Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: where smart Happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question,
Speaker 1: what does it mean when someone is found not guilty
Speaker 1: by reason of insanity in a court of law? In
Speaker 1: movies and on television shows, a standard legal defense for
Speaker 1: a criminal defendant is insanity or temporary insanity. We also
Speaker 1: hear about this from time to time in real life,
Speaker 1: of course, but it's not an especially common legal defense
Speaker 1: to most of us. The legal reasoning behind this defense
Speaker 1: is fairly mysterious, even though we've probably seen it played
Speaker 1: out dozens of times. On a typical lawyer show, the
Speaker 1: defense lawyer brings in a psychologist that says that the
Speaker 1: defendant should not be held accountable for his or her
Speaker 1: actions because he or she has a certain mental illness
Speaker 1: that interferes with his or her reasoning capacity. If the
Speaker 1: jury thinks the person actually does have this mental illness,
Speaker 1: it finds him or her not guilty by reason of insanity.
Speaker 1: This raises a number of questions that most shows don't
Speaker 1: answer very clearly. For example, why it does being mentally
Speaker 1: ill excuse somebody from criminal guilt, or how is a
Speaker 1: jury of regular people qualified to determine whether or not
Speaker 1: someone is mentally ill or what level of mental illness
Speaker 1: constitutes insanity, or how do you prove somebody is or
Speaker 1: was insane when they committed a crime. The main reason
Speaker 1: that this concept is so confusing is that lawyer shows
Speaker 1: impressed coverage of actual cases often don't clarify the distinction
Speaker 1: between insanity and mental illness. Mental illness and mental disorder
Speaker 1: are psychiatric concepts, while insaneity is a cultural and legal concept.
Speaker 1: In the U s Court of law, as well as
Speaker 1: courts in some other countries, insanity and mental illness are
Speaker 1: related conditions, but they are by no means synonymous. Mental
Speaker 1: illness at the time of the offense is a prerequisite
Speaker 1: for the not guilty by reason of insanity ruling, but
Speaker 1: legal insanity is not simply a judgment of whether or
Speaker 1: not a person has a mental illness. The law varies
Speaker 1: from state to state, but in most courts that recognize
Speaker 1: the insanity defense, someone is found to be legally insane
Speaker 1: if he or she meets one of three conditions. First,
Speaker 1: because of a mental disorder, the defendant did not understand
Speaker 1: that what he or she was doing was illegal. Second,
Speaker 1: because of a mental disorder, the defendant did not know
Speaker 1: what he or she was doing. Or Third, because of
Speaker 1: a mental disorder, the defendant was compelled to commit the
Speaker 1: crime by an irresistible four So why is a person
Speaker 1: who meets these conditions not guilty of the crime. The
Speaker 1: reasoning is actually based on one of the most fundamental
Speaker 1: tenets of the justice system in the United States and
Speaker 1: many other countries. With most offenses, a person is only
Speaker 1: guilty of a crime if he or she actually intended
Speaker 1: to commit the crime. If you accidentally bump into someone
Speaker 1: with your car, you're not guilty of assault, but you
Speaker 1: would be guilty if you bumped into them intentionally in
Speaker 1: exactly the same way. The action is the same, but
Speaker 1: you have not committed the crime because you didn't intend to.
Speaker 1: You may be guilty of a lesser crime, though e g.
Speaker 1: Reckless driving. Mental illnesses can alter a person's conception of
Speaker 1: reality so that he or she does not realize the
Speaker 1: criminal nature of his or her actions or has no
Speaker 1: choice but to commit the crime. When this is the case,
Speaker 1: certain courts believe the person lacks this element of intention
Speaker 1: necessary for criminal guilt. To prove legal insanity, the defense
Speaker 1: must provide credible expert testimony that says how the defendant
Speaker 1: is or was at the time of the crime mentally ill,
Speaker 1: and then explain why this sort of mental illness means
Speaker 1: that the defendant did not intend to commit a crime.
Speaker 1: The jury does not decide whether the defendant is mentally ill.
Speaker 1: It simply determines whether or not the defenses expert testimony
Speaker 1: has demonstrated this fact, and then decides whether or not
Speaker 1: this mental disorder meant that he or she did not
Speaker 1: intend to commit the crime. Mental illness alone is no defense.
Speaker 1: A person who suffers from deep psychosis will still be
Speaker 1: considered guilty if he or she commits a crime intentionally
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