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Criminal insanity refers to a mental illness or disease that makes it impossible for a defendant to know they were committing a crime or to understand that their actions are wrong. A defendant found to be criminally insane can assert an insanity defense.
The insanity defense, also known as the mental disorder defense, is an affirmative defense by excuse in a criminal case, arguing that the defendant is not responsible for their actions due to a psychiatric disease at the time of the criminal act.
The case raises questions about the role of the insanity defense and what happens to the criminally insane after they leave the courtroom.
The purpose is to decipher how the US Supreme Court may ultimately rule on a pending case from Kansas asking whether it is constitutionally permissible to exclude the insanity defense in criminal trials.
Insanity defense is primarily used in criminal prosecutions. It is based on the assumption that at the time of the crime, the defendant was suffering from severe mental illness and therefore, was incapable of appreciating the nature of the crime and differentiating right from wrong behavior, hence making them not legally accountable for crime.
States rely on four different ways of determining a defendant is legally insane: M'Naghten test, Durham Rule, the Irresistible Impulse Test, and the Model Penal Code.
For several hundred years, the insanity defense has acted as a defense against criminal charges for a defendant who was incapable of understanding what he or she was doing, or in determining right from wrong.
