Mental conditions that tend to warp a person’s psychological processes (for example, cognitive and emotional ones) can result in deviant behavior and crimes. Nowadays, psychologists recognize a number of such conditions ranging from disorders that can cause youth delinquency to severe psychoses that make people lose the connection to reality, which can result in most violent crimes. A person who suffers from such a condition can be considered not guilty because of insanity (NGRI) if at the moment of the offense their psychological state prevented them from understanding that they were committing a wrongdoing (Siegel, 2015). This verdict is not very common: according to 2010 Annual Recidivism Report, 9% of the inmates that had been released five years prior suffered from severe mental issues including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (Byron, 2014, para. 9). These people did not receive the NGRI verdict (or any professional aid for that matter), but the usage of insanity pleas is understandable: it is a chance for a wrongdoer to receive help instead of punishment.
An example of a failed insanity defense strategy is the case of Lisa Montgomery, which is rather controversial. In 2007, Lisa killed Bobbie Jo Stinnett by strangling her with a rope and then cutting her eight-month baby out of her womb. She kidnapped the girl and pretended that it was her child: she had been faking a pregnancy for the past months. She got acquainted with Bobbie Jo in an Internet community and befriended her by sharing the information about this faked pregnancy. Before that, Lisa had had a miscarriage, which probably explains her motives. Montgomery’s defense claimed that the woman had pseudocyesis, a severe psychosis that distorted her perception of reality and made her believe that she had been pregnant with the baby. The defense also argued that the woman had been sexually abused as a child, which lead to her illness. The pseudocyesis diagnosis was not confirmed during the cross-examination, and the woman was sentenced to death. Her certiorari petition was denied (US v. Montgomery, 2011).
Death sentences are a controversial topic, and it is especially rare for female offenders to be sentenced to death. Given the careful planning of Lisa’s crime that required several months of lying, searching for the victim, and befriending her, it is more likely that she could understand what she was doing. She arranged the meeting with Bobbie Jo while being fully aware of her pregnancy and with the intent of kidnapping the child. Her blurry and fluctuating stories were not convincing and indicated that she was lying; apart from that, her actions were outrageous. It is most probable that Lisa Montgomery did have mental issues of a kind and did need help, but there is only a particular extent, to which insanity can serve as a mitigating factor. According to the results of the cross-examination, Lisa did not have problems with perceiving reality: at the moment of the crime, she knew that she was killing a woman to cut the child out of her body. Therefore, she couldn’t receive NGRI. Possibly, if her crime were less grave, her mental issues could have served as a mitigating factor, but in this case, it could not help her.
Naturally, people with mental disorders need to receive treatment and professional help: it is not only just and proper, but it is also in the best interests of the society as it serves to reduce crime. Indeed, according to the research carried out by Jeremy Coid, a psychiatrist from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, repeated offenses were almost 60% less common among forensic patients than among released inmates with mental disorders (Byron, 2014). Still, while it is difficult to deny that mental disorders are a mitigating factor, they have never been an excuse for a crime. They do not provide any moral right to commit a crime, which is why mentioning mental issues at court needs to be justified, and it cannot automatically grant the sentence of acquittal.
References
Byron, R. (2014). Criminals Need Mental Health Care.Scientific American. Web.
Siegel, L. (2015). Criminology: Theories, Patterns, and Typologies (12th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.
US v. Montgomery, 635 F. 3d 1074 (8th Cir. 2011).