Guilt Or Sanity

Guilt and Sanity

In the legal world of guilty and not guilty, there is a third option, sometimes used and occasionally successful: not guilty by reason of insanity (NGBI). Those found not guilty in this manner are treated for their condition and, if they are at some point deemed sane, released into the world. This is the possibility for John Hinckley, former President Ronald Reagan’s would-be assassin. According to Richard E. Vatz, “Hinckleyhas been granted unsupervised leaves, with opposition muted perhaps due to the fact that Reagan now is deceased.” Was there an alternative that would have accepted both his mental illness and his culpability? The plea guilty but insane allows the person to receive treatment for mental illness but also insures that he will serve any remaining jail time as a sane person in jail. All courts should replace the not guilty by reason of insanity plea with the plea guilty but insane (GBI). In the first place, there are more instances of a successful NGRI than the average person realizes. According to those opposed to the change, as Vatz notes, “The consensually approved statistic…is approximately one-quarter of one percent ... [however] over the years, this translates into thousands of cases.” This means it is not just the John Hinckleys and Andrea Yates in the country committing crimes and not “paying” for them, but thousands of accused murderers and others manage to convince mental health professionals they were insane at the time of their crime. Considering most of these people are not examined until some time later, that determination is quite often a “battle of the professionals” at the trial. In addition, the fact that these professionals base their opinion – to a large degree – on the self-reporting of the individual opens the door to possible deception. Deroy Murdock quotes John Hinckley as follows: “Psychiatry is a guessing game, and I do my best to keep the fools guessing about me,” Hinckley wrote in his diary

2 in 1987. “They will never know the true John Hinckley. Only I fully understand myself.” In an uncomfortable statistic, Martha Stout, Ph.D., estimates that four per cent of the population of the United States is sociopathic – not suffering a psychotic episode or other such identifiably “insane” state. She states, “Without the slightest blip of guilt or remorse, one in twenty-five people can do anything at all [her emphasis]” (9). Could a sociopath convince a doctor, or jury, that he is insane? It would certainly be to his benefit. Secondly, the NGBI plea allows the person involved to go free if, or when, she is considered legally sane. This means the person committed to a mental hospital following a trial can leave if she convinces the mental health professionals at that facility she is now “sane.” Unfortunately, this process does not take into consideration several very important things: self-reporting, functionality in the real world, and continuation of medication being three. Most information on a patient comes from the patient herself. This means that if the person decides not to reveal inappropriate thoughts, the patient apparently does not have them. Self-reporting has always been a nebulous way to determine actions, thoughts and motives. The extremely self-aware patient, who knows revealing what is really going on, can choose to not reveal details that would become grounds for committal. The flip side of this is the case where the patient is knowledgeable enough to project certain thoughts – or even claim certain actions or events occurred – so that her condition is made to seem worse. She might have a disorder that confuses what has happened with what she thinks happened. She might be sociopathic. She might be trying to avoid responsibility for her actions and the results of them. There is currently no way to impartially determine the truth.

3 A person can be functional in a highly structured environment and be very different in the “real world.” This is seen, to varying degrees, in many environments: The soldier who is completely in control on camp takes a weekend leave and winds up in jail, drunk. The prisoner, in prison where everything is mandated, he does as he must. When he is released, he reverts to his anti-social ways. The mentally ill person, who while in hospital, does well but falls apart as an out-patient. In a structured environment such as these, choices are made for the person. He does not choose to take medication, he is required to and someone monitors him. Hygiene, eating properly, and taking care of his immediate environment are also mandated and monitored. It is easier to go along with the river than to fight the current. The “real world” is like a pond. He can go in any direction, without much effort. A person who functions well with medication may not continue the medication outside of the hospital and return to previous behaviors. A person who commits murder could conceivably spend a few years in a hospital and then walk away, a free person. There are few rules in place to ensure compliance. As an example of this dilemma, Mark Donald points out the case of Kenneth Pierott, in Texas: In April [2004], police arrested a Beaumont man, Kenneth Pierott, and charged him with the asphyxiation murder of a 6-year-old boy after he allegedly place him in an oven. Sadly, in 1996, this same man had beaten to death his own ailing sister, and a judge later acquitted him by reason of insanity. Pierott was committed to a state mental hospital, where he was stabilized on medication and released four months later. What troubled many [Texas Senate Jurisprudence] committee witnesses was a judicial system that had no mechanism to intervene if Pierott, once released into the community, had stopped taking his medication.

