Understanding the use of the Insanity Defense Article Review(1)

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1 Understanding the use of the Insanity Defense: Article Review Understanding the use of the Insanity Defense Jennifer Zubeck Southern New Hampshire University Psy 205: Forensic Psychology John Padgett August 11, 2023

2 Understanding the use of the Insanity Defense: Article Review The article I chose is Understanding the Insanity Defense by George L. Blau, Hugh McGinley and Richard Pasewark. The article is looking specifically at how often the insanity defense is used in the courtroom and how often it is successful. The authors admit that little is known about the usage of the insanity defense and more information will need to be reviewed to make more concrete determinations about the usage of the insanity defense. The article takes what research has been conducted on the use of the insanity defense and analyzes how often the plea is entered and how successful the plea is in five states. The insanity defense is a topic that I am very interested in. I’ve been curious as to why people use this as a defense and how often it works in the court system. I’ve often heard in movies and TV shows people saying they were out of their mind at the time they committed their crime, or they have mental health concerns and are not responsible for the crimes they committed. Seeing this defense play out in drama shows made me wonder about its use and success in a real courtroom. The courtroom drama shows I watch make this defense appear to be common and at times successful. This article does a good job overviewing what the insanity defense means and how it relates to crime. The focus of the article is determining how often the insanity defense is used in the legal system and how successful the defense is when it is used. This article relates well to my selected topic of the insanity defense as it attempts to explain the overall usage of this defense in the legal system. Though it relates well to my intended topic, its not what I thought the article would be. I was hoping to find more information about what constitutes insanity for the legal system, how it’s determined and what happens if one is shown to have lied about their mental status. However, this article appears to be a good starting point to trying to get those other questions answered.

3 Understanding the use of the Insanity Defense: Article Review The article summarizes research on the use of the insanity defense conducted in 1989, several years before the article was published. Forensic Directors in each state and Washington D.C. were contacted via mail survey to see how often the insanity was used as a plea and outcomes regarding the use of the insanity defense. If they could not provide the information, they were asked to indicate who could. Only 4 out of 51 locations did not respond to the survey. Out of these responders, 5 reported how many defendants use the insanity defense. Responding states included: Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan, Maine, and Wyoming. Each averaged about 1 insanity plea for every 204-4,986 arrests. These results showed the use of the insanity defense to be rare in criminal cases, its success coming in at a range of 2-7% except for Colorado with a 44% success rate for the use of the insanity defense (Blau, et al., 1993). In addition, the article summarized research conducted by Randolph and Pasewark in 1983. This research was more specific to how many defendants enter an insanity defense and how many continue to trial. The thought is to understand how and why the insanity defense is used even when the defendant does not go to trial for their crime. This research showed that in the State of Wyoming in 1967 and 1968 there were 68 people who entered pleas of insanity. Of these 68; 7 kept the plea of insanity, 34 changed their plea to guilty, 3 to not guilty, 1 pleaded no contest, 16 cases were dismissed, 2 cases are unknown, and one person skipped on their bail and their whereabouts are unknown. Out of the 7 people who took the insanity defense to trial, only 2 were successful in using this defense. That makes it look like 29% of cases are successful in the insanity defense (Blau, et al., 1993). The last research conducted was a survey of attorneys, 66 defense and 46 prosecuting attorneys to see how many have been involved in at least one criminal case using the insanity

