savannah wilder

Many people today blame their diverse behaviors on being mentally unstable. Their first claim is that they don’t understand and need mental help. But If you knew you needed mental help, why wouldn’t you get that help in the first place? In my Blog post I am going to argue why being mentally unstable isn’t an excuse anymore!

Daniel M’Naughton

In many courtroom cases, the first excuse that comes to mind when an individual’s attorney stands up in court to defend their defendant is to say that, “they aren’t right in the head and would like to be pronounced innocent on the defense of insanity.” The first time this successfully happened was in 1843 with the case of Daniel M’Naughton.

In this case Daniel M’Naughton shot a man named Edward Drummond; who was a private secretary to the British prime minister of the time. By the time that Daniel was 30 years old, he started having paranoid thoughts about police, church, and government officials. In 1841, Daniel traveled to London and France and had stated that people were persecuting him.

When he returns home he goes to purchase two pistols and tells the sales associate that he is going to shoot birds. He then travels back to London in 1842, and is seen lurking around Westminster and White Hall for several weeks.

On January 20, 1843, He started to stalk Drummond one night and ended up catching up with him and shot him near the back of the Horse-guard parade. He has originally believed that he had assented the Prime minister. Daniel did not try to escape and instead was immediately arrested.

When Daniel is asked to state what he is thinking, he responds with:

“The Tories in my native city have compelled me to do this. They follow and persecute me wherever I go and have entirely destroyed my peace of mind. They followed me to France, into Scotland, and all over England; in fact, they follow me wherever I go. I cannot sleep nor get no rest from them…. I believe they have driven me into a consumption. I am sure I shall never be the man I was. I used to have good health and strength, but I have not now. They have accused me of crimes of which I am not guilty; in fact, they wish to murder me. It can be proved by evidence. That’s all I have to say.”

Daniel M’Naughton changed the Law of Insanity. But I wouldn’t say that he changed it for the better.

Excuses

Now lets talk about some of the more crazy cases that was excused under ‘The law of insanity’

The Steven Steinberg case is a case of a manning accused of killing his wife and stabbing her 26 times. Steinberg claimed that he had been sleepwalking during the incident. Steinberg had been the one to call the police, thinking that there had been a break-in in their home. But later on did not deny killing his wife but claimed he was innocent because sleepwalking and did not recall killing his wife. The jury found him not guilty under the reason of being temporarily insane.

The John Hinckley Jr. case is a case that is known for his attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. Experts tried to identify if he was considered sane or not during the assignation attempt. An evaluation of his mental condition argued that he was a troubled young man. Hinkley Jr. was given a not guilty verdict for the reason of insanity.

This is crazy

These court room excuses of being insane has gotten out of hand in my opinion. The Steinberg case is diabolically crazy. I don’t know how the judge or jury even thought to rule this case as Law of Insanity. How are you going to not deny killing your wife but then say you don’t remember it so you aren’t guilty. Also there have been many cases where the person who makes the murder is also the person who calls the police. For example, The Mendez Brothers. They left and came back and fooled everybody that they didn’t do it until one of them admitted to their therapist that they had committed the crimes.

With the John Hinckley Jr. case I think it is just plain crazy that somebody can think that an assignation attempt at any point is not deliberately thought out. In my view I believe that John was not mentally unstable or at any point insane and instead he just didn’t like the president. For example, just recently there was an assignation attempt on former President Trump. At no point in this investigation did they think that the person who attempted this crime was insane. Instead they are locked up in jail and possibly not going to see the real world again.

All in all

All in all, I believe that the claim of an insane person, is not a valid excuse. In the world we live in everybody is taught the social norms from a young age. If you were to do an investigation on the amount of people who thought murder was normal. I promise you that the answers would 100% be no and that people who commit any type of crime associated with normal are not meant to live with humanity.

These people need to stay locked up for their crimes. It is not fair that we live in a world where guilty people are able to roam the streets and have the same if not in some cases better opportunity’s than people who are innocent.

Citations:

Robert M. Kaplan, MBChB. “Daniel M’Naghten: The Man Who Changed the Law on Insanity.” Psychiatric Times, MJH Life Sciences, http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/daniel-m-naghten-the-man-who-changed-the-law-on-insanity. Accessed 25 Oct. 2024. 

Don Pumphrey, Jr. “Insanity Defense – Most Famous Cases.” Pumphrey Law, 29 June 2022, http://www.pumphreylawfirm.com/blog/insanity-defense-most-famous-cases/. 

“Insanity Defense.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Oct. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insanity_defense. 

savannah wilder