Insanity Defense: Compromise Between Society And The Law

Many people have heard about the insanity defense in different famous cases where it has come up and been used. The insanity defense is a compromise between society and the law, meaning that society believes that criminals shouldn 't be punished if they are mentally incapable of controlling their conduct. There is a lot of controversy with the insanity defense, like questions such as what is the different if an insane person killed someone and if a sane person killed someone, the person is still dead. To which most have a point, it is still wrong but it all becomes an ethical game with killing someone who didn 't understand or comprehend what they did was wrong. The court defines it as there was only a crime committed if the person committed
One of the 1st examples of the insanity plea in the US was with Daniel Sickles, he shot and killed a man because he caught him with his wife, having an affair. He was able to be freed of his murder charges in 1859 due to temporary insanity because he was angry and shot the man out of anger. When the insanity plea first came to the US it was easier to get off on crime in cases like these but still there are cases that the criminal gets off because of temporary insanity in difference instances. In 1981, Steven Steinberg killed his wife with a kitchen knife and had stabbed her 26 times, then proceeded to call the police saying that there was a robbery, that someone had broken into their house but when they came, there was no sign of a break in or robbery. When they went to court, he claimed that he was sleepwalking and so they claimed that it was a sleepwalking murder and he was not in his normal state of mind. Steinberg claimed to not remember what had happened and what he did but he did not deny that he murdered his wife. He pleaded not guilty because of temporary insanity and successfully won the plea. Later the jury said that they knew that they let a killer off the hook but since he was sleepwalking, not in his normal state of mind, he was not criminally responsible for his actions. There are many instances like this in cases now a days where they try to get out on that the criminal is “not in their normal state of mind”. One man though that that didn 't work for was Andrew Goldstein, in 1999, he pushed a lady in front of a train and she was killed. He had suffered from Schizophrenia almost all his life and when he went to court, they said he intentionally killed her because she looked like someone he knew and didn 't like very much. They of course tried to use his Schizophrenia as a defense, saying that he was mentally ill,