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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff Works dot com

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Speaker 1: where smart Happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question,

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Speaker 1: what does it mean when someone is found not guilty

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Speaker 1: by reason of insanity in a court of law? In

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Speaker 1: movies and on television shows, a standard legal defense for

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Speaker 1: a criminal defendant is insanity or temporary insanity. We also

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Speaker 1: hear about this from time to time in real life,

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Speaker 1: of course, but it's not an especially common legal defense

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Speaker 1: to most of us. The legal reasoning behind this defense

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Speaker 1: is fairly mysterious, even though we've probably seen it played

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Speaker 1: out dozens of times. On a typical lawyer show, the

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Speaker 1: defense lawyer brings in a psychologist that says that the

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Speaker 1: defendant should not be held accountable for his or her

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Speaker 1: actions because he or she has a certain mental illness

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Speaker 1: that interferes with his or her reasoning capacity. If the

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Speaker 1: jury thinks the person actually does have this mental illness,

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Speaker 1: it finds him or her not guilty by reason of insanity.

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Speaker 1: This raises a number of questions that most shows don't

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Speaker 1: answer very clearly. For example, why it does being mentally

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Speaker 1: ill excuse somebody from criminal guilt, or how is a

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Speaker 1: jury of regular people qualified to determine whether or not

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Speaker 1: someone is mentally ill or what level of mental illness

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Speaker 1: constitutes insanity, or how do you prove somebody is or

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Speaker 1: was insane when they committed a crime. The main reason

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Speaker 1: that this concept is so confusing is that lawyer shows

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Speaker 1: impressed coverage of actual cases often don't clarify the distinction

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Speaker 1: between insanity and mental illness. Mental illness and mental disorder

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Speaker 1: are psychiatric concepts, while insaneity is a cultural and legal concept.

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Speaker 1: In the U s Court of law, as well as

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Speaker 1: courts in some other countries, insanity and mental illness are

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Speaker 1: related conditions, but they are by no means synonymous. Mental

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Speaker 1: illness at the time of the offense is a prerequisite

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Speaker 1: for the not guilty by reason of insanity ruling, but

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Speaker 1: legal insanity is not simply a judgment of whether or

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Speaker 1: not a person has a mental illness. The law varies

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Speaker 1: from state to state, but in most courts that recognize

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Speaker 1: the insanity defense, someone is found to be legally insane

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Speaker 1: if he or she meets one of three conditions. First,

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Speaker 1: because of a mental disorder, the defendant did not understand

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Speaker 1: that what he or she was doing was illegal. Second,

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Speaker 1: because of a mental disorder, the defendant did not know

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Speaker 1: what he or she was doing. Or Third, because of

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Speaker 1: a mental disorder, the defendant was compelled to commit the

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Speaker 1: crime by an irresistible four So why is a person

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Speaker 1: who meets these conditions not guilty of the crime. The

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Speaker 1: reasoning is actually based on one of the most fundamental

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Speaker 1: tenets of the justice system in the United States and

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Speaker 1: many other countries. With most offenses, a person is only

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Speaker 1: guilty of a crime if he or she actually intended

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Speaker 1: to commit the crime. If you accidentally bump into someone

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Speaker 1: with your car, you're not guilty of assault, but you

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Speaker 1: would be guilty if you bumped into them intentionally in

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Speaker 1: exactly the same way. The action is the same, but

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Speaker 1: you have not committed the crime because you didn't intend to.

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Speaker 1: You may be guilty of a lesser crime, though e g.

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Speaker 1: Reckless driving. Mental illnesses can alter a person's conception of

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Speaker 1: reality so that he or she does not realize the

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Speaker 1: criminal nature of his or her actions or has no

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Speaker 1: choice but to commit the crime. When this is the case,

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Speaker 1: certain courts believe the person lacks this element of intention

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Speaker 1: necessary for criminal guilt. To prove legal insanity, the defense

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Speaker 1: must provide credible expert testimony that says how the defendant

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Speaker 1: is or was at the time of the crime mentally ill,

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Speaker 1: and then explain why this sort of mental illness means

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Speaker 1: that the defendant did not intend to commit a crime.

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Speaker 1: The jury does not decide whether the defendant is mentally ill.

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Speaker 1: It simply determines whether or not the defenses expert testimony

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Speaker 1: has demonstrated this fact, and then decides whether or not

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Speaker 1: this mental disorder meant that he or she did not

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Speaker 1: intend to commit the crime. Mental illness alone is no defense.

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Speaker 1: A person who suffers from deep psychosis will still be

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Speaker 1: considered guilty if he or she commits a crime intentionally

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Speaker 1: for moralness, and thousands of other topics. Because it how

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Speaker 1: staff works dot com