Insanity, comes from the Latin word sanus, meaning healthy. Insane is meant to be the opposite, sick or of unsound mind. # In the court of law, the jury must prove that at the time of the crime, the defendant was not in a sane mind. The attorneys job is to prove without a doubt, that the defendant was not in control of their actions, at the time the crime was committed. Once this is done and the verdict is given, if found guilty by reason of insanity, the person is usually sent to a mental hospital, where treatment can be give. Once at the hospital the patient is then give therapy and even drugs if needed. At the time when the person and the doctors feel he/she are capable of going back into society, and when they are no longer a harm, then they can be let out. This puts fear into society, because a once dangerous criminal might now be let out to the streets. However the insanity plea as been around for many years, and is not used in every court case, and there is long determination to prove that the person does have a mental illness, and to prove that its is not gear to get a harsher term. In the eyes of the law, a defendant is legally insane if he or she is unable, because of a mental problem, to form a mens rea, a Latin term meaning a guilty mind.# Since the law only punishes people who are mentally responsible for their actions, most states allow juries to find a defendant not guilty if he or she was insane at the time a crime was committed. The insanity defense, states that at the time of the crime the defendant could not decide between right or wrong or could not keep from acting on their impulse, due to mental illness. Each state has its own definition of insanity, but most states follow a basis of the M’ Naughten rule, which comes from a famous English case decided in 1843.# Under this rule, a defendant may be found not guilty by reason of insanity if, at the time of committing the act, he or she suffered from...
