Crime and Punishment: Is Insanity That Simple

Perhaps there is no more significant intersection between the fields of psychology and law enforcement than the issue of insanity. The insanity defense, popularized by television and film crime drama as the loophole under which criminals can "get off easy", refers to the legal plea- not guilty by reason of insanity, or NGRI. It is a legal statute that has undergone intense controversy, scrutiny, and change, with the most current Supreme Court standard taken from The Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984. Before John Hinkley Jr. was acquitted as NGRI of all charges for the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, our country was much more sympathetic with mentally ill individuals who fell into the arms of the law. The period since can be seen as a far more conservative legal era, with NGRI acquittals at less than .2% for defendants nationally. In this week's post I engaged in the debate over the insanity defense by commenting on two current and cogent blog posts with very different opinions on the use of the NGRI plea. In the post Criminal Insanity, a blogger described simply as Chris who maintains From a Whisper to a Scream, writes a short post on the questionable rationality of even allowing the insanity defense in a current case where a father placed his two-month-old daughter in a microwave. The writer asks the question of his readers, "Does insanity excuse such a heinous crime?" This is a very provocative question that Dr. Delany Dean would probably answer in opposition to Chris, as her occupation as a forensic psychologist and former lawyer provide a more progressive viewpoint on mental health and crime. In her blog entitled mind.expressions, Dean discusses a recent case in which she testified as an expert witness in the post Rollins: Guilty On All Counts. The two authors maintain opposing stances concerning the criminal responsibility of mentally ill defendants, and it is this issue that I joined in the debate by commenting on the blogs in an attempt to advance this web-based dialog. In addition to posting my comments directly on the authors’ respective blog entries, I have also displayed these comments for the reader below.

"Rollins: Guilty On All Counts"
Comment:

Clearly you have an educated opinion and progressive stance on the many issues of mental health that plague this country, especially with regard to those afflicted individuals who find themselves under the scrutiny of the law. As a current student of forensic psychology, the concept of "not guilty by reason of insanity" is only now coming into focus, obscured by media portrayals of the NGRI plea as "getting off easy". In contrast to this myth, you present a woeful tale in which the condemned guilty - Tommy Rollins will only decompensate into psychological ruin in prison instead of being rehabilitated and rescued from the grips of his illness with the proper mental health facilities and resources if he were acquitted. I entirely agree with your statement that the current state of justice is "about vengeance and retribution," a more constructive and rational society would focus its resources and effort on rehabilitation of those who commit crime and prevention of those who might. Yet while the mentally ill are prime candidates for this strategy; being highly treatable, our society provides no leniency towards those failed to conform to our rules of conduct. This is not to say that all who are mentally ill and commit crime should allowed to roam free, but when one can demonstrate a nexus between a mental condition and a specific crime, the criminal responsibility is at question first and foremost, and not the degree of punishment.

All too often it seems people forget that an NGRI acquittal is only pardoning a defendant's criminal guilt and not the consequences of their actions. NGRI acquittees serve an indefinite period of time in psychiatric hospitals until they are no longer considered a danger to society or themselves. I think that the whole "getting off easy" myth continues to prevail because most people don't know that this hospital stay by NGRI's is often a longer period than they would have served in prison had they been found guilty. Thus, the issue that you are most centrally concerned about in this post, the one the public should be concerned about, is the mental health treatment that one should receive regardless of the judge or jury's decision of guilt. Any individual who's mental condition is severe enough to explicitly cause them to commit a crime is in need of much more help than prison's mental health facilities can offer. It is up to us then, should justice be blind to the cause of a crime?

"Criminal Insanity"
Comment:

No crime as horrific and unthinkable as such a man's should follow without consequences, nor should ever be excused. You pose some very poignant questions in your post, and the criminal case they are in reference to is one that addresses the issue of insanity directly. As you suggest, a crime this heinous cannot be excused and an individual capable of such actions must accept the resultant consequences. In answer to your question, no, I do not believe insanity is an excuse, but I do believe that if insanity was the cause for the actions, the punishment should reflect the understanding that unlike other crimes, criminal intent may have been absent, and the psychiatric disorder that is responsible can be treated, controlled, and possibly cured. This treatment cannot happen in a prison setting. Our prisons simply lack the trained professionals, funding and environment to facilitate the rehabilitation of an individual turned criminal by a mental disease.

The insanity defense, or the plea "not guilty by reason of insanity" (NGRI), is one that if upheld acknowledges that the unlawful actions were not completed with a guilty mind or "mens rea," and thus absolves the defendant from a certain amount of responsibility. But an NGRI acquittal also acknowledges the dangerousness of the defendant and thus has severe consequences in accord with the severity of the crime. The truth is that insanity acquittees serve as much or more time in civil commitment to psychiatric hospitals than they would have served in prison had they been found guilty. This is to say that it is a myth that one can go free on insanity; free from insanity maybe, if treated properly, but by no means unconfined.

You do also bring up an interesting issue of an attorney's incentive in filing or advising a plea of NGRI. There is no doubt in most people's mind that some lawyers greedily pursue the most lucrative avenue possible, but it seems unfair to defense attorneys who are genuinely representing the legal and human rights of the accused, even when accused of an unthinkable atrocity. If anything, these attorneys deserve more respect for the thankless job they are doing. differences in opinion aside, thank you for your openness and willingness to hear of people's ideas on the subject, you have opened an important debate.