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Privacy and Amendments
Is the insanity defense abused
Is the insanity defense abused
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Recommended: Privacy and Amendments
The concept of a right to refuse treatment was built on basic rights to privacy, equal protection under the law, and due process. In other words, involuntarily hospitalized patients still have a right to decide what happens to their bodies.
The right of a patient to refuse treatment is based upon five constitutional protections the 8th amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment the 1st amendment’s protection of free speech (freedom of thought / ideas) the 1st amendment’s protection of freedom of religion the more broadly interpreted right to privacy the 14th amendment’s protection of liberty (the right to be free from unjustified intrusions on personal security).
Within medicine, these constitutional guarantees have
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For example, one can be determined to be incompetent to execute a will, but may be deemed competent to make treatment decisions. Whenever possible, efforts are made to adjudicate incompetence in this manner. However, there are statutes that allow for the determination of general incompetency.8,9 In such cases, individuals who are in persistent vegetative states, severely demented, severely mentally retarded, or actively psychotic would be considered incompetent generally, i.e., incapable of any rational decision making while suffering from the prevailing …show more content…
“There are a lot of people in the justice system that is caught in the catch 22” (Insanity in the courtroom, 2017). Anytime a person commits an act that violates the social contract they must go through the process. Individuals are usually labeled as a sick person who receive treatment or a person that is found guilty and must be punished. Insane defense is not successful, because the justice system doesn’t seem to have any type of knowledge working with the mentally ill. The justice system wants to forcibly medicate the mentally ill, which can bring their death much closer. This is just like the death penalty the medication just take them away
With murder charges of fifteen people, cannibalism, and necrophilia hanging over his head, Jeffery Dahmer plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Since Dahmer was a child he had shown withdraws and avoidance of society. He had a habit of collecting dead animals, and he would dissect, dissolve them in many different ways. When Dahmers plea of insanity was rejected by the court, he was then charged with fifteen counts of murder (Yoong). Many believe that when Jeffrey Dahmer 's plea was rejected that it was the end of anyone using, but that isn’t the case. It is used quite rarely, but it is still in use. In all reality, the insanity plea should always be rejected. The only way it should be allowed is if the criminal is fully innocent. “The insanity
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.
Patients are ultimately responsible for their own health and wellbeing and should be held responsible for the consequences of their decisions and actions. All people have the right to refuse treatment even where refusal may result in harm to themselves or in their own death and providers are legally bound to respect their decision. If patients cannot decide for themselves, but have previously decided to refuse treatment while still competent, their decision is legally binding. Where a patient's views are not known, the doctor has a responsibility to make a decision, but should consult other healthcare professionals and people close to the patient.
...r. Furthermore, they states that have abolished the defense have implemented firmer criteria to apply or prove the defense, about one-fourth of the states have established a separate verdict of ‘Guilty but Mentally Ill. This is used as an alternative (not instead of) the insanity defense,” (Torry and Billick, 2010.) This verdict is offered to the jury when the deliberation concludes that the accused committed the act indicted, but suffers from a mental disorder, perhaps, not at the level needed to meet the insanity defense (Torry and Billick, 2010.) Since many states have abbreviated their own “Insanity Defense” laws, or have abolished them, the United States Federal Government, should impose that the insanity defense be abolished, and in its place, a verdict enacted allowing mentally insane people to serve time, and yet have treatment during their prison sentence.
Richard Bonnie, a Professor of law and psychiatry, leans on yes -- insanity should indeed exist as a legal defense for criminals. However, his stance on the matter focuses more on a modified variation of the existing defense used in the courts, as the defense maneuver is crucial in maintaining moral integrity of criminal law (Bonnie, 1982, p. 308). He begins with a suggestion to consider the case of John Hinckley. While hearing his argument for the insanity defense, it is mentioned how the media takes on many cases, such as Hinckley's own case, and coupled with a lack of disagreement among experts in the psychiatric field, the media has had a negative influence on the overall depiction of the defense's credibility. The idea of punishing criminals is focused upon the foundation that all humans are in full command of their faculties and should therefore be appropriately dealt with because of their own choice to engage in criminal behavior. The Hinckley case managed to open eyes to the most basic moral reasons behind the insanity defense in criminal law (Bonnie, 1982, p. 308). Bonnie asserts that while he is in strong opposition to the abolishment of the insanity defense, he does account for the fact that there can be certain cases in which this defense could be taken advantage of. It becomes necessary for the sake of preventing serious moral incidents from occurring, that the burden of presenting evidence attesting to the defendant's legal insanity at the time of criminal behavior should be left to the defendant themselves (Bonnie, 1982, p. 309). Following the morality issues regarding the application of the defense, there is also the matter of its necessity. If the defense was no longer in effect, the law would have no way of ackno...
