Well, I don't know. I've noticed people maybe getting a little annoyed with some of the posts I am posting here, or maybe I am just imagining things. (I think I will wait before posting something that isn't Star Trek-related, at least for a while.) But you know, social issues are important to me. And the US is the only country that I at least know of, that is considering eliminating the insanity defense in some locations. We're also the only country that puts actively psychotic people in prison. Now, you do have to put that in the right perspective. Because a person in a Russian mental hospital would probably wish he was in a relatively nice American prison. But at least in Russia, as well as everywhere else, they agree that sick people belong in hospitals.
Anyways, I am not trying to change anyone's minds on this. But I thought you'd at least find the following informative.
The M'Naghten rule was codified in the 1840s, in an English case involving Daniel M'Naghten. It states that "...that every man is to be presumed to be sane, and ... that to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong...."
But the insanity defense is much older than that though. The “wild best test” transformed insanity law and first found use in the 1724 case of Rex v. Arnold. The trial judge (Judge Tracy) instructed the jurors to acquit the defendant by reason of insanity if it was found that he was “a man totally deprived of his understanding and memory, and doth not know what he is doing, no more than a brute, or a wild beast, such a one is never the object of punishment.” And the concept of defense by insanity has existed since ancient Greece and Rome. The first known recognition of insanity as a defense to criminal charges was recorded in a 1581 English legal treatise stating that, “If a madman or a natural fool, or a lunatic in the time of his lunacy” kills someone, they cannot be held accountable. The British courts came up with the “wild beast” test in the 18th Century, in which defendants were not to be convicted if they understood the crime no better than “an infant, a brute, or a wild beast.”
As any first year law student can tell you, the insanity defense comes up in less than one percent of the cases, and always has, because it is relatively rare.
BTW, "...the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing..." means the party didn't know what he was even doing at all, like if he thought he was stabbing a log instead of a person. And "...or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong..." means he thought there was some other reason why he or she was doing it, like if someone killed their dentist, because he thought he was going to murder him, instead of clean his teeth.
The insanity defense is actually part of a much larger group of defenses, called affirmative defenses, including justification, duress, impossibility, and entrapment, just to name the ones I can remember. I am not a lawyer, so I can't imagine which one is used the most. But I would guess entrapment.
Just about every, if not every, other nation on earth has some variation of the insanity defense. So what's the big deal?
P>S> Where is the "off-topic" forum? My PC and smartphone only show two sections of this board.
Post more here? Okay, I was thinking of starting a new thread. But I'll post this here:
People complain it's not easy enough to civilly commit mentally ill people. But that doesn't seem to be the case with old age homes. People seem to complain it's too easy to put Grandma or Grandpa there. He or she was functioning so well independently, and the kids had them put their. Probably because they were after their money too, I don't know. Changing the commitment laws wouldn't change anything, I'm sure they're more than adequate. It's just free and easy to do. They used to call that closing the barn door after the horses escaped, because it really accomplishes nothing. And it might make things worse too. There seem to be a lot of mentally ill people in downtown Dearborn now (near where I live), I don't know why. People acting weird, sometimes yelling for no apparent reason, if you know what I mean. Anyway, this one lady was apparently accused of shoplifting at a store. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. But no one really cared at that point. But she was visibly upset, talking loudly to herself, possibly mentally ill. But the Dearborn Police just called her a taxi to take her home. That's really all she needed. Now if it was easier to commit her, they'd have to put her in a jail cell possibly. And people fearing that would be less likely to get help, which could potentially make matters worse. Just like if you let a sliver go, it can lead to infection, the same is true about mental illness. Making matters in fact much worse instead.
Thoughts on this too?
I am sure no one is annoyed by any of your posts. Most of them are very well thought through and very interesting. You are a very interesting person with a lot of views and opinion that i am sure people love to discuss.
That said i admit that it is harder to navigate this forum if you open a new thread for each one of your posts. Like Astrid said I also hardly find threads anymore.
Maybe you can post more posts in one thread? Or sometimes use the off topic thread? We could open one thread for political views and everything about politics goes in there maybe? And one maybe called "random thought of the day (or something that fits more where you can post one thought a day that you like to share and we can continue to discuss)
Those are merely suggestions by me. Please let me know if I am overstepping or anything. I dont want to offend just want to help keep this forum easy to navigate and also keep the discussion going :)
What makes you think people are getting annoyed with some of your posts?
I do admit you made me curious about you though. You have a wide variety of subjects you cover. To be honest, there‘s so many topics by now, I can‘t even find the introduce yourself thread anymore. I imagine you being some sort of teacher always trying to make us think about topics. I do admit not being a native speaker I sometimes struggle getting through the texts.