John Hinckley And The Self-Defense Trial Of Jodi Arias

The Insanity Defense of John Hinckley and the Self-Defense Trial of Jodi Arias
Renee McGary
CJA/354 Criminal Law
April 1, 2013
Rick Rice

The Insanity Defense of John Hinckley and the Self-Defense Trial of Jodi Arias Have you ever thought about what you would do if you had to fight for your life against an attack from a person you considered your wife or boyfriend? That is probably an answer only the person that has had to fight for their life can answer or is it just an excuse to kill. This is what the trial of Jodi Arias is about in Phoenix, Arizona; the slaughtering of Travis Alexander, Jodi’s lover whom she stabbed to death 27 times, slit his throat from ear to ear, and finally shooting him in the face because she said, “she was
He wrote her letters and poems just to get her attention but none of that worked so he developed a plan to get her attention by killing the President of the United States. John became so obsessed with Jodi Foster he began to model different aspects of his life on the behaviors of Robert DeNiro the main character from the movie “Taxi Driver.” In the movie Robert DeNiro planned to assassinate the President of the United States so that he would win the heart of a woman named Betsy. The attorneys for John Hinckley presented John as not guilty by reason of insanity. The defense presented their witness Dr. William T. Carpenter, psychiatrist who described his diagnosis of John Hinckley’s mental illness as, “Delusion is a technical term that refers to the development of a false belief, and a false belief that is not shared by others and is not readily shaken by evidence to the contrary…. And it is not simply that it is false that makes it a delusion because people have many false beliefs. But it is false, it is not shared by others and evidence that would show that is not, in fact, accurate doesn’t shake belief that the person has. So I use the term “delusion” because it will be important to understand that as a technical judgment that I have made that relates to this withdrawal from reality and the development of the relationship, for example, with Jodie Foster,
William T. Carpenter and Dr. David Bear discussed that the government did not present the prior life of John Hinckley, Jr. and his many attempts at suicide with the fact that his mental illness caused him to have illusions of Jody Foster loving him if he shot the President. The fact that John tried numerous times to kill himself was the defense excuse of insanity and the fact that the jurors thought the prosecution did not provide enough evidence that Hinckley was not insane. The outcome of the Hinckley trial was the jury finding that John Hinckley Jr., is not guilty by reason of insanity. After Hinckley’s trial he was sent to a mental hospital by the name of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. Afterwards, Hinckley’s attorney Barry Levine filed an appeal for Hinckley to be released. “The Decision Affirming District Court 's Denial of John Hinckley 's Request for Unsupervised Release to His Parents Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WALD. John W. Hinckley, Jr., an insanity acquitted presently committed to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. ("Hospital"), filed a motion with the United States District Court seeking a conditional release under D.C. CODE ANN. § 24-301(k) (1981). This release would have permitted him to spend approximately one twelve-hour period per month in the community, with his parents but otherwise unsupervised. The Hospital