NCJ Number
102073
Journal
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Volume: 477 Dated: (January 1985) Pages: 96-103
Date Published
1985
Length
8 pages
Annotation
Four types of mental illness disability qualify for an insanity defense; it would be unjust to convict and punish defense; it would be unjust to convict and punish individuals having one of these disabilities.
Abstract
Persons having a pathological mental illness that renders them incapable of obeying the law at issue in a criminal charge should not be judged guilty, because they did not have the ability to refrain from doing the proscribed act. Punishment by the state in such a circumstance would be unjust since it would serve no rational purpose. Mental abnormalities that preclude criminal convictions and punishments include the following: delusions that make the offensive behavior rational and normative for the actor, inability to understand the nature and consequences of the behavior at issue, a compulsion that prevents the choice of alternative behaviors, and a frenzy that overpowers all behavioral control mechanisms. These mental states must result from a disease over which the actors have no control. Should these mental states be induced by the actors through the ingestion of drugs, conviction and punishment for the offenses would be just, because they could have chosen not to take the drug and precipitate the mental condition that spawned the offense.