Slightly Off KIlter

I was summoned to appear for Jury Duty on April 12. The case before the coourt was neither a criminal nor a civil case but one of a type I had not known about. The respondent (not defendent, although dictionary.com treats the words as being synonymous) was tried before, in 1987, for “discharging a weapon into a residence”.

In 1987, the jury returned a verdict of “not guilty by reason of insanity”. The “respondent” was sentenced to 15 years in the State Mental Institution and is now eligable for release. The trial scheduled for Monday was meant to determine, again by jury, if the respondent’s treatment should be extended for a minimum of two more years.

Let’s try that again.
The jury returned a verdict of not guilty… by “reason” of insanity.

Disregarding the obvious irony of the word choice, for insanity is nearly opposite to reason, I have to question the mere existence of the verditct.

Not guilty. Does that mean he didn’t fire the weapon?
I’m quite sure that isn’t what it means.

To me, the question of whether someone is guilty or not guilty of a particular act is quite simple to determine. Either the act occurred… or it didn’t. If it did, and the person in question committed the act, then the defendant is guilty. If the act didn’t occur, or it did but was committed by someone else, then the defendant is guilty. It’s quite simple really. Sentencing isn’t (and shouldn’t be) simple, but determining guilt should be very simple.

If a legal defense teams want to start claiming “reasons” for a crime, from temporary insanity to a carefully worked out “Twinkie Defense“, I have no objection.
In fact, in my most humble, personal, opinion, people who commit crimes are rarely sane, using the common definition. Such people are not mentally healthy; they do not show sound judgement. They have, either temporarily or more permanently, “flipped”. They are well outside the established societal norms. I have no objection to sentencing such people to a facility that will provide them with the care they need, whether that facility be a hospital or a prison.

What I object to is the association of any claims of “insanity” or “diminished capacity”† with a verdict of “not guilty”. As I said above, I believe that question of guilt is simple — the person on trial is either guilty or not. The questions of why he or she is guilty are more complex, as are the decisions to be made for punishment and/or treatment. But we should stop confusing “reasons” with guilt — there are no valid “reasons” for committing a crime.

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† In 1982, California voters approved a proposition to abolish the “diminished capacity” defense. This was the actual defense that was (erroneously) to become better known as the so-called “Twinkie Defense”.