From Ukraine to Gaza
Andrea Yates became a household name overnight on June 20, 2001, when it was discovered she had drowned her five children in the bathtub of their Texas home. During her trial, the prosecution asked for the death penalty to be applied in the event of a guilty verdict.
When M’Naghten set out to assassinate Prime Minister Robert Peel, because he believed the prime minister was plotting his demise, he became confused and killed the secretary to the prime minister instead. After his acquittal, M’Naghten was admitted to the Bedlam asylum in London.
While the jury did eventually find Yates guilty, they rejected the death penalty, and instead suggested life in prison. Shortly after the initial conviction, the sentencing was overturned after it was revealed one of the prosecution’s expert witnesses gave a false testimony. The conviction was changed to not guilty by reason of insanity, and Yates was admitted to the North Texas State Hospital, where she still resides.
Ezra Pound was an important figure in American poetry, and a leader of the American Imagism movement. Unfortunately, he was also a staunch supporter of fascism, and moved to Italy shortly after Benito Mussolini took power to work as a radio propagandist for the dictator.
Daniel M’Naghten and his attempted assassination of the prime minister of England in 1843 set the standard for legally determining whether or not a defendant was sane at the time of their crime. This set of rules, known as the M’Naghten rules, were followed in every case of insanity for nearly 100 years.
After the fall of fascism, Pound was extradited back to the US, where he was charged for treason. Pound pleaded insanity and was deemed unfit to stand trial, and was instead admitted to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital asylum. It’s up for debate whether or not Pound had actually gone insane, or if his sway as an influential figure in literature won him some leeway.
When the public found out Hinckley Jr. was headed for a hospital and not a prison, unrest erupted across the country, and 40 bills were put in front of Congress looking to abolish the insanity defense, but to no avail.
In 1993, after suffering years of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her husband, John Wayne Bobbitt, Lorena Bobbitt took a kitchen knife and performed an amateur penectomy on her husband. Once she was caught, she told authorities she had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, brought on by the years of spousal abuse. Lorena Bobbitt avoided 20 years in prison when a jury ruled she was not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.
At his trial, Schrank claimed that former President William McKinley came to him in a dream, telling Schrank that Roosevelt was behind his death. Following a psychiatric examination, he was deemed insane, and instead of jail time he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for nearly 30 years.
In 1912, John Schrank, a German-born former saloon keeper living in New York, traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to catch Teddy Roosevelt on his campaign trail while the former president was running for his third term in the White House. Schrank shot Roosevelt in the chest, but Roosevelt recovered from his wound.
Heir to the massive old-money fortune of the du Pont family, once gunpowder magnates and now in the chemical business, John du Pont was thought to suffer from paranoid episodes by those close to him. Unfortunately, no action was taken to provide help to du Pont until it was too late.
In 1978, after being denied reinstatement to the board, White infiltrated San Francisco City Hall and shot Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone, killing them both. White promptly turned himself in and pled insanity, and he was given a reduced sentence due to “diminished capacity” caused by severe depression. After serving a controversially short seven-year sentence, White was released, moved back to San Francisco, and took his own life less than two years later.
In 1996, du Pont shot and killed David Schultz, a friend of du Pont’s who worked on his estate and helped coach an amateur wrestling team with the millionaire. While he was declared mentally ill, he was not declared insane and thus was deemed guilty of third-degree murder. Du Pont died in prison in 2010. His case inspired the 2014 Oscar-nominated film 'Foxcatcher,' starring Steve Carell in the role of du Pont.
Daniel Sickles led a checkered career throughout the era of the Civil War and Antebellum America. Before serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, he became infamous for shooting the man he suspected his wife of having an affair with in broad daylight just across the street from the White House in 1859.
Instead, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for 45 days. Despite not being able to keep his story straight and a number of character witnesses testifying that they believed him to be abusive, John Wayne Bobbitt was acquitted of all assault and battery charges.
