Punish or Excuse Insane Offenders. A Review

Abstract

A question of when is it just to punish a person for his or her wrongdoing attracts contentious debates. At one end, one group believes people who commit crimes while unconscious or rather unable to distinctly distinguish right and wrong when engaging in a delinquent act should be acquitted as opposed to individuals who are conscious of their transgressions. The key question for this paper is whether we should punish those who have no sense of right or wrong such as psychopaths but instead allow those who truly do not know the nature of their crime to go free or be acquitted. The argument of conviction or acquittal of offenders who do not know the nature of their crimes or understand the concept of right and wrong at the time of a crime are based on the M’Naghten Rules which state that for a person to be acquitted on a claim of insanity; it must satisfy two limbs. It must be proven that the defendant was suffering from a “disease of the mind; hence he was either not aware of the quality and nature of the crime (first limb) or if aware, he did not comprehend the wrongness of his actions (second limb). People who have the concept of right and wrong with respect to moral and legal standards are the people we should be punishing. The people who commit crimes based on their own personal concept of what is right or wrong need be punished for they know it is morally and legally wrong to commit the crime in question.  A significant number of the people arraigned in criminal courts are insane; they are likely would not be on the defense if they were average normal people, however, many have peculiar dispositions and tempers and often understand the moral or legal wrongness of their crimes. Therefore, if an offender fails to provide substantially incapacitation to appreciate the wrongness or criminality of his acts, then they must be held accountable for crimes. Punishing and excusing people on insanity claims is a controversial issue in criminal law. As stated under the M’Naghten Rules, despite arguing that insane offenders would be acquitted of their crime, they must indeed prove their acts are an influence of their craziness hence raises issues of whether insanity is legal or medical. Therefore, a review of the literature found out that affirmative insanity defense is justified by excusing offenders who are mentally disordered and whose state of mental consciousness deprived them of their rational understanding of their actions and behavior at the time of occurrence of a crime.