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4 Understanding the use of the Insanity Defense: Article Review defense, 78% of defense attorneys and 64% of prosecuting attorneys indicated they have been involved in at least one insanity defense case (Blau, et al., 1993). The article refers to the belief that the insanity defense is overused in the justice system. The conclusion drawn by the authors is that based on available research the plea is rarely used in trial and even when used is not as successful as others may think. The authors indicate that in order to better understand the insanity defense and create or change policies around it, more data is needed. In addition, they raise the question of the usefulness of the insanity defense in being able to plea bargain a different sentence (Blau, et al., 1993). The authors used the following references in the article on the Insanity Defense: The success of the insanity plea: A survey of attorneys by H. McGinley and G.L. Blau published in 1986, National Survey of the frequency and success of the insanity and alternate pleas by H. McGinley and R.A. Pasewark published in 1989, Insanity plea: National survey of frequency and success by R.A. Pasewark and H. McGinley published in 1985 and Characteristics, dispositions, and subsequent arrests of defendants pleading insanity in a rural state by R.L. Randolph and R.A. Pasewark published in 1983. The interesting thing about the references that were used in this article is that all references cited come from work the authors have completed previously on the same topic. This makes me wonder if there are others who are researching the insanity defense and if so, why didn’t the authors choose to cite some of that work or are these the only people who at the time were researching this area. This is a reliable and valid article on the use of the Insanity Defense. The article was published in a peer reviewed journal, Journal of Clinical Psychology . The journal is a monthly peer-reviewed journal that has been in publication since 1945 (Journal of Clinical Psychology, n.d.). The authors are George L. Blau, a Ph.D. in the Department of Psychology at the University

5 Understanding the use of the Insanity Defense: Article Review of Wyoming, Hugh McGinley, a Ph.D. in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wyoming, and Richard Pasewark, who was also a Ph.D. in the department of Psychology at the University of Wyoming. All three authors have conducted research in the insanity defense prior to the publication of this article. They present the article and research information in an unbiased manner and as a way of informing others about how prevalent the use of insanity defense is. They conclude their article stating that additional research is needed in this area to make an accurate determination of the use and successfulness of the insanity defense. The article is written very well. The article starts with background information about the use of the insanity defense, and what constitutes a crime. The authors give a good description of why they chose to write this article, they include previous research they have conducted in this area as well which shows the prevalence of the use of the insanity defense. They give their conclusion on the presented data and a discussion section where they state additional information that is needed in order to have better understanding about the insanity defense. They also indicate that there could be a benefit to the defendant in entering an insanity plea and that also warrants further research. One interesting component of the article is case summary of the insanity defense used in a case of a girl who was diagnosed with anorexia. She shoplifted and was charged with felony shoplifting but pleaded to a misdemeanor due to her mental health concerns. The authors noted her original insanity plea was not entered as a statistic. The authors state that it is important that psychologists who are asked to testify about a defendant's mental health understand the plea and how successful it is. They end with a conclusion calling for more research and more statistics to be kept helping with keeping others informed. The biggest limitation I saw in this article is the lack of additional resources, the authors used their own previous research as a part of the article. It would have helped to see if there was

6 Understanding the use of the Insanity Defense: Article Review additional research available on the use of the insanity defense. It’s hard to back up your thoughts with your own research. It seems to me that having another person’s research to back up your thoughts strengthens the argument. Additional research if available that supports the point of view would have been beneficial. The only other limitation I noted isn’t a limitation on the article itself, but rather on my own selection of the article. It’s about 30 years old and new research and information could be available that sheds more light on the use and success of the insanity defense. Upon first reading this article, I found it interesting because I do not have much information on the insanity defense, especially how often it's used and if it's successful. My knowledge of the insanity defense comes from what is shown on TV shows and from the media’s reports when it's used in trials that hit the national level. What surprised me the most is that the defense does not make it to trial as often as I thought it would. I expected the insanity defense to be more prevalent than it is. This article sparked my interest in looking for more current information surrounding the insanity defense, since this article is over thirty years old. One thing that also interested me was the question posed by the authors “What is the benefit to using the insanity plea by defendants?” As some of the research in the article shows, some people initially enter this plea but then change it later. The answer to this question could be very interesting in learning more about the insanity defense.

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7 Understanding the use of the Insanity Defense: Article Review References Blau, G. L., McGinley, H., & Pasewark, R. (1993). Understanding the use of the insanity defense . Journal of Clinical Psychology, 49(3), 435–440. https://doi- org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1002/1097-4679(199305)49:3<435::AID- JCLP2270490319>3.0.CO;2-P Journal of Clinical Psychology - Wiley Online Library . Wiley Online Library. (n.d.). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10974679?journalRedirectCheck=true

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