Guilt and Sanity

In the legal world of guilty and not guilty, there is a third option, sometimes used

and occasionally successful: not guilty by reason of insanity (NGBI). Those found not

guilty in this manner are treated for their condition and, if they are at some point deemed

sane, released into the world. This is the possibility for John Hinckley, former President

Ronald Reagan’s would-be assassin. According to Richard E. Vatz, “Hinckleyhas been

granted unsupervised leaves, with opposition muted perhaps due to the fact that Reagan

now is deceased.” Was there an alternative that would have accepted both his mental

illness and his culpability? The plea guilty but insane allows the person to receive

treatment for mental illness but also insures that he will serve any remaining jail time as a

sane person in jail. All courts should replace the not guilty by reason of insanity plea

with the plea guilty but insane (GBI).

In the first place, there are more instances of a successful NGRI than the average

person realizes. According to those opposed to the change, as Vatz notes, “The

consensually approved statistic…is approximately one-quarter of one percent ...

[however] over the years, this translates into thousands of cases.” This means it is not just

the John Hinckleys and Andrea Yates in the country committing crimes and not “paying”

for them, but thousands of accused murderers and others manage to convince mental

health professionals they were insane at the time of their crime. Considering most of

these people are not examined until some time later, that determination is quite often a

“battle of the professionals” at the trial. In addition, the fact that these professionals base

their opinion – to a large degree – on the self-reporting of the individual opens the door to

possible deception. Deroy Murdock quotes John Hinckley as follows:

“Psychiatry is a guessing game, and I do my best to keep

the fools guessing about me,” Hinckley wrote in his diary
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in 1987. “They will never know the true John Hinckley.

Only I fully understand myself.”

In an uncomfortable statistic, Martha Stout, Ph.D., estimates that four per cent of the

population of the United States is sociopathic – not suffering a psychotic episode or other

such identifiably “insane” state. She states, “Without the slightest blip of guilt or remorse,

one in twenty-five people can do anything at all [her emphasis]” (9). Could a sociopath

convince a doctor, or jury, that he is insane? It would certainly be to his benefit.

Secondly, the NGBI plea allows the person involved to go free if, or when, she is

considered legally sane. This means the person committed to a mental hospital following

a trial can leave if she convinces the mental health professionals at that facility she is now

“sane.” Unfortunately, this process does not take into consideration several very

important things: self-reporting, functionality in the real world, and continuation of

medication being three.

Most information on a patient comes from the patient herself. This means that if

the person decides not to reveal inappropriate thoughts, the patient apparently does not

have them. Self-reporting has always been a nebulous way to determine actions, thoughts

and motives. The extremely self-aware patient, who knows revealing what is really going

on, can choose to not reveal details that would become grounds for committal. The flip

side of this is the case where the patient is knowledgeable enough to project certain

thoughts – or even claim certain actions or events occurred – so that her condition is

made to seem worse. She might have a disorder that confuses what has happened with

what she thinks happened. She might be sociopathic. She might be trying to avoid

responsibility for her actions and the results of them. There is currently no way to

impartially determine the truth.

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A person can be functional in a highly structured environment and be very

different in the “real world.” This is seen, to varying degrees, in many environments: The

soldier who is completely in control on camp takes a weekend leave and winds up in jail,

drunk. The prisoner, in prison where everything is mandated, he does as he must. When

he is released, he reverts to his anti-social ways. The mentally ill person, who while in

hospital, does well but falls apart as an out-patient. In a structured environment such as

these, choices are made for the person. He does not choose to take medication, he is

required to and someone monitors him. Hygiene, eating properly, and taking care of his

immediate environment are also mandated and monitored. It is easier to go along with the

river than to fight the current. The “real world” is like a pond. He can go in any direction,

without much effort.

A person who functions well with medication may not continue the medication

outside of the hospital and return to previous behaviors. A person who commits murder

could conceivably spend a few years in a hospital and then walk away, a free person.

There are few rules in place to ensure compliance. As an example of this dilemma, Mark

Donald points out the case of Kenneth Pierott, in Texas:

In April [2004], police arrested a Beaumont man,

Kenneth Pierott, and charged him with the asphyxiation
murder of a 6-year-old boy after he allegedly place him in
an oven. Sadly, in 1996, this same man had beaten to death
his own ailing sister, and a judge later acquitted him by
reason of insanity. Pierott was committed to a state mental
hospital, where he was stabilized on medication and
released four months later. What troubled many [Texas
Senate Jurisprudence] committee witnesses was a judicial
system that had no mechanism to intervene if Pierott, once
released into the community, had stopped taking his
medication.
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What has been recommended in Texas is something resembling “a mental illness parole”

(Donald). In this manner, those released would have compliance a stipulation for their

continued freedom. Since many, if not most, psychiatric medications can be monitored by

blood tests, medication compliance can be measurably monitored.

