se is simply an attempt to shown that the prosecution has failed to connect the accused with the crime, a defense used in everyday law. An affermative defense is raised when the prosecution has connected the accused with the crime, as in an example of self-defense. The defense argues that, yes, the accused did shoot and kill the person and did so intentionally, but because the act was commited in self-defense the accused does not bear criminal responsibilty for it. The same is true in the case of a criminal act commited under duress. The insanity defense, in this respect, is an affermative defense. It is this usage that needs to be abolished. In cases such as self defense it may be an adequate and totally acceptable defense, for in how many cases do you hear of a man being aquitted due to a self-defense plea returning to the streets in order to kill again? To draw a comparison between the two and argue that both defenses are neccessarry to the total order is naive and unfounded. CONCLUSIONThe law of insanity involves the conceptes of mens rea and punishments, as does the criminal law in general. Insanity is a legal concept, not a medical concept, and insanity is defined within the context of an adversary system wherin psychiatrists and lawyers battle one another over the meaning of terms such as "right and wrong" and "ability to control one's behavior." Mental illness and mental disease are psychoanalytic concepts, not scientific concepts. Mental illness is defined by talking to people or by giving them written tests, and there is no agreement among psychiatrists as to the meaning of this illness or whether or not it really exists. Some psychiatrists call mental illness a myth. The psychoanalyst has not been successful in treating or predicting mental illness. The psychoanalyst has never established a casual relationship between mental illness and criminal behavior. The insanity defense would require both a mental illness and a relation...
