WOW Thanks. That is a long article, but really worth reading.
Its no wonder we all get confused about the insanity defense because even the research evaluators disagreed with 26% of the 104 cases they looked at. They felt 26% of the court decisions were wrong.
The reasons they gave as to why courts get it wrong is very interesting. One of those things was feeling the defendent needs physchiatric help. The way I took that was the study found that the courts were mistakingly thinking....."we know he needs help, so we have decided he is insane so he gets the help he needs".....when that should not have come into play as far as their actual decision of whether he should be found guilty or not by reason of insanity.
The study indicated other reasons why courts get it wrong. Things like:
lack of familiarity with Colorado statues and the court’s lack of documented data to support the forensic recommendations.
Another scary part to me is Colorado's law which states the Prosecution needs to prove Holmes was sane. Some other states require the defendent to prove he was insane for a valid defense, but in Colorado, the prosecution has to prove JH was sane beyond a reasonable doubt.
The burden is on the prosecution. WOW. I didnt realize that until now. This makes it much tougher on the prosecution because under Colorado law, JH is presumed insane until proven otherwise.
After reading this, I really think the state should have taken that plea deal. Why make their job harder on themselves when they could have gotten a life sentence penalty for the crimes. I suppose public pressure may have forced their hand.
Its going to be interesting to see how the jury ends up deciding this case and its going to be interesting to see how the prosecution makes attempts to prove JH sanity at time of crime.
I think they are indirectly doing that to some extent by showing all his preparation and planning. But it will be interesting as the trial proceeds if they start to directly address the sanity issue. Like will the prosecution begin to bring in any professional doctors that testify specifically about his sanity or not.
I think the prosecution needs to do that because I am betting the defense surely will. The defense will no doubt try to bring in professionals to claim he was legally insane at time of murders. So unless the prosecution has their own doctors testify to the opposite, then the jury may side with the defense. Maybe the prosecution will wait for rebuttal to bring in their own doctors.
This case is very interesting as it proceeds, although its also a very very sad one as well so its a tough one to follow along. I may have to take a lot of breaks from it due to the human tragedy aspect taking an emotional toll.
Thanks for sharing that article. Its really interesting to read through that study.
http://www.lsd-journal.net/archives/Volume6/InsanityPlea.pdf