Jared Lee Loughner is the perpetrator of the tragic and devastating 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, which included severely injuring U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords. Loughner was charged with 19 counts of murder and attempted murder for the atrocity, but was twice deemed incompetent to stand trial.
After being treated for schizophrenia for a year, Loughner was finally judged competent to stand trial, and was charged to serve life in prison plus 140 years, and is currently incarcerated in Rochester, New York.
The trial of John Hinckley Jr. was a turning point in America’s attitude towards insanity pleas. Hinckley Jr. gained notoriety when he attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan outside of the Washington Hilton hotel in 1981. Like Richard Lawrence, the failed presidential assassin from more than 100 years earlier, Hinckley Jr. and his defense team pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, and won the plea.
The "Butcher of Plainfield," whose legal name is Edward Gein, is one of the most terrifying murderers in American history, and widely believed to be the inspiration for Leatherface, the antagonist of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise.
The original boogeyman, Albert Fish was a notorious American serial killer from the early 20th century. He was originally convicted of the murder of one child, but shortly after his arrest three more child murders were attributed to him, although many more are suspected.
After Gein was found in possession of numerous creations crafted out of human skin and body parts, he was arrested and put to trial, but was diagnosed with schizophrenia and deemed unable to stand trial. It wasn’t until nine years later that he was considered capable of standing trial, and was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and was admitted to the Mendota Mental Health Institute, where he spent the rest of his life.
In 1873, Lizzie Lloyd King, who went by many aliases over the course of her life, shot her husband Charles Goodrich three times in the head after he tried to end their tumultuous relationship. She successfully evaded arrest for three months after the incident, but was eventually captured. King spent one year in jail, and was then given a life sentence at the State Lunatic Hospital of Auburn, New York.
Sources: (HowStuffWorks) (Insider) (The New York Times)
Dan White was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. He considered himself his district’s “defender of the home, the family and religious life against homosexuals, pot smokers, and cynics.” White started to act agitated in board meetings after the election of Harvey Milk, America’s first openly gay elected official, and eventually resigned from his post.
Sickles was the first person in US to be acquitted on the grounds of temporary insanity. He went on to become a respected honorary general of the Union Army until he disgraced himself through some disastrous strategic decisions during the Battle of Gettysburg.
Fish pled not guilty by reason of insanity, claiming that voices in his head had told him to commit the three murders. The jury did believe he was insane and was influenced by hallucinations, but apparently they were still so appalled by his actions that they declared him guilty regardless of his mental state. Fish was put in the electric chair in 1936.
One of the most infamous serial killers in history, Jeffrey Dahmer went on a 13-year killing spree that claimed the life of 17 boys and young men. Many of his murders involved dismemberment and cannibalism.
Dahmer was finally stopped in 1991 after a lapse of concentration allowed one of his potential victims to escape and alert the police. Once arrested, Dahmer underwent psychiatric examination, and was diagnosed with a number of personality disorders. Despite these diagnoses, Dahmer was deemed legally sane, and was sentenced to 15 terms of life in prison.
Some of history's most infamous killers were calm, collected, and fully aware of their dastardly deeds. Others were deeply troubled and unaware of, or incapable of controlling, their actions. For a long time, the law saw no importance in the psychological condition of the perpetrators of crimes, until the mid-19th century. Since then, pleas of insanity have been used in some of the most famous criminal cases in collective memory. Sometimes they were genuine, other times they were used by killers looking for an easy way out, but they were always fascinating.
Read on to learn more about some of the most notable uses of the insanity plea.
Infamous uses of the insanity plea
They knew not what they did...
LIFESTYLE Criminal
Some of history's most infamous killers were calm, collected, and fully aware of their dastardly deeds. Others were deeply troubled and unaware of, or incapable of controlling, their actions. For a long time, the law saw no importance in the psychological condition of the perpetrators of crimes, until the mid-19th century. Since then, pleas of insanity have been used in some of the most famous criminal cases in collective memory. Sometimes they were genuine, other times they were used by killers looking for an easy way out, but they were always fascinating.
Read on to learn more about some of the most notable uses of the insanity plea.