As someone with, unfortunately, direct personal experience testifying in a murder trial where an insanity defense was attempted, I have to be incredibly skeptical about doctors ability to declare someone 'safe' for society in any capacity. Especially when a wrongful death suit revealed them neatly discharged from any duty to the public.
I feel like this is fundamentally misguided on some level when, apparently, there's fundamentally no one charged with any meaningful duty towards protecting those who get victimized. But most people never have to think about this, so how many even think about kids who find brain matter from a badly beaten "hat" staining the basement walls?
> I have to be incredibly skeptical about doctors ability to declare someone 'safe' for society in any capacity.
I share your skepticism, but unfortunately I don't think anyone else has that ability either. So any time anyone who raises an insanity defense is allowed to go free, society is taking a risk.
In the particular case discussed in this article, I'm not sure there was much of a risk, since the reason for the claimed insanity was a very particular situation and it was directed at particular individuals. There was no evidence that the defendant was likely to harm anyone else. But of course that's not true in many cases involving an insanity defense.
But does insanity imply safe? My understanding is that it just implies a different course of action. Maybe we differ but I do more trust that decision to be made as a medical one, perhaps with layers of oversight or committee approval, than anything else.
To me the idea of denying this in a judicial setting even as a possibility is absurd. Maybe I misread it, but I thought the piece was arguing against the broader rationales about grounds rather than anything about the disposition of the particular case per se.
The modern "Insanity defense" is a secularization of Christian Law (say, Canon Law). What does secularization consists of? Replace the theological reasoning with non-theological ones. Here is what Harold Berman says in his "Law and revolution: The formation of the Western legal tradition":
"A bizarre example may shed light on the paradoxes of a legal tradition that has lost contact with its theological sources. If a sane man is convicted of murder and sentenced to death, and thereafter, before the sentence is carried out, he becomes insane, his execution will be postponed until he recovers his sanity.
Generally speaking, this is the law in Western countries and in many non-Western countries as well. Why? The historical answer, in the West, is that if a man is executed while he is insane he will not have had the opportunity freely to confess his sins and to take the sacrament of holy communion. He must be allowed to recover his sanity before he dies so that his soul will not be condemned to eternal hellfire but will instead have the opportunity to expiate his sins in purgatory and ultimately, at the Last Judgment, to enter the kingdom of heaven. But where none of this is believed, why keep the insane man alive until he recovers, and then kill him?
The example is, perhaps, of minor importance in itself; but what it illustrates is that the legal systems of all Western countries, and of all nonWestern countries that have come under the influence of Western law, are a secular residue of religious attitudes and assumptions which historically found expression first in the liturgy and rituals and doctrine of the church and thereafter in the institutions and concepts and values of the law. When these historical roots are not understood, many parts of the law appear to lack any underlying source of validity." (pp 165-166)
If you strip away this interesting theological context, the insanity defense doesn't make any sense.
The insanity defense literally didn’t exist before the 19th century.
It’s very much a product of the enlightenment and post-enlightenment and post-enlightenment liberalism.
It doesn’t exist under Roman Catholic canon law - which lumps the mentally ill together with children as “lacking reason.”
The quote you’re citing isn’t about the insanity defense. It’s about not carrying out a sentence on someone found guilty. That’s a very very different thing than the insanity defense.
That's not really true. The insanity plea has existed in the common law at least since the 13th century, though like many affirmative defences including self-defense, it was a reason for pardon, and not a reason for acquittal. The M'Naughton rule simply codified existing practice in the English courts, and since it was a good rule, was adopting in American courts as well, mostly. I do agree that the notion that this is all "christian" is bogus!
I feel like this is fundamentally misguided on some level when, apparently, there's fundamentally no one charged with any meaningful duty towards protecting those who get victimized. But most people never have to think about this, so how many even think about kids who find brain matter from a badly beaten "hat" staining the basement walls?