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Originally Posted by Tucson
I am sure there are those using the insanity plea who were actually legally insane when they committed their illegal acts against another. However, here is the other side of the question as it relates to BP,
I know of one with BP that was acquitted in court of the legal consequences of his behavior due to mental illness, Later, durinf a heated exchange between him and another driver, he took a stick and smashed the other guy"s car window. His wife asked him why he did it, He said it was his “bipolar”, Apparently the charge that he got off from emboldened him to do other acts. It makes me wonder how much in control he was during the first incident.
We all have impulses and overwhelming desires when manic, I wonder how much effort we put into keep from acting on them, Instead, do some of us let it happen because it is pleasurable, irregardless of the consequence, which are then much easier to ignore? I wonder how much this relates to the insanity defense that people with BP use.
As a side note, when I was married, I was in a terrible relationship with my wife. One day I was hypersexual, It was very very tempting to pursue sexual pleasure with someone else. It was difficult, but I did not, I could of easily cheated on my wife, and have a ready made excuse to myself.
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Successfully asserting an insanity defense in the US today is extremely difficult do do and extremely unlikely. Only about 1/3 of a percent of those who try to do this succeed, looking at those states that still permit it.
Because of the massive overall education deficit in America, so very many totally uneducated citizens, it is very, very likely that many more states will ban this type of defense. It does not fit with their overly simplified world construct and view, that all human endeavor can be neatly and instantly dropped into two convenient buckets--good and evil. American concepts from the 1800s, still very popular in many places.
European countries, where the education level is much, much, much higher are way more likely to develop a science-rooted, thoughtful, ethical, and sensible approach to this issue, in my personal opinion.
Personally, given that political polarization in the USA is getting much, much worse, not better, I think we will see a nation in which the west coast and some coastal eastern states slowly creep more toward a European model over the next decades to 100 years or so, while all others, will likely ban the defense and continue to prosecute the sh** out of all mentally ill people who are, in their eyes, just scumbags and evil and not ill at all.
Just my take.