The 1960s legal drama “The Defenders,” created and often scripted by Reginald Rose, who wrote “Twelve Angry Men,” featured a two-part episode, “Madman,” critical of the M’Naghten Rule, the legal standard for insanity that holds if a killer cannot distinguish right from wrong, he can’t be punished for it. The killer being defended by the father-and-son Preston defense team argued that the “irresistible impulse” standard should apply to their defendant, who knew killing was wrong but who couldn’t stop himself. Unfortunately, that standard wasn’t accepted in New York.
An alternate standard for insanity in crimes involves the “irresistible impulse” defense, which was highlighted, somewhat cynically, in the classic drama “Anatomy of a Murder.” Most states don’t acknowledge it. An even more lenient standard holds that if the killer’s murderous mindset was “the product of a mental illness or defect,” that may mitigate guilt.
I don’t know whether Brown qualifies for any of these, but the pundits seem not to care. He did a terrible thing to an innocent young woman, and therefore deserves to die as soon as possible and painfully if that can be arranged. I’ve heard and read that perspective before: if someone commits a brutal murder intentionally, it doesn’t matter what his thought processes were at the time. He did it, he meant to do it, kill him. At the other pole is the Clarence Darrow argument: nobody who is sane and not damaged by society deliberately kills anyone, and a legal system that punishes victims of modern life, poverty, poor parenting, unfortunate genetics and other social maladies is brutal and unfeeling.
Our system also requires that a defendant be able to confer meaningfully with his or her lawyer and comprehend the process he is experiencing. While the public thinks there are a lot of these cases because of high profile examples like Reagan shooter John Hinkley, not guilty by reason of insanity pleas are in less than 1% of all cases and fail about 75% of the time. When the insanity plea succeeds, these killers often spend more time in secure psychiatric confinement than they would have in prison.
I am not sure where the ethics of these cases belongs. Brown is certainly a worst case: he’s scary, he killed a defenseless young girl, he walked away chuckling, and he was a serial offender. But how different is he, really, from the 11-year-old boy who was charged with first-degree murder for killing his 5-year-old brother in Colorado?
“[T]here is likely to be months, if not years, more of legal and medical back-and-forth while Iryna’s killer continues to avoid full justice,” concludes PJ Media’s Catherine Selagado. The killer is allegedly schizophrenic. Full justice for these pundits means retribution. Full justice for the mentally ill—or “bad seed” kids, should mean something else.
Ethics Alarms 
But aren’t we told by our betters that paranoid schizophrenics are not dangerous and they should be left on the street rather than institutionalized where they can be given medicines that treat the disease? Grrr.
A similar case is the killing of Tim McLean.
The killer did successfully plead insanity, and is a free man. Modern medicine has muddied the ethics here, if a person is considered innocent of their own actions, and is knownto be successfully participating in society as long as they continue their medications–is it just to execute them for the crime?
I just read up on it, and it seems he spent 7 years in a secure facility before being released. If he had no priors before that incident, showed he was keeping up with his medication, his therapy, and didn’t cause any issues in his facility, I have a hard time arguing with the doctors’ and courts’ decisions.
If we could be absolutely certain of lifetime incarceration or commitment to an appropriate facility, I would not need to apply the death penalty. Recent events do not inspire confidence that lifetime imprisonment means just that.
I’ve read that it’s actually pretty difficult to fake mental illness, at least far as criminal cases are concerned, hence the low success rate for that kind of defense. My understanding is that most people who fake it act like the crazy people they see on TV and the movies, and competent pyschologists/pyschiatrists are able to tell the difference. Plus actually succeeding in the insanity defense doesn’t mean you get off with no consequences. Instead it often means you’re put in a mental institution instead of prison.
