1; verdict (Knowles). The insanity defense poses a danger to public safety because it keeps dangerous people from going to jail. Even if people found the defendant not guilty by reason of insanity, they are sent to a psychiatric hospital, they are not sent there for a specific amount of time. Some fear that authorities will release defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity while they are still a danger to society. I do not trust the ability of our justice system to accurately determine who should or should not be held responsible for their actions. The authorities have no real way of telling if someone is really insane or if they are just plane evil. America’s criminal justice system has the concept of “state of mind”. In order for a person to be held criminally liable in the courts eyes, they say, “he or she must have criminal intent or awareness of the wrongfulness of the act”. If a person claims to be mentally ill and unable to tell the difference between right and wrong, for example, then they can’t be held criminally responsible in our society. Most individuals accused of crime lack psychological sophistication. An important sign of a manipulative effort is a presentation of "memory loss". A large number of criminals seem convinced that memory loss is the same as mental illness. Memory loss accompanied with a series of simple unstructured hallucinations, particularly visual ("little green men walking around my cell") and command hallucinations ("the Devil made me do it")(Reid). In the U.S court system 47% of criminal cases defendants have plead not guilty by reason of insanity. (Gado ). I have no doubt that some of these people really are insane. I mean I believe any human who can kill another human is insane. But does that mean they should receive sympathy or a lesser sentence? Who’s to say these criminals aren’t just very intelligent actors? A perfect example of this point i...
