Justice and the Insanity Defense Term Paper

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That is particularly important in connection with criminally insane defendants whose mental conditions are treatable but dependent on the individual's maintaining a prescription drug regimen. For example, it is an individual suffering from a known mental condition that qualifies for the criteria of criminal insanity may be able to control that condition by following his physicians' orders for prescription medication and then simply stop taking the medication. It is conceivably possible that he could commit murder while legally insane and then be returned to society relatively soon based on resuming the appropriate medical treatment.

Second, permitting the insanity defense deprives the community, especially the victims and survivors of violent crime, from another fundamental purpose of criminal justice, namely, retribution. A perfect example would be the injustice of the case of John Hinckley Jr., who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981, seriously wounding two law enforcement officers and ending the career and forever changing the quality of life of Presidential Press Secretary James Brady and that of all of the members of his family.

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Insult was added to injury by subsequent judicial authorization for Hinckley to be allowed to spend 120 days per year at his mother's home. In these types of cases, a concept intended to be more compassionate to criminal defendants causes unnecessary additional pain to his victims.

Ultimately, the insanity defense should be used only to determine the type of facility to which defendants should be confined; but they should remain confined for the same duration as any other defendant convicted of the same crime. Any exception to that principle should require the consent of the defendant's victims to preserve the retributive function of criminal justice. Otherwise, the insanity defense defies compassion to victims and survivors of violent….....

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