Who Is Charles Manson Guilty By Cause Of Insanity?

Charles Manson (born November 12, 1934) was an American criminal who was convicted of first degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He was born to Kathleen Maddox, a 16-year-old girl who was both an alcoholic and a prostitute. Kathleen later married William Manson (not his father but took his last name through marriage), but the marriage ended quickly and Charles was placed in a boys school. Kathleen was absent for much of Manson's early life. She was imprisoned with her brother in 1939 for hustling men in bars and setting them up for her brother to beat and rob, according to a 1970 Enquirer article. Rejected in his attempts to return to his mother, Charles was soon living on the streets and getting by through petty crime.
As a teenager Manson began spending most of his time in prison, he was considered dangerous and was described as suffering from a "marked degree of rejection, instability and psychic trauma" and "constantly striving for status and securing some kind of love."
In the
late 1960’s he recruited followers and formed the ‘Manson family’ cult. The cult consisted of around 100 followers who shared his lifestyle of taking hallucinogenic drugs including LSD and magic mushrooms. Manson influenced his followers to commit murder for him, overall it was suggested that over 35 killings occurred by the cult even though Manson was only charged for seven through lack of evidence. The first household Manson targeted was on August 9, 1969, at the home Roman Polanski had rented, located at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, an area just north of Beverly Hills. Manson took no part in the killings himself but directed his four most obedient followers Charles "Tex" Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Linda Kasabian to the address to kill everyone.
Manson was also influenced not only by drugs, such as LSD, but by art works and music of the time, most notably The Beatles song "Helter Skelter," from their White Album. He had a strong belief and interest in the notion of Armageddon from the Book of Revelations, and also explored the teachings of Scientology and more obscure cult churches, such as the Church of the Final Judgment.
In many ways, Manson reflected personality traits and obsessions that were associated with gurus of cult-quasi-religious groups that began to emerge in the 1960s. He was pathologically deluded into believing that he was the harbinger of doom regarding the planet's future.
Manson was considered to be suffering from psychic trauma along with having mental health issues including schizophrenia and paranoid delusional disorder. He was noted to have no indication of remorse, no insight into the causative factors of the crimes committed, lacked understanding of the magnitude of the crimes and had a callous disregard for human suffering. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by abnormal social behaviour and failure to understand reality. The use of hallucinogenic drugs will have played a large part in the cause of his condition.
I believe that his childhood had the biggest impact on what made him the way he was. Obviously his mother was never there for him to provide him with the proper love and support a child needs. His mother herself was a criminal and if we apply Banduras social learning theory it would be theorized Manson was raised observing her actions and thus learning her criminal traits. A biological factor could also be in play here. If his mother was an alcoholic (and possibly consumed drugs) from when he was a foetus this would have affected how he was developed. Foetal alcohol syndrome is a disorder caused when the mother consumes alcohol during pregnancy. Alcohol affects the growth of the developing foetus which causes problems such as low intelligence and mental illness. This is linked to delinquent behaviour later on in life.

Adrian Raine is a British psychologist who also studies the biological causes of antisocial and violent behaviour.
He conducted research to better understand antisocial behaviour and clinical disorders. One of his experiments was conducted in an attempt to discover if murderers who have pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) show evidence of brain abnormalities. The study used PET scans to examine the brains of 41 people (39 males and 2 females) who were charged with murder and were pleading Not Guilty for Reasons of Insanity (NGRI) and compared them with 41 controls. All the NGRIs were referred to the imaging centre for legal reasons, such as to obtain evidence for the defence. The reasons for the referrals included schizophrenia, head injury, and personality disorders. The participants were matched by age and sex to a control group of participants. The participants with schizophrenia were matched with other people with the same diagnosis but no history of
murder.
All offenders were in custody and were kept medication free for the two weeks before brain scanning. The control group were also medication free.
All the participants were injected with a glucose tracer, required to work at a continuous performance task that was based around target recognition for 32 minutes, and then given a PET scan. The NGRIs were compared with the controls on the level of activity (glucose metabolism) in right and left hemispheres of the brain in 14 selected areas. The researchers looked at activity in six cortical areas (part of the cerebral cortex which is the outermost layer of nerve tissues of the cerebral hemispheres) and eight subcortical areas (brain structures below the cortex);
The cerebral cortex is commonly described in terms of four areas or lobes; the prefrontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital. In this study, compared to the controls, the NGRIs were found to have less activity in their prefrontal and parietal areas, more activity in their occipital areas, and no difference in their temporal areas.
The results from the subcortical areas found less activity in the corpus callosum They also found an imbalance of activity between the two hemispheres in three other subcortical structures. In the amygdala and the hippocampus, compared to the controls, the NGRIs had less activity in the left side and more activity in the right side. Also, in the thalamus the NGRIs had more activity in the right side, though no difference in the left side. Raine argues that his research supports previous findings about the role of certain brain structures in violent behaviour. He suggests that the difference in activity in the amygdala (which is part of the limbic system) can be seen to support theories of violence that suggests it is due to unusual emotional responses such as lack of fear. The authors also comment on the differences in corpus callosum activity between the NGRIs and the controls, and suggest this can be matched up to evidence of people with a severed corpus callosum which show they can have inappropriate emotional expression and an inability to grasp long-term implications of a situation.
The main criticism of this study refers to the issue of reductionism. Studies like this one have been criticised for being biologically reductionist in that they attempt to explain complex behaviour as a consequence of brain functioning. By doing so this ignores the many other possible reasons why a person may act violently. Brain functioning is possibly just one factor why a person may act violently. Other factors that must be taken into account include a persons social background, their role models, psychological predispositions, learned responses and so on.