The Insanity Defense in Fact and Fiction: On Norval Morris's "Madness and the Criminal Law"

Abstract

Of all problems concerning mental illness and the criminal law, the insanity defense has become the centerpiece. This is not surprising, as the defense is in many ways the acid test of our attitudes toward the insane and toward the criminal law itself. Our acceptance of the defense has denoted our acceptance of the principle that moral and legal guilt should be, to the greatest extent possible, coextensive. The trial of John Hinckley has also focused attention on the insanity defense, as the debate sparked by the verdict in that case continues to simmer in legislatures around the country. Therefore, although Norval Morris's book Madness and the Criminal Law treats a range of topics-proposals for the trial of those now found incompetent to stand trial, a philosophy for the sentencing of the mentally ill, and some general sentencing philosophy by way of background-it is Morris's advocacy of the abolition of the insanity defense that most intrigues me. Morris comments at one point in his discussion that it is just a matter of time until legislatures abolish the insanity defense (at 67). It is this proposition I would like to examine, for through it the perspective of the entire book is revealed.'