Shreya Dhyani, School of Law, Galgotias University
Abstract
The act of a person of unsound mind, also known as insanity defense or mental disorder defense, is a criminal tool used to exempt suspects from criminal responsibility. It is based on the hypothesis that the person was mentally ill when the behavior occurred and therefore they were not familiar with what they were doing. The plea of insanity, at its basic level may be a plea of innocence. It is important to acknowledge the fact that this is merely a legal term, and thus having a mental disorder is not sufficient to prove that the accused was suffering from a mental illness. The burden of producing evidence persuasive enough to establish the truth of facts are needed to be satisfied by the accused. A report (1995) from the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law says that on average, a plea of insanity is raised in less than 1% of criminal trials "… in terms of the overall volume of the felony indications, the insanity defense was used rarely in all states in the survey".
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