With that being said, I believe the first priority of law should be to protect the rights of others. Those who cause harm to others should, at minimum, have that capacity to cause harm taken away. On a personal level, if somebody’s trying to kill me, my first priority isn’t to psychoanalyze him, my first priority is to not die. Even if he’s genuinely out of his mind, his delusion does not trump my right to life, so I will defend myself, even to the death if necessary. Should this person survive the encounter, I would expect the prosecution and the judge to think first about safety to the public. To that end, whether a violent offender be insane or not, he should not merely be released on probation, but instead put somewhere where he will not be a danger to anyone, and given whatever medication, or counciling he needs to understand the severity of his actions and choose to do better. If he does not follow through with repentance and reform, then he should not expect the same level of liberty and trust as that of a law-abiding citizen. If it’s clear he cannot be trusted with any level of human interaction (ie a serial killer), then society should not be obligated to support him in any way, but should instead permantely relieve him from the burden of living.
Context matters, but in cases like this, I think of that famous Scalia quote on whether juveniles could received the death penalty. He wrote:
“t is . . . absurd to think that one must be mature enough to drive carefully, to drink responsibly, or to vote intelligently, in order to be mature enough to understand that murdering another human being is profoundly wrong,”
There are many things insanity or youth can explain. Reckless behavior or behaving dangerously without an intent to kill could be explained that way. To not intentionally kill someone unprovoked takes very little maturity. I don’t care how crazy you are.
I am all for mercy for a lot of people, but when you cold blood kill someone for absolutely no reason, I lose all sympathy. This wasn’t a robbery gone wrong. This wasn’t someone caught up in a gang. This wasn’t someone thinking it would be funny to sucker punch someone and accidentally kill that person. There was no accident anywhere.
Maybe this guy shouldn’t get the death penalty if he’s off his rocker, but he’s no innocent man.
Not guilty by reason of insanity; I call bull shit!
I’ve never liked this nonsense.
No dammit, they’re guilty and they might be insane. The criminal deed was done. Put the accused on trial and stop with all the “but they don’t understand” nonsense, it doesn’t matter, they did the act or they didn’t do the act, period! They need to strip this crap from possible legal defense, it’s a rationalization that enables criminals to claim their nuts and if they can convince a couple of medical professional of that, they avoid regular punishments. If the penalty is life in prison and the person is nuts, then put the person in an insane asylum and when they are “cured” throw their criminal ass in a regular prison for the rest of their life. I’m really sick and tired of this.
His very violent preplanned criminal act was intentionally savage, inhuman, evil, and I don’t care one bit if he’s considered crazy or not, he should be permanently unalived, cremated, and removed from the face of the Earth. Death penalty ends this piece of shit and no one ever has to deal with him for anything ever again.
In my opinion, that is the only appropriate end of this.
I agree completely, the guilt-or-innocence for a crime and the possible insanity are two completely separate and orthogonal things. The second should have nothing to do with the first.
The second can and should be considered during sentencing and ONLY during sentencing. If “ignorance of the law is no excuse” then ignorance of basic right and wrong is also no excuse.
And remember: in the age-old question of whether prison is supposed to be for punishment or rehabilitation, the answer is neither. Prison’s primary purpose is to remove someone from society who has demonstrated that he cannot be trusted to live freely in that society without violating the rights of others, and to put sufficient controls around his daily life so he is incapable of harming anyone while incarcerated.
If society is better served by that convict being in a psychiatric facility rather than a penitentiary, then so be it: make that the sentence.
–Dwayne
I want to know when this person became incapable. Was he perfectly competent during his previous prosecutions and only became incapable now? It seems pretty convenient that he suddenly becomes insane when he is facing real time for his crimes. He hurt a lot of people and he was given lenient punishments. I suspect that if this hadn’t been publicized as much, the prosecutor would be reducing this to voluntary manslaughter, he would be out in 18 months or so, and, no one would be claiming insanity. If he was schizophrenic before, why wasn’t he treated or confined as a danger to the public? How did he meaningfully participate in his defense if he has been like this for a long time?