On November 5, 2009, U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan shot and killed 13 soldiers and civilian police at Ft. Hood, Texas. His attorney said Hasan will probably plead not guilty and that he may use an insanity defense. For the past several centuries, the insanity plea has been an option all criminals have as a defense. The insanity defense is wrong because it may allow criminals to go unpunished, the use of it doesn’t apply to all people due to cost, and it is too difficult to measure sanity.
First, no person, whatever their mental state, should be released after committing a serious crime. In 1843, a Scottish woodcutter named Daniel M’Naughten murdered the secretary to the British prime minister in his attempt to assassinate the prime minister. M’Naughten had gone after the prime minister because he believed the prime minister had caused many of his misfortunes. During his trial, witnesses testified that M’Naughten was insane. M’Naughten was acquitted as he was found “not guilty by reason of insanity.” The M’Naughten rule then came about and said that a person can only be punished for his crimes if he was in his right state of mind. This became the law in American courts and has all too often been abused. Attorneys have been accused of convincing their clients to fake insanity and use the defense so they can confuse the court with complicated psychiatric evaluations. Defendants who are found not guilty due to insanity are still dangerous. The idea of letting an insane murderer loose and freeing him of all charges is not a comforting one in most people’s eyes. In 1981 John Hinckley Jr. made an assassination attempt on Pres. Ronald Regan. He used the insanity defense and was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Many Americans criticized the defense because it was shown that Hinckley had planned for the crime and so that should have been proof of his sanity. The defense of insanity let him avoid the consequences of his actions.
The insanity defense is also a defense that not all people can use. Psychiatric examinations and other check-ups are too expensive for many poor people. If a person who doesn’t have as much money has committed a crime and pleads insane, then that person has no way of hiring expert psychiatrists or being able to produce past medical records. The poor person would have a court-appointed psychiatrist perform his exam and most likely wouldn’t get as qualified an opinion as someone with more money could get. Therefore, rich people are able to use the defense more than less fortunate people can. This creates inequality in our legal system.
Finally, it is too difficult to measure sanity. Many people argue that if a person commits a crime, he is not sane or he wouldn’t have committed the crime. Normal, sane people are law-abiding and do not do things that would have negative consequences. Therefore, any person who commits a crime should be found not guilty by reason of insanity. The insanity defense cannot be consistent from one defendant to another as there’s no standard that every person can use to prove whether a person is insane or not. It’s all based on the impression the defendant makes on the jury and what expert testimony is given. What ends up happening is that psychiatrists for both sides in a trial will argue over the issue of insanity and the jury will decide based on who they think argues best. There is no possible way to tell if someone is insane. And, although a person with an actual mental illness who is not able to think correctly may commit a crime, they don’t deserve to be set free. If they are seriously mentally ill, then they should be placed in a mental institution with a proper treatment plan rather than released or simply locked away. Mental health advocates have found that because of the insanity defense, mentally ill people who commit crimes are treated much more harshly than sane people because the public perceives them as being more dangerous. Without a way to measure sanity, the insanity defense is too unreliable and too often abused.
In conclusion, the insanity defense should be done away with. It allows people who commit crimes to be found not guilty of the crime they committed, it creates an unfair legal system as poor people are treated differently than rich people, and it is too difficult to measure sanity. In the recent shooting at Ft. Hood, there is no way Hasan should be able to use the defense of insanity. He gave away his belongings and planned the attack. Many things show he knew exactly what he was doing at the time. To allow the insanity defense in cases like this would be injustice. People need to be held accountable for their actions.