WEBVTT - What does "not guilty by reason of insanity" mean?

0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.640
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff Works dot com

0:00:03.640 --> 0:00:15.000
<v Speaker 1>where smart Happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question,

0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.920
<v Speaker 1>what does it mean when someone is found not guilty

0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:22.480
<v Speaker 1>by reason of insanity in a court of law? In

0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.040
<v Speaker 1>movies and on television shows, a standard legal defense for

0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:31.240
<v Speaker 1>a criminal defendant is insanity or temporary insanity. We also

0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:33.480
<v Speaker 1>hear about this from time to time in real life,

0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:37.040
<v Speaker 1>of course, but it's not an especially common legal defense

0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:40.879
<v Speaker 1>to most of us. The legal reasoning behind this defense

0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:44.320
<v Speaker 1>is fairly mysterious, even though we've probably seen it played

0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:48.600
<v Speaker 1>out dozens of times. On a typical lawyer show, the

0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:52.120
<v Speaker 1>defense lawyer brings in a psychologist that says that the

0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:54.920
<v Speaker 1>defendant should not be held accountable for his or her

0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:59.800
<v Speaker 1>actions because he or she has a certain mental illness

0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.960
<v Speaker 1>that interferes with his or her reasoning capacity. If the

0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:08.000
<v Speaker 1>jury thinks the person actually does have this mental illness,

0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:12.240
<v Speaker 1>it finds him or her not guilty by reason of insanity.

0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.759
<v Speaker 1>This raises a number of questions that most shows don't

0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:19.800
<v Speaker 1>answer very clearly. For example, why it does being mentally

0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:24.399
<v Speaker 1>ill excuse somebody from criminal guilt, or how is a

0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:28.440
<v Speaker 1>jury of regular people qualified to determine whether or not

0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:32.760
<v Speaker 1>someone is mentally ill or what level of mental illness

0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:37.880
<v Speaker 1>constitutes insanity, or how do you prove somebody is or

0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:42.440
<v Speaker 1>was insane when they committed a crime. The main reason

0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:45.880
<v Speaker 1>that this concept is so confusing is that lawyer shows

0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:51.040
<v Speaker 1>impressed coverage of actual cases often don't clarify the distinction

0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:57.080
<v Speaker 1>between insanity and mental illness. Mental illness and mental disorder

0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:02.480
<v Speaker 1>are psychiatric concepts, while insaneity is a cultural and legal concept.

0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:05.600
<v Speaker 1>In the U s Court of law, as well as

0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:09.360
<v Speaker 1>courts in some other countries, insanity and mental illness are

0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:14.040
<v Speaker 1>related conditions, but they are by no means synonymous. Mental

0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.160
<v Speaker 1>illness at the time of the offense is a prerequisite

0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.800
<v Speaker 1>for the not guilty by reason of insanity ruling, but

0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.520
<v Speaker 1>legal insanity is not simply a judgment of whether or

0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.560
<v Speaker 1>not a person has a mental illness. The law varies

0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:31.080
<v Speaker 1>from state to state, but in most courts that recognize

0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:35.359
<v Speaker 1>the insanity defense, someone is found to be legally insane

0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:39.640
<v Speaker 1>if he or she meets one of three conditions. First,

0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:43.760
<v Speaker 1>because of a mental disorder, the defendant did not understand

0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:47.800
<v Speaker 1>that what he or she was doing was illegal. Second,

0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.280
<v Speaker 1>because of a mental disorder, the defendant did not know

0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.720
<v Speaker 1>what he or she was doing. Or Third, because of

0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:57.880
<v Speaker 1>a mental disorder, the defendant was compelled to commit the

0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.919
<v Speaker 1>crime by an irresistible four So why is a person

0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:05.760
<v Speaker 1>who meets these conditions not guilty of the crime. The

0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:08.920
<v Speaker 1>reasoning is actually based on one of the most fundamental

0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.480
<v Speaker 1>tenets of the justice system in the United States and

0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:15.919
<v Speaker 1>many other countries. With most offenses, a person is only

0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.720
<v Speaker 1>guilty of a crime if he or she actually intended

0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.919
<v Speaker 1>to commit the crime. If you accidentally bump into someone

0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:26.840
<v Speaker 1>with your car, you're not guilty of assault, but you

0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:30.120
<v Speaker 1>would be guilty if you bumped into them intentionally in

0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:34.000
<v Speaker 1>exactly the same way. The action is the same, but

0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.600
<v Speaker 1>you have not committed the crime because you didn't intend to.

0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:40.440
<v Speaker 1>You may be guilty of a lesser crime, though e g.

0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:45.880
<v Speaker 1>Reckless driving. Mental illnesses can alter a person's conception of

0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:49.480
<v Speaker 1>reality so that he or she does not realize the

0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:53.680
<v Speaker 1>criminal nature of his or her actions or has no

0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.560
<v Speaker 1>choice but to commit the crime. When this is the case,

0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:02.120
<v Speaker 1>certain courts believe the person lacks this element of intention

0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:07.560
<v Speaker 1>necessary for criminal guilt. To prove legal insanity, the defense

0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:11.960
<v Speaker 1>must provide credible expert testimony that says how the defendant

0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.720
<v Speaker 1>is or was at the time of the crime mentally ill,

0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:19.839
<v Speaker 1>and then explain why this sort of mental illness means

0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:22.880
<v Speaker 1>that the defendant did not intend to commit a crime.

0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:27.680
<v Speaker 1>The jury does not decide whether the defendant is mentally ill.

0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:32.640
<v Speaker 1>It simply determines whether or not the defenses expert testimony

0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:36.800
<v Speaker 1>has demonstrated this fact, and then decides whether or not

0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:39.960
<v Speaker 1>this mental disorder meant that he or she did not

0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:44.640
<v Speaker 1>intend to commit the crime. Mental illness alone is no defense.

0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:48.400
<v Speaker 1>A person who suffers from deep psychosis will still be

0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.360
<v Speaker 1>considered guilty if he or she commits a crime intentionally

0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.680
<v Speaker 1>for moralness, and thousands of other topics. Because it how

0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:01.800
<v Speaker 1>staff works dot com