Eddie Routh Case Study

To juniors of Bob Jones: Many people from the working class will admit to not enjoying their jobs. In fact, 70% of Americans are unhappy with their current job. Oddly enough, I’m not going to talk about Americans and their dislike of their jobs, but allow me to ask a question. If a nurse wakes up one day and decides to work as an electrical engineer then does that suddenly make her an electrical engineer? The rule used to determine whether one is not guilty by reason of insanity is in most states the Model Penal Code and it states, “A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he [or she] lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality/wrongfulness
The insanity defense is only raised in 1% of cases and then only successful 25% of the time it is used; although its rarity, the legal court has very detailed rules. Most rules describe not guilty by reason of insanity as not being aware of what you were doing in that exact moment. Adam Banner suggests that the Eddie Routh case had an accurate ruling of guilty because of his claim that, “...the disposition is ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’. It is not ‘not guilty by reason of mental illness’,”. Only Mental Health America would disagree, stating, “The Court has indicated that states may be required to provide at least some minimal defense based on mental illness,”. Coincidently, these changes have not been made thus
Two cases with defendants who both have plead not guilty by reason of insanity, have been given two different rulings despite the fact that they both have mental illnesses. In James Holmes’ trial, Holmes killed twelve people and injured more than seventy in his local movie theater. Holmes was found not guilty by reason of insanity, but a psychiatrist claimed him to be legally sane, but had a mental illness.(Ingold and Phillips) If Holmes was ‘legally sane’ but mentally ill then he should not have been found not guilty by reason of INSANITY. In the Eddie Routh case, he was given a life sentence and had suffered severe PTSD and schizophrenia prior to the crime. (Banner) According to the Model Penal Code would not Routh's mental illness be the cause of his crime and excuse him from the sentence? The court is acting unjust, inconsistent, and illogical in their rulings to these defendants who both have records of mental illness, or claims of mental illness, but one walks into the prison at the end of the day and the other walks into the mental ward. The rules currently in action allow judges to rule based on what seems to be their unlogical personal opinion after maybe reviewing the mental illness records, maybe not, their pigheaded personality will