Criminal insanity has very strong criteria, yet black and white decision making is not an option. There is a lot of room in the grey area when it comes to deciding if someone was insane at the time of the crime. There are two pieces of criteria when it comes to considering if someone is criminal insane or not. The first piece of criteria is to determine if the defendant had planned the crime, and the second piece is to determine if the defendant committed the act with criminal intent (Borum & Fulero, 1999). The defendant must also be competent and coherent enough to understand trail process and the outcome.
Two very famous criminals are Jeffery Dahmer and Andrea Yates. The insanity plea was used in both of their cases. In these two cases, it is important to separate criminal insanity and overall mental health issues.
http://www.biography.com/people/jeffrey-dahmer-9264755
Jeffrey Dahmer was many things, but he was not criminally insane. He suffered from necrophilia, cannibalism, and other mental illness, but should not be considered criminally insane. As Dr. Fosdal stated, his illness did not get in the way of his ability to comply with the law or the realization of his wrong doing (Ewing et al, 2006). The key to that statement is that he knew of his wrong doing. Though he was not intentionally seeking individuals to murder, he did the act of murder purposely. After his conviction, he was quoted saying, “I know my time in prison will be terrible, but I deserve whatever I get because of what I have done.” (Ewing et al, 2006). This statement here shows us that Dahmer is fully aware and rationally understands the process of his prosecution and acknowledges his criminal wrongdoing.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/andrea-yates-where-are-my-kids/
Unlike Dahmer, Andrea Yates was a success in life. She was valedictorian in high school, a college graduate, and professional nurse (Ewing et al, 2006). Yates didn’t start showing psychotic episodes until after the birth of her fourth child. Once she had five children, she was then moved into a trailer and was also taking care of her sick father. She tried committing suicide multiple times because of all these underlining stress factors. In my opinion, when she killed her children she was having a psychotic break or postpartum psychosis. When Dr. Gerald Harris evaluated her for trial, he found her to be psychotic because she was hallucinating and had difficulty paying attention (Ewing et al, 2006). Yates thought she was doing a good thing for her children by killing them due to religious delusions. This tells us that she was unaware of her actions while committing this crime, which is reason for psychotic break.
As stated previously, the insanity defense does have strong criteria, but there is no right and wrong answer. Just like other criminal cases, the evidence must be closely examined and the jury must stick to the facts that are presented.
References:
Borum, R. & Fulero, S.M. (1999). Empirical Research on the Insanity Defense and Attempted Reforms: Evidence toward Informed Policy. Law and Human Behavior, Vol 23, No. 3. North Carolina, Duke University Medical Center.
Ewing, C. P. and McCann, J. T. (2006). Jeffrey Dahmer (Serial murder, necrophilia, and cannibalism) and Andrea Yates (An American tragedy). In Minds on trial: Great cases in law and psychology (Chapter 12. pp. 141-152, and Chaper 19. pp. 229-240.) New York: Oxford University Press.
I read about both of these cases in my criminal justice class, and they are both incredibly sad. I absolutely agree that Dahmer would not be classified as criminally insane. I think many people are confused by the insanity plea, and some think it’s far easier to attain that it truly is. I definitely agree that Yates was very psychologically distressed, but I’m still not sure how I feel about her situation, even if a doctor ruled in favor of insanity. Perhaps it’s the fact that she murdered her children that makes it more difficult to accept.
I think part of the issue with the insanity defense is that no two brains are the same. How do you judge what a person was thinking and feeling at the time that it happen. Whereas one person may recognize exactly what they are doing while committing a crime or only remember it after the crime, prosecutors have a really hard job in finding a way to prove this. I agree that the insanity defense can be poorly used, but like you stated there is no right or wrong answer because its not as easy as black and white.