John Hinckley Case - Paper Example

Introduction

On March 30, 1981, John Hinckley attempted to murder Ronald Reagan, the president of the United States in the driveway of Washington Hilton hotel (Ewing & McCann, 2006). He fired three shots and wounded the president together with the three other attendants including the presidential press secretary, secret service agent and Metropolitan police officer who suffered permanent brain damage. The accuser was then charged under the federal law court with the attempted murder of the president, federal officer assault, and use of firearms to commit a federal crime (Hans & Slater, 1983). After the court found Hinckley competent to stand trial, he filed a motion of intent through his lawyers to raise an insanity defense.

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Hinckley who shot Ronald Reagan, together with other three people outside the Washington DC was, therefore, found not guilty of the attempted assassination due to insanity. At his trial, Hinckley presented evidence before the court that he had a mental disorder, and that the disease caused his criminal actions. Besides, Hinckley's lawyers argued that their client had a pathological obsession with the Taxi Driver of 1996 movie in which the protagonist tries to assassinate a fictional senator (Ewing & McCann, 2006). The defense attorneys claimed that Hinckley had watched the movie more than fifteen times, making him being obsessed with the Jodie Foster, the lead actress. He, therefore, attempted to restructure the plot of the movie in his life. For that reason, the lawyers successfully argued that the film, not their client, was the primary planning force behind the attempted assassination of the president. On June 21, 1982, the jury delivered a verdict of not guilty due to insanity (Ewing & McCann, 2006). The judge then committed the defendant to St. Elizabeth's hospital where he has remained to date.

The not guilty verdict due to insanity for the attempted assassination of the president was met with various complaints in America. The poll taken after the decision of the court indicated that about 83% of the individuals hold the notion that there was no justice in the case (Hans & Slater, 1983). Some people viewed the verdict as anti-Reagan bias as the Jury composed of elven black judges against one white judge. However, a lot of people blamed a legitimate system claiming that it allowed the judges to make the verdicts of not guilty cases due to insanity. According to them, such pleas succeeded in only 2% of the offenses and failed in more than 75% of the crimes (Hans & Slater, 1983). Because the public was not happy with the verdict, it spurred pressure to the Congress and the states to enact significant law reforms that police the application of the insanity defense in a case. As a result, the legal standards of insanity have been put in place.

Legal Standards of Insanity

The negative reactions of the public led to the enactment of new reforms of the insanity defense, and within a month of the court's decision, the Congress started public hearing of the motion of insanity defense. Even though the public was furious with the judgment, the jurors explained that they were allowed by law to provide such a verdict. Within a short time, the Congress passed a law that changed the burden of providing that the appellee was insane during the crime. According to Hans & Slater (1983), Delaware lawmakers also passed an amendment providing a guilty but mentally ill verdict as an alternative to insanity cases.

However, as Harmening and Gamez, (2016) put, the verdict of not guilty for the reason of insanity does not imply that the person is innocent of the offense. Legally, this verdict means that trial testimony and evidence shows that the act did not satisfy the requirements of the mens rea (Harmening & Gamez, 2016). In other words, the jury can rule that the appellee had no intention to commit the crime or did not understand that the action was wrong under the condition that the defendant was mentally ill. Before making a verdict about insanity case, the jury must follow the legal standards of insanity.

Naghten Rule

The first legal stand of insanity is the M' Naghten Rule which existed in the nineteenth century. It is the most recognized standard in the US. This rule can be traced in the case of Daniel M' Naghten who shot and killed Edward Drummond, the secretary to the British Prime Minister in 1843 due to the thought of a conspiracy (Harmening & Gamez, 2016). The court found that the defendant was suffering from paranoid delusions, and found him not guilty because of insanity. In short, the insanity under M' Naghten Rule states that the before the offense, the defendant must have been suffering from a mental defect that impairs their ability to understand their wrongdoings or to appreciate the evil of their actions.

Irresistible Impulse Test

This legal standard was adopted to expand the M' Naghten Rule. It allows the defendant to comprehend their wrongdoings. The Alabama state first adopted it in the 1887 case of Parsons v. State (Harmening & Gamez, 2016). In this case, the court ruled that although the appellee could differentiate the wrong from right, he is subject to the duress of such mental disorder to the extent that the person has lost the power to determine the right and the wrong and that the disease destroyed the individual's free agency (Harmening & Gamez, 2016). In brief, this standard allows the judge to rule a not guilty case for the reason of insanity because of the major two points:

That the mental disorder made the defender to lose the power of determining the right and wrong to abstain from the offense since the disorder damaged the free will of the person

The mental disease was the primary cause of the crime.

The Durham Rule

The Durham standard was adopted because most states were not satisfied with the M' Naghten Rule. It emerged after Monte Durham; a 23-year-old male who developed mental illness was arrested for committing the crime of housebreaking (Harmening & Gamez, 2016). After his arrest, two psychiatrists evaluated him, and he was found to be of an unsound mind with a psychopathic personality. Following his condition, the defendant was remanded to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. Later, the court found him to be competent to stand trial, which was followed by conviction. Unfortunately, the conviction was overturned when the defendant's lawyer argued that the M' Naghten Rule of the criminal responsibility was old (Harmening & Gamez, 2016). The court of appeal, therefore, adopted a product test that the accused is not feloniously guilty if mental defect influenced his offense.

American Law Institute (ALI) Standard

This standard defines insanity as the state when an individual is not legally responsible for the crime conducted if, at the time of the criminal activity caused by mental illness, the person has no solid ability to appreciate his criminality to the law requirements. According to Harmening and Gamez (2016), the ALI rule follows three directions as opposed to other standards. Firstly, it incorporates both cognitive and emotional determinants of criminality. Secondly, it only needs to prove that the defendant has no substantial capacity to understand their behavior. This requirement is contrary to the M' Naghten Rule that requires that the accused cannot completely understand the circumstances of their crimes (Harmening & Gamez, 2016). Lastly, the ALI rule includes volitional and cognitive elements which sometimes make it hard for the defendant to control their actions needed to find out if indeed they are insane.

Apart from the above directions, the ALI standard limits the application of the potential abuse of the dominant impact defense by highlighting the contents of the mental disease (Harmening & Gamez, 2016). This enactment does not include the abnormality displayed by antisocial behavior or repeated crimes. The standard, therefore, attempts to bar those with something less than mental illness from using insanity for defense (Harmening & Gamez, 2016). Finally, the ALI standard requires that an accused found to have developed a psychological defect be taken to psychiatric care and that a judge acquitting the defendant with insanity plea must report whether that verdict followed the defendant's case of insanity.

References

Ewing, C. P., & McCann, J. T. (2006). Minds on trial: Great cases in law and psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hans, V. P., & Slater, D. (1983). John Hinckley, Jr. and the insanity defense: The public's verdict. Public Opinion Quarterly, 47(2), 202-212.

Harmening, W. M., & Gamez, A. M. (2016). Forensic psychology. New York: Pearson.