Many times, when a person performs a murder or an erratic, injuring action, he or she will plead insanity. Lawyers use this tactic to eliminate their client’s sentences, even when they have committed the most heinous of crimes. If a lawyer can prove that his or her client was not in his or her right mind when the crime occurred, it may mean that that suspect shouldn’t be held responsible for the offenses. According to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University, attorneys who use this offense want the judge to pronounce their client “not guilty by reason of insanity.” This defense route is normally taken when the lawyer is sure that his or her client committed the crime he or she is suspected of, but was not in his or her right mind at the time.

A diminished mental capacity or a special disability can completely change any court case from a cold-blooded murder to a serious question about disability discrimination and rights. There is a large chasm between “not guilty by reason of insanity” and its sister sentence, “diminished capacity.” Those who fight for a diminished capacity in their defense are arguing that they deserve a lesser sentence because of their mental condition at the time of the offensive action. Those who fight for “not guilty by reason of insanity” are trying to get the sentences eliminated altogether. Many times those who are declared not guilty are still sent to an asylum for treatment or placed in a home with a family member willing to monitor and care for them.

Insanity defenses recognize a compromise on the part of society and the law. The attorney is asking everyone to loosen up their standards for someone who was not mentally competent to understand the extent of his or her actions. While society naturally believes that criminals should be punished for their crimes, they also believe that the ill should receive treatment for their ailments. The courts use this verdict to permit treatment to those who need it, instead of putting them in a prison where their quality of life and health would be reduced. In some courts, an insanity verdict will rest on whether or not the offender can distinguish good from evil. In other trials, the court has ruled on whether or not the criminal in question is aware of what he or she did.

When developing an insanity case, the defense attorney must keep in mind the M’Naghten rule. This is a rule that was created after the M’Naghten case in 1843. According to the case, an Englishman shot and killed the secretary of the British Prime Minister because he thought that the prime minister was conspiring against him. The defendant was given a “not guilty by insanity” verdict, but the Queen beckoned for a harsher sentence. This started the drafting of the rule, which created am assumed belief that all defendants are sane unless proved otherwise. To prove insanity, a lawyer must show that the accused had a disease of the mind and did not know the nature or quality of the act that he or she committed. In the United States, this rule has become the standard for insanity in about half of all state courts.

The Durham rule is another statute that governs insanity cases. Monte Durham was a 23-year-old who was convicted of housebreaking in 1953. He had been in and out of mental institutions his entire life. After an appeal, a judge threw out the M’Naghten rule and instead implemented the Durham rule. This statute allowed alcoholics, compulsive gamblers, and drug addicts to also claim that they were mentally defected. The regulation was eventually rejected from federal courts because it was so broad, but it still has been used in various cases. Since Reagan invented the Crime Control Act in 1984, defense attorneys are now required to prove that there is clear and convincing evidence that at the time of the acts that constituted the offense, the defendant was suffering from a severe mental disease or defect. Because of this, the Crime Control Act says that it must be obvious that he or she was not aware of the nature or quality or wrongfulness of the acts committed. This is casually called the “knowing right from wrong” standard. If you or a loved one is involved in a criminal case, and insanity is a factor, then make sure your criminal defense lawyer tries to develop a defense on these lines.