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Reflections on Current Proposals to Abolish or Reform the Insanity Defense

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2021

Peter Arenella
Peter Arenella*
Affiliation:
Boston University, Wesleyan University, Harvard University
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Abstract

In addition to provoking public and scholarly debate, the recent acquittal of John W. Hinckley, Jr. has prompted the Ninety-Seventh Congress to consider various bills that would abolish or reform the federal insanity defense. The following is an unedited version of Professor Arenella’s testimony concerning these bills given before the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Criminal Justice on August 12, 1982.

Type
Articles
Information
American Journal of Law & Medicine , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , Fall 1982 , pp. 271 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics and Boston University 2020

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References

1 See Appendix I for a brief summary of the bills highlights.

2 My testimony did not address changes in post-acquittal commitment and review procedures. For contrasting views on this subject, compare Morse, A Preference for Liberty: The Case Against Involuntary Civil Commitment of the Mentally Disordered, 70 Cal. L Rev. 54 (1982) with statement of Richard J. Bonnie, submitted to The Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate on July 19, 1982 (copy on file).

3 H.R. 6673 offers a different variation on the same theme. It replaces the insanity defense with a GBMI verdict but permits expert testimony on the defendant’s state of mind. By abolishing the insanity defense, this bill permits criminal sanctions to be imposed on non-culpable offenders. To avoid this possibility, the federal courts might adopt the diminished capacity approach to permit the jury to acquit non-culpable offenders on the specious ground that their mental abnormality negated their criminal intent. H.R. 6673, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. (1982).