Insanity Defense

West Virginia Cases:

State v. Koon (W.Va. Sup.Ct.App., 1993) 190 W. Va. 632; 440 S.E.2d 442; 1993 W. Va. LEXIS 232 [on-line text]

State v. Walls (W.Va. Sup.Ct.App., 1994) [on-line text] [Justice Workman dissenting] (expert testimony and its rebuttal) (sufficiency of the evidence to prove sanity beyond a reasonable doubt) [Schizophrenia] [Schizophrenia] [Paranoia]

State v. Lockhart (W.Va. Sup.Ct.App. 1997) (Lockhard I) [on-line text] 200 W. Va. 479; 490 S.E.2d 298; 1997 W. Va. LEXIS 115; State v. Lockhart (W.Va. Sup.Ct.App., 2000) (Lockart II) [on-line text] 208 W. Va. 622; 542 S.E.2d 443; 2000 W. Va. LEXIS 178 [Dissociative Identity Disorder (Court TV's Crime Library)] [Shattered Selves]

For Further Study: State v. Smith (W.Va. Sup.Ct.App., 1996) [on-line text] 198 W. Va. 702; 482 S.E.2d 687; 1996 W. Va. LEXIS 262 (confinment following "not guilty by reason of insanity")

West Virginia Jury Instruction:

Proposed Jury Instruction [on-line text]

Resource Readings:

Evolution of the Insanity Plea
Professor Doug Linder, UKMC School of Law [Famous American Trials: John Hinckley]

Insanity Defense: Fair or a Cop Out?
Professor Stephen Morse, University of Pennsylvania

Daniel N. Robinson, Wild Beasts and Idle Humours:
The Insanity Defense from Antiquity to the Present (Book Review)

History of the Legal Test for Insanity:

Daniel M'Naghten's Case

People v. Hans Schmidt
Court of Appeals of New York, 216 N.Y. 324 (1915)
(decision by Justice Cardozo)

Durham v. United States
US Court of Appeals, D.C. Cir., 214 F.2d 862 (1954)

Washington v. United States
US Court of Appeals, D.C. Cir., 390 F.2d 444 (1967)

United States v. Brawner
US Court of Appeals, D.C. Cir., 471 F.2d 969 (1972)

Perspective of Mental Health Professionals:

Ohio Psychiatric Association Position Statement: House Bill 357
[a bill to abolish the insanity defense and replace it with a "guilty but insane" (GBI) plea]
approved by OPA Council on January 25, 2004

Drawing a Clear Line Between Criminals and the Criminally Insane
Stephen Lally, forensic psychologist; article in the Washington Post

The Insanity Defense: On Being Insane In Sane Places
Dr. Ernest C. Miller, Department of Psychiatry,
University of Florida Health Science Center, Jacksonville

Dual Diagnosis: Mental Illness & Alcohol Use:

Drugs, Alcohol and the Insanity Defense

Legal Summaries:

The Insanity Defense: A Constitutional Right?
Discussing a Nevada case

Misc.

Bad, Mad, or Both?
Dr. William H. Reid, J. Psych. Prac.

Case Studies:

Ralph Tortorici
[26 year old psychology student at the State University of New York at Albany, walks into a classroom, pulls out a hunting knife and a high-powered rifle and announces that he is taking the class hostage; he claims that he is being subject to a government medical experiment and demands to speak to the president, the governor, and the Supreme Court; one student is shot and seriously wounded; Tortorici is charged with aggravated assault, kidnapping, and attempted murder; his lawyer enters a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity] The PBS Frontline file for Tortorici--printed out--is 150+ pages. It will take a significant amount of time to work through the file.] [To access the various files: first, follow the "The Story of Ralph Tortorici" link; at the next screen you will find links to--"An Overview," "A Son and a Brother," "A Well-Documented History of Mental Illness," "Letter to Prosecution from Dr. Lawrence Siegel," "The Defense's Summation," "The Prosecution's Summation," "Interviews." Following each of these links you will find, in some instances, still further links] [People v. Tortorici, 92 N.Y.2d 757, 709 N.E.2d 87, 686 N.Y.S.2d 346 (Ct.App. N.Y. 1999) [on-line text]

John Salvi and the Insanity Defense
PBS Frontline

Defense Strategies--Playing the Race Card:

Playing the Race Card: Two Famous Criminal Trials
[Bernard Goetz & O.J. Simpson]

Prescribed Drug-induced Insanity:

Paxil Maker Held Liable in Murder/Suicide

Black Rage:

Black Rage Confronts the Law

Insanity Defense--Misc. Cases:

New Jersey v. Maik
60 N.J. 203, 287 A.2d 715 (1972) [voluntary use of LSD, psychosis, and the
insanity defense]

Smith v. United States
36 F.2d 548 (D.C. Ct.App., 1929)[irresistible impulse]

Bibliography [in-progress]:

Megan C. Hogan, Neonaticide and the Misuse of the Insanity Defense, 6 Wm. & Mary J. of Women & L. 259 (1999)

Christopher Slobogin, An End to Insanity: Recasting the Role of Mental Disability in Criminal Cases, 86 Va. L. Rev. 1199 (2000)

Lynnette S. Cobun, The Insanity Defense: Effects of Abolition Unsupported by a Moral Consensus, 9 Am. J. L. and Med. 471 (1984)

Jonas Robitscher & Andrew Ky Haynes, In Defense of the Insanity Defense, 31 Emory L.J. 9 (1982)

Mark A. Woodmansee, The Guilty But Mentally Ill Verdict: Political Expediency at the Expense of Moral Principle, 10 ND J. L. Ethics & Pub Pol'y 341 (1996)