Reforming the Insanity Defense: The Need for a Psychological Defect Plea

Although most serial killers suffer from at least one of a variety of personality disorders, including psychopathy and anti-social personality, most are not found to be insane under the law (Mueller, 2005). Serial killers intelligence, like other populations, ranges from borderline to above average levels (Mueller, 2005). However, serial killers are meticulous planners, but more importantly, they are masters at building facades. They want the world to see them as calculating, manipulative and creative. They must select, target, approach, control, and dispose of their victims, a complex process which takes a lot of thought and meticulous planning. Due to the thoroughly psychological nature of serial murder, it is important to study the psychological workings of serial killers to understand their crimes.

In today’s society, pleading insanity is the hardest defense to successfully achieve. Society believes that the insanity defense is used far more often than it actually is and people believe that the defense is used as a tactic to avoid punishment. People perceive serial killers as inhumane and question how they could ever commit the crimes that they do. However, few want to believe that they are legally insane and agree with allowing them to plead guilty by reason of insanity. It is clear that serial killers suffer from psychological disorders, which is why we as a society need to present a new defense, a psychological defect plea. With a defect plea, the serial killer would still serve time for his or her crimes but could not be put to death. He or she would be able to receive treatment or therapy and would be subjected to psychologists and criminologists’ studies.

Insanity Defense

The first formal definition of legal insanity was adopted with the trial of Daniel M’Naghten in 1843. The M’Naghten test states:

It must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong. (As cited in Krauss & Lieberman, 2009)

This test is still used commonly throughout the United States. In 1954, the Durham test expanded the insanity standard to any behavior that might be the product of a mental disorder (Krauss & Lieberman, 2009). In 1962, the American Law Institute (ALI) proposed a legal standard that stated:

A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality (or wrongfulness) of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law. (As cited in Krauss & Lieberman, 2009)

The Durham test is no longer used, as it was phased out by the ALI standard. The most common insanity defense used in the United States today are some restrictive version of the tradition M’Naghten test or the ALI standard.

In 1994, Silver et al. found that .9 percent (less than one per one hundred felony indictments) resulted in the use of an insanity defense (Krauss & Lieberman, 2009). In 1996, Jonofsky found that in Baltimore City, less than one percent of indictments (.31 per 100) had an insanity plea. He also found that successful insanity pleas represented less than one percent (.013 acquittal per 100 indictments).

Psyche of Serial Killers

Personality disorders have not generally been viewed as sufficiently severe to meet the mental disorder or mental defect requirement of most insanity statutes (Krauss & Lieberman, 2009). Sexual sadism, psychopathy, and anti-social personality are the three main types of psychological diseases and personality disorders that serial killers suffer from. Sadistic serial murderers often rape, torture, and brutalize their victims before the murder even occurs. In his article, Simons states:

“The psychopath at first glance seems quite ‘well put together.’ He suffers neither delusions, hallucinations, not memory impairment; contact with reality appears solid; however, he is unable to conform behavior to social norms, defer gratification, control impulses, tolerate frustration, profit from corrective experiences, or identify with others and form meaningful relationships with them.” (Simons, 2001)

When reading this, it is easy to understand why psychopathy does not fit the M’Naghten test. However, a serial killer suffering from psychopathy cannot control his or her impulses, identify with others and feel empathy, and cannot conform his or her behavior to social norms. Thus, proving he or she cannot possibly be completely competent and responsible for their actions, no matter how heinous.