Is the insanity plea a legitimate defense?

As some of you may know, the Norway killer recently got out of a long, or most likely life ending sentence with the insanity plea.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/11/29/norway-killer-insanity-plea.html

Quest is as follows: Do you think the insanity plea is a legitimate defense?

 

I think that is nonsense. He should be punished the same insane or not.

 

agreed, its very stupid that they let him off because he was "insane"

 

Never. If money is going to be spent taking care of someone for the rest of their life, they are nothing more than a burden on society, therefore better off dead.

 

In my opinion, if someone is 'insane' that should just make their legal matters worse, and if anything, result in an even lengthier sentence, as being defined as 'insane' simply means you are even more of a threat to the general public.

 

Yes being insane is a completely legit defense.... If you cannot tell what you are doing is good or bad because of brain problems why should you be tried for it?

 

I like Ron White's Quote on insanity.

"We can't kill him! He's too crazy to know were killing him!" "Then what the hell are we arguing about?If he doesn't know the difference and it makes me feel better!"

 

Would you sent a highly autistic kid who killed his parents to jail?

 

Yes, let's kill all the elderly.

 

What would you do then? I agree they shouldn't be thrown in jail with the "sane" criminals. They should be kept away from society though. The insanity plea is only good for keeping them out of a normal prison. Thats it and should not get anyone off the hook.

No, send them to somewhere so they won't be a danger to society.

 

I think it depends on the severity of the crime. In my opinion, insanity can be influential to a person's actions but the person still has at least some control over what he does. Is it a legitimate defense in my eyes? No. But I can understand under certain circumstances the eligibility to plea insanity.

 

Most of the elderly I know are pretty well set in terms of money. They've also already put in their time, not to mention the fact that they're not necessarily criminals.

 

If the person is legitly insane then i think they shouldn't be in a sane environment in the first place because whatever they do will be wrong. that's like putting a lion in a deer habitat at the zoo then punishing the lion for eating the deer. i think if a person is truly insane they should be able to live in an insane asylum not punished for doing things they cant help.

 

Right... So if someone is deemed insane, send them to a mental hospital.

 

Can't tell if your agreeing with me or not...

 

I think that in certain cases, the insanity plea can definitely be a legitimate defence.

The people who get off as being "insane", such as Anders Behring Breivik or the "Norway Killer", will not get sent to prison but its NOT like they are getting off the hook and get to walk free. He will likely spend the remainder of his life in its entirety in a mental institution, where he will be locked up, monitered, and reside in a safe environment where he causes no harm to either himself or those people around him. He will probably be heavily medicated and go through intense therapy and spend the rest of his life battling his illness in this institution until he dies.

This is just as bad as prison and essentially the same sort of concept; he will be removed from the public and locked up for the safety of everybody. A person like him would most likely be even more dangerous in a prison environment, locked up with other violent criminals and people with mental disorders who are not treated properly. There is likely a high chance that he would either initiate, or be the victim of even further violence behind bars as he struggled to adjust to the prison life.

Although some may think he deserves to rot in the prison environment anyways, the majority (if not all) of people in prison would have to be considered "sane", and somebody as violent, delusional, and mentally disturbed as him is probably better off being segregated from the general prison population.

 

I think it should still be socially acceptable to banish people from society. Send them to an island in the Pacific and let them do what they please.

 

If there was no social order there, the stronger inhabitants would probably murder and/or enslave the weaker. What about that?

 

Yes, that's prison; what of it?

 

You must be joking. Prison is more regulated and more regimented than outside society...