Insanity Plea & criminal responsibility

Criminal responsibility is one of the most important questions forensic psychologists must answer.  If a person suffers from a mental illness, the defense lawyer may advise them to plead insanity.  One such case was the United States v. Hinckley in 1982, which helped pave the way for the Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984, (IDRA). In this case, John Hinckley tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan so when he was found not guilty by reason of insanity it caused so much outrage that the laws were soon changed to make it harder for a person to claim the insanity defense (NPR, 2016).  

Who can plead insanity?

Just because a person suffers from a mental illness does not mean they will meet the test the insanity plea requires. Basically just because a person has a mental illness does not mean they are not guilty because of it; instead the defendant must prove that they could not tell right from wrong as a result of the mental illness, so pleading insanity is only an acceptable defense if the following is met:

•              According to U.S. Code 18 section (a) it is an affirmative defense if the defendant during the crime was not able to understand that what they were doing was wrong strictly because the mental illness they suffer from made them unable to understand that their actions were wrong (Cornell, 2016).  

While the burden of proof is on the defendant to show that they only committed the crime because they were not able to understand their actions, it is the prosecution’s job to prove the defendant knew exactly what they were doing. This is done with the help of a forensic psychologist who will conduct a mental status exam.

Why John Hinckley was found not guilty

The reason John Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity is due to his defense lawyer who argued that Mr. Hinckley could not have known what he was doing during the crime due to the fact that his mental illness made him incapable of knowing the difference between right and wrong (The Insanity Defense, 2010).  Sadly, even though John Hinckley is about to roam free after 35 years in a mental institution we can only hope, he will not suffer another breakdown.

References:

Cornell (2016). U.S. Code Title 18 Cornell University Law School. Retrieved from   https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/17

NPR News (2016). After Hinckley, states tightened use of insanity plea NPR News. Retrieved

from http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/28/486607183/after-hinckley-states-tightened-use-of-the-insanity-plea