Those crazy insanity pleas.

• Author: Vatz, Richard E.
• Position: AMERICAN JUSTICE

IN AN OBITUARY OF TRIAL LAWYER Vincent J. Fuller on July 29, 2006, The Washington Post implies that the attorney executed a brilliant defense of John Hinckley, Jr., that won him a "dramatic courtroom verdict." The Post rhapsodizes that, "Within two hours of the shooting, Mr. Fuller had been asked to take the case. Over the next year, he shaped an insanity defense that has entered legal annals as one of the finest courtroom performances of modern time."

This argument overlooks a critically important facet of that case. The central reason Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of Pres. Ronald Reagan was that, in the Federal courts at the time, if the judge permitted the use of the insanity plea, it acquired the presumption of truth. In other words, the government had to prove Hinckley's sanity beyond a reasonable doubt. This since has been changed, and now the presumption when a defendant pleads not guilty by reason of insanity is that a defendant is sane.

With a roughly equal number of psychiatrists testifying on both sides of the insanity issue in the original trial, a jury simply could have reasoned that the presumption had not been overcome by the fact of the numbers itself.

The public outrage pursuant to the Hinckley verdict lasted several years. In addition to the reversal of the presumption of insanity in Federal courts, it led to states approving the plea of "guilty, but mentally ill" in order to ensure eventual jail time for those who were found legally insane. In addition, a general skepticism regarding claims of insanity as exculpating rhetoric permeated the country. This was exacerbated periodically by Hinckley's attempts to seek unsupervised sojourns outside of Washington, D.C., where he was hospitalized at St. Elizabeth's Hospital.

Psychiatric and defense interests tried to counter the spreading of resentment against the insanity plea by asserting that it rarely was successful. The consensually approved statistic is that the percentage of cases in the criminal justice system which include successful "not guilty by reason of insanity" pleas is approximately one-quarter of one percent. Even if this were an uncomplicated troth, it masquerades the fact that, over the years, this translates into thousands of cases. However, it is a very complicated fact. There is psychiatric involvement throughout the criminal justice system, from untried cases to plea bargains to psychiatrically affected...