There is the other side of medication compliance and that is forcing a person to

take medication against his will. As is mentioned in The Economist online, “In a 1990

case the Supreme Court ruled that a mentally ill prisoner could be treated with

antipsychotic drugs against his will, but only if doctors thought that without the drugs the

prisoner was a danger to himself and others.”

Even more unsettling was the case of Charles Singleton. He was convicted of the

1979 murder of a young woman. During his incarceration, he was treated for the mental

illness with which he was diagnosed. In early 2004, Singleton, who was determined to be

sane enough to execute, died of lethal injection. According to Wikipedia, the case

attracted interest all over the world “because he was considered legally sane only when

treated with medication.” It is, and has been, argued that the rights of the individual

cannot overshadow the rights of the whole, but the line is quite thin and often shaky.

Medication so that a person may live a productive life is applauded; medication so he can

die seems to violate the old rule of do no harm.

Finally, the NGBI plea does not require the person involved to be responsible for

his own actions. An important part of emotional maturity is accepting responsibility for

one’s own actions. This plea circumvents that and allows the person to blame the

“insanity” – even if there were strong indications that the person knew the difference

between right and wrong.

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Andrea Yates, as Vatz points out, knew to commit the murders of her children

after her husband left for work and before anyone could reasonably be expected to come

by. She “called the police and later said that she was ‘a bad mother.’ Both actions [she

also carefully positioned the bodies of four of the children] indicate she knew what she

did was unethical.” The person found NGBI is never truly required to accept

responsibility.

The majority of the states have some form of NGRI. Only a few offer the GBI

plea. For example, “Arizona law says that a defendant ‘may be found guilty except insane

if at the time of the commission of the criminal act the person was afflicted with a mental

disease or defect of such severity that the person did not know the criminal act was

wrong’” (Holland). A person who commits a crime should be presumed innocent. She

also, if found to have committed that crime, should be found guilty.

Justice and mercy are both served with the plea of guilty but insane. The actor

receives the treatment she needs for her mental illness, if indeed such is present, but then

responsibility for her actions takes place as she is treated as any other convicted criminal.

The “get out of jail free” card called legal insanity is counterproductive for the

community and the individual. It does not truly protect the rights of the individual or the

whole. The one does not benefit from the emotional maturity of responsibility; the other

likely will see the same actions again. Therefore, all courts should replace the NGBI plea

with the plea guilty but insane.

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Works Cited

"A new insanity defence; Forcible medication. (Do defendants, or prisoners, have a
constitutional right to refuse drug treatments?)." The Economist (US) 366.8313 (March 1,
2003): NA. Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale. Regions University. 22 Feb.
2007 <http://libsys.uah.edu:6142/ips/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-
Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=IPS&docId=A98256731&source=gale
&srcprod=EAIM&userGroupName=naal_scu&version=1.0>.

“Charles Laverne Singleton.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 1 Jan 2007, 20:29 UTC.
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 Feb 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/
index.php?title=Charles_Laverne_Singleton&oldid=97784422>.

Donald, Mark. "Guilty But Insane in The Legislature." Texas Lawyer 20.12 (May 24,
2004): NA. Academic OneFile. Thomson Gale. Regions University. 22 Feb. 2007.
<http://libsys.uah.edu:6142/ips/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-
Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=IPS&docId=A117057323&source=gal
e&srcprod=AONE&userGroupName=naal_scu&version=1.0>.

Holland, Gina. "Supreme Court considers test of insanity defense." Fulton County Daily
Report (April 19, 2006): NA. General Reference Center Gold. Thomson Gale. Regions
University. 22 Feb. 2007 <http://libsys.uah.edu:6142/ips/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-
Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=IPS&docId=A145252378&source=gal
e&srcprod=GRGM&userGroupName=naal_scu&version=1.0>.

Murdock, Deroy. “Legal Insanity.” National Review Online. 20 Nov. 2003. 22 Feb 2007.
<http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200311200833.asp>.

Stout, Martha, Ph.D. The Sociopath Next Door. New York: Broadway Books, 2005.

Vatz, Richard E. “Those crazy insanity pleas. (AMERICAN JUSTICE).” USA Today
(Magazine). 135.2736 (Sept 2006): 57(1). Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale.
Regions University. 22 Feb. 2007. <http://libsys.uah.edu:6142/ips/infomark.do?
&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=IPS&docId=
A154693557&source=gale&srcprod=EAIM&userGroupName=naal_sco&version=1.0>.