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A murder case, where someone was proven guilty, would seem simple in deciding the verdict, but it becomes complicated when the suspect pleas insanity. A person who is found to have had a criminal intent required in his specific offense, can nevertheless be found not guilty by reason of insanity. Professor of law and psychiatry Richard Bonnie states, “…if, by virtue of mental disease or defect, he lacked substantial capacity either to understand or appreciate the legal or mortal significance of his actions, or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law” (309). Insanity defense refers to a plea that defendants are not guilty because they lacked the mental capacity to realize that they committed a wrong or to not understand why it was wrong. In legal cases where the victimizer pleas insanity for one reason or another, it becomes a real important dilemma for the jury. Victimizers are morally responsible for their bad acts and deserve our condemnation. Victims of terrible abuse bear no moral responsibility for the act and deserve are compassion. In one case, a man by the name of “Weston” had a delusion that the government secretly implanted a device into his head but that was not enough for him to be considered dangerous. He was released from an involuntary commitment at the Montana Psychiatric Institute in Warming Springs. A short time after the released, “Weston” stopped taking his medicine and ended up in the bloody U.S. Capital shoot-out. Robert Gabriele, senior vice president for the National Mental Health states, “ We had a psychotic loose in the Capitol, but it is not his fault” (Gabriele 4). However, if the insane victimizer cannot be responsible for their crimes, victims and their families see that justice has not been severed. During the past two decades, nearly half a million Americans have been murdered. Since 1966, hundred of books have been published that follow murderers along their paths of destruction. And yet, just a handful of books have been written about the crime from the victim’s or the victims family perspective “ One thing that makes family members and others angry is an attitude towards murder which at times moves beyond the insensitive and towards the careless”(Brooks). Because of modern technology, mainly TV and the radio, we are exposed to stories of horrible murders daily which has caused our society to become hardened and insensitive to the victims and their families and people who cared about them. Death of a loved one is always painful.
Approximate Word count = 1675
Approximate Pages = 6.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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