The Legal System: Insanity vs. Mental Illness

Today we cannot put on Nancy Grace or any other type of news program without hearing of some brutal murder case, some senseless act of violence that literally shakes us in our boots and all of the horrific details that we have gone without hearing after a long day at the office.

These cases seem to garnish a great deal of attention from the media, and defense lawyers seem to flock to the defense of what some people would call “monsters“.

Where does the insanity plea come into play here? We hear this term being thrown around in many legal debates, but what does it really mean? The Andrea Yates case or the Susan Smith trial both come to mind. Both mothers killed their small innocent children, an act unimaginable to most people in any part of the world today.

Both women committed the same act but one sits in a prison for the rest of her life while the other is being treated at a mental institution until one of her many forensic psychiatrists deem her appropriate again for society, which Read more…