What happens if the person did not intend it? What happens if they had an illness that made them do it? What happens if they had some other condition that caused them to commit the crime? Now each state varies in how they define insanity. Fundamentally, they are all about the same. You have to have a mental illness and then you have to have some connection between the mental illness and the crime to the extent that it either caused you not to know what you were doing or not to be appreciated that it was a crime and not to be out of conform of your behavior and be in control of yourself.
The Federal System was made even tougher after President Reagan was shot and the person who shot him was found not guilty by insanity following that in the Federal System, very restrictive and have filed a very severe mental illness in order to meet that test.
On a big scale, if somebody commits a crime and they want to try to get out of it, they will often times or sometimes try to say, “Well the voices made me do it. That is why I committed the crime.” “The voices told me to go rob the bank.”
It is very, very rarely successful!
So I often ask them, “Well, what did the voices tell you to do with the money when you got out?” “Well the voices told me to go home and buy myself a new car.” “Well, how come the voices did not tell you to give the money to charity?” “Well, the voices just told me I should be good to myself.” These things become very self-serving and I think it is not too difficult to determine when someone is attempting to fake an illness.
The insanity defense is seen far more in the popular press and television and the movies that it is seen in the court room.
Most mental illnesses to not go and off like a light switch, so if someone is committing a crime, let us say on a Monday, they are going to be sick for at least several days, weeks or months before that crime and they are going to be sick for a number of days or weeks or months after the crime!
