a diseased mind or defective reasoning, so that it was not possible to know the nature and quality of the act. A person also can be found not guilty by reason of insanity if he or she did know what was happening but did not understand that it was wrong. Since this rule requires a disease or defect of the mind, the lowering of a person's inhibitions by drugs, alcohol, blind hatred, extreme anger or some neurotic behavior would not provide an insanity defense. However, more recently states have been adopting a more interpretative view on the insanity plea. The American Law Institute (ALI) requires the defendants to be judged and found not guilty if either two of theses points can be adequately established in the court of law. First of all they must show that due to an mental disease or defect the defendants lacked, at the time, the substantial mental capacity either to understand what they did, and, secondly to conform their act to the requirements of the law.# In the court of law you can also plea that at the time of the crime you were in a diminished capacity, incapable of premeditation. Which means that even though you are sane in your everyday life at the time of the crime you were in a sudden mad rage, causing you to act the way you did, so therefore you were temporarily insane. While an insanity defense could be raised in almost any criminal case, it usually is reserved only for the most serious crimes carrying harsh punishment, such as the death penalty or life in prison. “Of the total number of criminal acts committed, relatively small proportions are detected; even smaller proportions of offenders are formally charged with a crime. Of those charged some ninety percent plead guilty: only a small number of the ten- percent who stand trail plead the insanity defense.”#. The insanity defense is rarely used in the court of law due to the difficulty of proving a mental illness to the jury. The best evidence in a ca...
