Not guilty by reason of insanity: 'not a get out of jail free card'
Dayton Daily News (OH)Jul 27, 2015
Only those high-profile cases -- such as with Speaker of the House John Boehner's former country club bartender -- do we hear of a mentally ill person committing violent crimes.
"Yes, when there is someone who is severely mentally ill that commits a crime, it's all over the news, it's all over the paper,"
Former
Hoyt, 44, of the
Black said he "didn't struggle with" the case, but called it "a sad case." It was revealed in court Hoyt had been diagnosed with bipolar I disorder, commonly referenced as manic-depressive disorder or manic depression.
The demand for mental health assistance has spiked over the past decade in
There have been a few high-profile cases over the years where attorneys used the defense strategy of not guilty by reason of insanity, commonly referenced as NGRI. One of the most heinous happened on
Tanner then walked to the police station covered with blood to confess. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and to have been suffering from acute schizophrenia at the time of his wife's death. Tanner is scheduled to be in a Butler County Common Pleas courtroom for a review hearing on
The defense team for
Not guilty by reason of insanity pleas are rare in
Statewide, there are 681 forensic patients currently admitted to state-run medical facilities and 257, or 38 percent, are there because they were found not guilty by reason of insanity, according to data from the
"People don't get off unless they're mentally ill," he said. "There's enough safeguards in the system when a person is found NGRI, they are."
One of the more well-known area cases where NGRI was unsuccessfully used was with former Mason teacher
While Rittgers said he can't say if the defense strategy is overused, or used a lot, "it's used when the attorney who is defending the person can recognize a possible insanity defense, and sometimes I'm sure it's overlooked."
But Russell said the plea "is not a get out of jail free card." And Campbell said when a defense attorney puts up the NGRI defense when it's not appropriate, "it's sad."
"Either the lawyer doesn't know better or they're throwing anything up against the wall to see what sticks," she said.
An NGRI defense goes against the traditional innocent until proven guilty mantra by this country's legal system, Campbell said. It is the state's burden to prove guilt, however, she said not guilty by reason of insanity pleas is actually proving one's innocence.
"The defense team has to prove to the psychiatrist the person was not in the right mind, and did not know right from wrong at the time they committed the offense," she said. "There's a pretty high standard to prove."
A defense attorney needs to prove mens rea, if their client has the "capability of forming the thought of, 'Oh, I shouldn't do this but I'm going to do it anyway,'" which can only be determined by a psychiatrist, Campbell said.
When a person who may be mentally ill commits an offense, there are a couple things they do: call the police and wait for the police to show up, said
"Most people who do something don't call the police on themselves," she said. "They run and hide."
Hoyt called 911 after he was fired in late October, leaving just his first name and asking the dispatcher to "tell his father he was sorry." The dispatcher called him back when he revealed his name and address, and
Local law enforcement and federal investigators found weapons in his home.
Campbell and Russell said the public only hears of mentally ill people committing crimes, such as with Hoyt, when they are high profile because the majority of the times, those with severe mental illness are the victims of the crime.
Russell points out that regardless of the type of illness, it is still an illness. But there is a "stigma" associated with the rare cases of mentally ill people committing crimes that "every time this is brought up, people believe that those with a mental health condition are doing these things."
Black said mental illness is something people should "never ignore," and if a friend or family member is making any unusual comments or threats, he wants people to "call 911, call the doctor, act on it."
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