The Insanity Defense: Defending Its Necessary Place in Law

It is not necessarily concerning that it is harder for some to conform to the law until it brings up the issue of insanity. The insanity defense, though controversial, is inherently retributive in that punishing the mentally ill is not blameworthy. As ill-suited subjects for blame, mentally ill persons lack the cognitive reasoning skills necessary to be held legally accountable. Exculpating the mentally ill is not only retributive, but also deeply intuitive, evidenced by how many mentally ill persons seem "odd or crazy" to the average person. Finally, of all the tests used to determined insanity, the Federal Test of 1984 most successfully renders the insanity defense narrow enough to minimize abuse, allows for expert testimony, and calls for a cognitive interpretation of insanity.