4 What has been recommended in Texas is something resembling “a mental illness parole” (Donald). In this manner, those released would have compliance a stipulation for their continued freedom. Since many, if not most, psychiatric medications can be monitored by blood tests, medication compliance can be measurably monitored. There is the other side of medication compliance and that is forcing a person to take medication against his will. As is mentioned in The Economist online, “In a 1990 case the Supreme Court ruled that a mentally ill prisoner could be treated with antipsychotic drugs against his will, but only if doctors thought that without the drugs the prisoner was a danger to himself and others.” Even more unsettling was the case of Charles Singleton. He was convicted of the 1979 murder of a young woman. During his incarceration, he was treated for the mental illness with which he was diagnosed. In early 2004, Singleton, who was determined to be sane enough to execute, died of lethal injection. According to Wikipedia, the case attracted interest all over the world “because he was considered legally sane only when treated with medication.” It is, and has been, argued that the rights of the individual cannot overshadow the rights of the whole, but the line is quite thin and often shaky. Medication so that a person may live a productive life is applauded; medication so he can die seems to violate the old rule of do no harm. Finally, the NGBI plea does not require the person involved to be responsible for his own actions. An important part of emotional maturity is accepting responsibility for one’s own actions. This plea circumvents that and allows the person to blame the “insanity” – even if there were strong indications that the person knew the difference between right and wrong.

5 Andrea Yates, as Vatz points out, knew to commit the murders of her children after her husband left for work and before anyone could reasonably be expected to come by. She “called the police and later said that she was ‘a bad mother.’ Both actions [she also carefully positioned the bodies of four of the children] indicate she knew what she did was unethical.” The person found NGBI is never truly required to accept responsibility. The majority of the states have some form of NGRI. Only a few offer the GBI plea. For example, “Arizona law says that a defendant ‘may be found guilty except insane if at the time of the commission of the criminal act the person was afflicted with a mental disease or defect of such severity that the person did not know the criminal act was wrong’” (Holland). A person who commits a crime should be presumed innocent. She also, if found to have committed that crime, should be found guilty. Justice and mercy are both served with the plea of guilty but insane. The actor receives the treatment she needs for her mental illness, if indeed such is present, but then responsibility for her actions takes place as she is treated as any other convicted criminal. The “get out of jail free” card called legal insanity is counterproductive for the community and the individual. It does not truly protect the rights of the individual or the whole. The one does not benefit from the emotional maturity of responsibility; the other likely will see the same actions again. Therefore, all courts should replace the NGBI plea with the plea guilty but insane.

6 Works Cited "A new insanity defence; Forcible medication. (Do defendants, or prisoners, have a constitutional right to refuse drug treatments?)." The Economist (US) 366.8313 (March 1, 2003): NA. Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale. Regions University. 22 Feb. 2007 . “Charles Laverne Singleton.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 1 Jan 2007, 20:29 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 Feb 2007. . Donald, Mark. "Guilty But Insane in The Legislature." Texas Lawyer 20.12 (May 24, 2004): NA. Academic OneFile. Thomson Gale. Regions University. 22 Feb. 2007. . Holland, Gina. "Supreme Court considers test of insanity defense." Fulton County Daily Report (April 19, 2006): NA. General Reference Center Gold. Thomson Gale. Regions University. 22 Feb. 2007 . Murdock, Deroy. “Legal Insanity.” National Review Online. 20 Nov. 2003. 22 Feb 2007. . Stout, Martha, Ph.D. The Sociopath Next Door. New York: Broadway Books, 2005. Vatz, Richard E. “Those crazy insanity pleas. (AMERICAN JUSTICE).” USA Today (Magazine). 135.2736 (Sept 2006): 57(1). Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale. Regions University. 22 Feb. 2007. .