentally ill, his/ her ability to appreciate reality lack so they aspire to do stuff that is meaningless. The sickness is triggered by an amalgamation of genetic, and environmental factors not a personal imperfection. On the death penalty website, Scott Panetti who killed his mother in-law and father-in-law reports that since 1983, over 60 people with mental illness or retardation have been executed in the United States (Panetti). The American Civil Liberties Union says that it is unconstitutional to execute someone who suffered from an earnest mental illness (ACLU).Some people apply the term crazy or mad to describe a person who suffers from astringent psychological disorders because a mad person look different than a mundane human being. The time has come for us to accept the fact that executing mentally ill offenders is not beneficial to society for many reasons. Although some mentally ill criminals have violated the law, we need to sustain a federal law that mentally ill criminals should not be put to death.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and of that over sixty percent of jail inmates reported having a mental health issue and 316,000 of them are severely mentally ill (Raphael & Stoll, 2013). Correctional facilities in the United States have become the primary mental health institutions today (Adams & Ferrandino, 2008). This imprisonment of the mentally ill in the United States has increased the incarceration rate and has left those individuals medically untreated and emotionally unstable while in jail and after being released. Better housing facilities, medical treatment and psychiatric counseling can be helpful in alleviating their illness as well as upon their release. This paper will explore the increasing incarceration rate of the mentally ill in the jails and prisons of the United States, the lack of medical services available to the mentally ill, the roles of the police, the correctional officers and the community and the revolving door phenomenon (Soderstrom, 2007). It will also review some of the existing and present policies that have been ineffective and present new policies that can be effective with the proper resources and training. The main objective of this paper is to illustrate that the criminalization of the mentally ill has become a public health problem and that our policy should focus more on rehabilitation rather than punishment.
Stuart v. Nappi was class lawsuit Stuart’s mother filed against school personnel and the Danbury Board of Education because she claimed that her daughter was not receiving the rights granted in the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). Kathy Stuart was a student at Danbury High School in Connecticut with serious emotional, behavior, and academic difficulties. She was suppose to be in special education classes, but for some reason she hardly ever attended them. Kathy was involved in a school-wide disturbance. As a result of her complicity in these disturbances, she received a ten-day disciplinary suspension and was scheduled to appear at a disciplinary hearing. The Superintendent of Danbury Schools recommended to the Danbury Board of Education
Seltzer, T., 2005, ‘Mental health courts – A misguided attempt to address the criminal justice system’s unfair treatment of people with mental illnesses’, Psychology, Public Policy and Law, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 570-586.
The question that the Supreme Court must answer is if the U. S Constitution allows the federal government to administer antipsychotic medication to a defendant that is mentally ill but not dangerous in order for him to become CTS for a severe but nonviolent crime. The Supreme Court decided that the Constitution allows the government to forcibly administer antipsychotic drugs to a mentally ill defendant. However, the treatment must be medically suitable for the individual and will not cause side effects that won’t distribute the defendant during his trail. Another important factor that the government pointed out was if there was trail was significantly important to the governments’ interest.
A significant and controversial issue within the legal system is the ‘insanity defense’ in which during a criminal trial, the defendant will make a claim that they are not guilty by reason of insanity, or in other words, they have deficient and impaired cognitive and mental capabilities. These mental health problems associated with insanity are caused by psychopathological disorders, which may have led to their dysfunction. What separates this from a regular plead of ‘diminished capacity’ is that a plea of insanity is a full defense rather than just a partial defense (Legal information institute, n.d.). With the diminished capacity defense, the defendant’s mental competence is still the focus, although they are pleading to a lesser crime instead of insisting that they are innocent. Thus, it becomes a mitigating factor. Under section 16 of the ‘Criminal Code of Canada’, for a plea of insanity to be realized, the accused, as a result of their mental disorder, must not have been able to recognize the wrongfulness of their actions during the time of the crime (Pilon, 2002).If the defendant suffers from a mental disorder and was unable to distinguish between right or wrong during the crime, then they are not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder. This law involving mental illnesses mirrors the McNaughton rule which is adopted in almost half of the states in the United States and in the United Kingdom. The McNaughton rule presumes the sanity of the accused, unless proven that they were unable to appreciate the nature and quality of their criminal act (Legal information institute, n.d.). Although the Criminal Code with respect to mental illnesses appears straightforward enough, there are noteworthy disorders that have spawn...
John Hinckley Jr., Jeffery Dahmer, James Holmes, and Andrea Yates: all are perpetrators of violent crimes, and all claim insanity as the reason. In recent years, it seems that the verdicts of many major violent crimes have come down to whether the defendant is accountable for their actions or if they should be held Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI). This verdict more commonly known as the Insanity Defense is often seen as a way for criminals to ‘get out’ of punishment for their crimes. For a criminal to be declared NGRI, they have to undergo extensive psychiatric evaluation to determine that, at the time of their crimes, they were not of sound mind and unable to realize the wrongfulness of their actions. If a jury decides that they are not guilty—which occurs in around 25% of cases where the insanity plea is accepted—they will receive mental care and rehabilitation but remain imprisoned for the remainder of their lives. The controversy arises from many facets of this issue. One is whether the legal system should allow this defense, as many states have banned it. Another question is whether insanity can be proven in a manner that is acceptable in a trial. Another question is whether juries are educated enough about the nature of insanity and how it is proven to make an informed decision. There is little agreement between the psychological and legal communities and the public on the correct policy regarding the insanity defense. This defense is a necessary part of the legal system in order to protect those who are unaware of their actions. One thing, however, is clear: if this defense is to continue to be a legal option, state lawmakers need to modify it. The evaluation of defendants, administr...
The “Due Process” law is a term that gives a procedural fairness through a criminal proceeding. The law protects an individual rights through the Bill of Rights. The “due-process model” is to “ensure that innocent people are not convicted of crimes.” In 1960 the “ due- process standard” , Chief Justice Earl Warren, had the effort of to protect innocents from the “power of the state in criminal proceedings.” There is a split between “Substantive” and “Procedural” due process. Substantial mandates and defines the rights, and the procedural process imposes “ those rights or seeks to redress for their violation.” Due process gives the fairness of the following principles that does