Insanity Defense Insanity Defense Name Class Date Professor Insanity Defense When a person is arrested for a crime they have the right to put on a defense. The criminal defendant can claim the committed the crime in self defense or they could simply say they are innocent. Another type of defense is the insanity defense. In the insanity defense the criminal defendant claims they are not responsible for the crime due to their mental state. In order to be successful at pleading the insanity defense the defendant must prove they were not in their right mind at the time of the crime. If a defendant is found to be legally insane they will either be sent to a mental health facility or to prison where they will receive mental health treatment. There have been many famous cases where the criminal defendant claimed they were insane. John Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Reagan but despite the heinous crime he was found not guilty for reasons of insanity. This outraged the American public leading to all types of reforms to the insanity defense. The McNaughton Rule was the original test applied to measuring insanity (Collins, 2006). This test simply asks whether the defendant new the difference between right and wrong at the time of the crime. After Hinckley the McNaughton rule was discarded in many states and the burden of proof went from the prosecutor to the defendant. In some rare case a jury will find a person temporarily insane. In the Lorena Bobbitt case the defendant was found temporarily insane after she mutilated her husband’s genitalia. Lorena Bobbitt is infamous for cutting off her husband’s penis after he raped her. Bobbitt then discarded the penis but it was later retrieved by police. Lorena claimed she was under extreme stress at the time she got the knife and mutilated her sleeping husband. She claimed she did not understand what she was doing when she took a knife to her husband. The jury agreed with Lorena and found her not guilty by reason of insanity. Jonathon Schmitz was a criminal defendant who killed a gay man, Amedure, who had a crush on him. Schmitz was invited onto a talk show about same sex crushes but was angered when he was confronted by a male friend claiming to have a crush instead of an ex girlfriend or another female as Schmitz expected. Schmitz felt humiliated on national television when Amedure described sexual feelings he had for Schmitz. Later Amedure sent Schmitz a sexually explicit note causing him to grab a shotgun and shoot Amedure. Schmidt claimed insanity but was found guilty of second degree murder. Claiming insanity does not guarantee a criminal defendant will be found not guilty in current society but in many cases if a criminal defendant is found insane they are also found guilty. Citizens are fed up with criminals committing violent crimes and claiming insanity. The insanity defense is one of the hardest defenses to prove unless it i.