If a criminal successfully uses the insanity defense, they are more likely to receive a less severe punishment or be proven innocent for the crime committed.
Methodology
The research will adopt a qualitative study methodology, which is primarily exploratory research that will facilitate an understanding of underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations on an insanity defense. As such, it will provide prompt insights into the issue and help in developing diverse ideas for expounding on the hypotheses for potential quantitative researches in criminology. It will adopt both unstructured or semi-structured techniques for establishing distinctions, individual interviews, and observations. The primary research method to be utilized entail the use of detailed questionnaires involving face-to-face interviews.
The research will be a causal study as it seeks to explore different investigations of a cause and effect relationship between the identified variables. Basically, it will be a descriptive study trying to expound further on how successful use of insanity defense by a criminal would result into less severe punishment or be proven innocent for the crime committed. It will also employ simple random sampling technique where a particular subject group will be selected from an extensive study population. All participants will be chosen by a chance since every population members hold the capacity of being part of the sample.
Literature Review
According to Thompson et al., any criminal defendant found legally insane wen committing the crime of any nature may not be considered guilty for by any reason relating to insanity incidences. Brown " Kimberly argue that in particular incidences, an offender can be regarded as guilty but still get a lenient sentence due to a mental issue. In some states, however, defendants are still expected to prove and convince the court that they did not in any way understand their initial actions, by failing to distinguish right from wrong, by acting on considerably uncontrollable impulse or other forms relating to these aspects.
The first ever recognized mental incident as a protection from criminal charges was established back in the year 1581 where an English legal treatise implied “If a madman or a natural fool, or a lunatic in the time of his lunacy” commits a murder, they cannot be charged. The British courts also started what was known as the “Wild Beast” that protected offenders from facing criminal charges if they did not understand the crime.
Similarly, in all texts, it is categorical that courts dropped using phrases of lunatic since the current laws exhibit the ideologies of insanity defense that adopt to a comparable sense. The lawful source for insanity is entirely confided in most of the of United States and other institutions across the globe. Brown " Kimberly argue that defendants are expected to advise prosecutors before trial by any chance they seek to depend on an insanity defense. Stereotypically, defense prosecutors and lawyers collectively appoint psychiatrists for examining defendants and further testify at trial. Government-paid psychiatrists are appointed by judges for indigent defendants (Robinson, Paul, and Tyler).
In conclusion, the research supports the stated hypothesis. The study implies that defendants are entitled to a burden of convincing juries and judges by providing adequate evidence or a tougher standard of clear and convincing evidence that their act was not intentional, or where insane at the time of the criminal act. The main limitation is that the study sample holds the probability of not covering populations of diverse ages to establish more extensive study findings.
Work Cited
Brown, Kimberly P. "Insanity defense typology." Behavioral sciences " the law (2018).
Robinson, Paul H., and Tyler Scot Williams. "Mapping American Criminal Law Variations Across the 50 States: Ch. 14 Insanity Defense." (2017).
Slobogin, Christopher. "Eliminating mental disability as a legal criterion in deprivation of liberty cases: The impact of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on the insanity defense, civil commitment, and competency law." International journal of law and psychiatry 40 (2015): 36-42.
Thompson, Claire, and William C. Cockerham. "Insanity Defense." The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society (2014).