Wouldn’t it be completely irrational to sentence every mentally ill individual to jail purely because they suffered from a mental illness? Often, mentally ill people behave in an eccentric manner and allure the attention of police officers who do not differentiate the mentally ill from mentally stable people and immediately charge them with misdemeanors. There are approximately 300,000 inmates, with the number increasing every year, which suffer from a mental illness and do not receive proper treatment. Jails are not adequately equipped to care for mentally ill inmates, which can lead to an escalation of an inmate’s illness. Society has failed to provide enough social resources for citizens suffering from psychiatric illnesses in its community, transferring mentally unstable individuals between mental institutions and jails, when in fact adequate aid such as providing proper medication, rehabilitation opportunities, and more psychiatric hospitals in communities is a necessity to reconstitute these individuals.
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
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...
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 insanity defense has been around for a very long time, the idea behind it is that a person who is incapable of telling right from wrong should not be held responsible for his or her actions at the time. Insanity is different from youth, and mental retardation in the fact that the person is capable on a regular basis of understanding right from wrong. The insanity defense is not something that can just be used at will, and instantly believed. Insanity must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that at the time the crime was committed, the offender was incapable of discerning right from wrong.
In order to understand the complexities of this issue, we first need to understand the basic concepts of the insanity defense plea. According to Kimberly Collins, “An insanity defense is based on the theory that most people can choose to follow the law; but a few select persons cannot be held accountable because mental disease or disability deprives them of the ability to make a rational / voluntary choice. Such individuals need special treatment as opposed to prison; punishment is not likely to deter future antisocial conduct of these mentally diseased individuals” (Collins). It goes along with the idea that people should only be held accountable if they are aware of the wrongness of their actions, and that confinement of people who are unaware of their actions is inhumane (Schaefer). The problem with this is that it is hard for people to objectively decide that som...
...nse altogether. The insanity defense is used in only about 1% of cases in the U.S. and is successful less than 25% of the time. Today many people say they are insane to get out of their punishment of the crime they committed. But this rarely works. Many people abuse the insanity plea thinking that it will give them a sweeter sentencing. Many people in the public once defendant says they are insane after committing for example a murder the public gets very angry. The reason they do this is because in the public’s eyes murder is murder. The only time the public would probably sympathize with a defendant is when they are unable to stand trial because of their psychological issues. The public usually doesn’t agree with the insanity defense and it usually makes them outraged or feels like the right justice has been served to the defendant. (Collins, Hinkebein, & Schorgl)
We have an insanity defense to help protect people with mental illness. As you'll see, though, convincing a jury of your insanity is tricky, and only about 1 percent of cases that use the insanity defense are successful (and of that successful 1 percent, only about 15 to 25 percent of those cases are acquittals) [source: Lilienfeld]. Societies have been using some form of the insanity defense throughout history, and we're going to begin our list with Richard Lawrence, the man who tried to assassinate President Andrew Jackson.
Though these legislative guidelines deal with the rights of a patient to refuse current medical treatment, ...
The insanity defense has been a topic of discussion for many years now. Since its initial appearance in 1581, it was just a simple ‘the defendant isn’t guilty because he did not understand the nature of the crime he commited. ’With a majority of the cases that have been unsuccessful, there wasn’t any way to prove if they were actually insane when they commited the crime and an expert in the mental health field wasn’t there to testify their testimony. Almost all of the few that have been proven to be not guilty by insanity had a professional to testify their claim to be true. Having those people in the courtroom during the trial can help identify if the accused is actually ill by the law’s description and help those who actually are have a chance for a fair sentencing to get the help they need rather than not be and have someone who is pretending to be ill get the sentence that isn’t fit for them.