Keep in mind that Mr McMurphy is committed The length of time he spends in this hospital is entirely up to us 158 What does it mean to be committed What do we already know about the insanity defense Anything ID: 595978
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Slide1
Criminal Insanity & Serial KillersSlide2
“Keep in mind that Mr.
McMurphy
is
committed
. The length of time he spends in this hospital is entirely up to us.” (158)
What does it mean to be committed?
What do we already know about the insanity defense? Anything?Slide3
How do you determine if someone is criminally insane?
Insanity defense is the defense that the defendant is not responsible for their actions during an episode of mental illnessSlide4
(Very Brief) History of The Insanity Defense
Insanity as a concept has existed since the ancient Greeks and Romans
In colonial America a delusional woman named Dorothy
Talbye
was hanged in 1638 for murdering her daughter, there was no distinction between insanity and criminal behavior in America yet
Criminal Lunatics Act 1800 mandated that
criminals (in England) deemed insane at the time of their crime remain detained for as long as those in power deemed fit
M’Naughten
rules of 1843 were a similar idea
Ford V. Wainwright 1986 the US Supreme Court upheld the decision that
the insane cannot be executed
Controversy?
You bet. Mainly lies in the philosophical differences folks have surrounding insanity.Slide5
The Insanity Defense
What are the legal standards for insanity?
Each
state has
its own statute setting out the standard for determining whether a defendant was legally insane, and therefore not responsible, at the time his crime was committed
.
M’Naughten
Rule:
At the time the act was committed the defendant was laboring under a disease of the mind that made it so they did not know what they were doing was wrong (the “right/wrong” test)
Three
states -- Montana, Idaho, and Utah -- do not allow the insanity defense at all. Slide6
What happens to these folks?
What happens to a mentally ill defendant who is acquitted of a violent crime?
According to the American Psychiatric Association, studies show that defendants acquitted by reason of insanity are
likely to spend as much or more time confined in a psychiatric institution as they would have if convicted and sentenced to jail or prison for the same crime
. One study determined insanity defense
acquittees
frequently spend
twice as much time
institutionalized as defendants convicted of a similar offense spend in correctional
facilities
Commitment and release procedures vary from state to state, case to case. The hospital is generally in charge of a patient’s release
(much like in the case of
McMurphy
…)Slide7
Andrea Yates
Verdict:
Not guilty, by reason of insanity
As a table group, you must decide:
Do you
agree or disagree
with the sentence Yates was given? Why or why not?Slide8
Literary Connection - Medea
In Greek mythology Medea is a sorceress who kills her own children to avenge the betrayal of her husband Jason when he leaves her for another womanSlide9
Tortorici
CaseSlide10
Hinckley
1981
, Hinckley developed an obsession with the movie
Taxi Driver
, in which Jodie Foster stars as a child prostitute and Robert
Deniro
plays Travis
Bickle
, who plots to assassinate the presidential candidate in the film.
He grew obsessed with Jodie Foster, began stalking her
Eventually
he decided to attempt an assassination on President Ronald Reagan
. As the president left the Hilton Hotel, he shot six times at Reagan, wounding a few other people in the process.
One of the bullets hit the president in the chest, but he survived the attempt
.
Hinckley’s
defense team pled for insanity defense and succeeded,
he was acquitted of all of his 13 charges of assault, murder and weapon counts
.Slide11
Public Reaction
Due to the high profile of the case,
the public perceived the insanity defense as a loophole in the legal system
which allowed a
clearly guilty criminal to dodge incarceration
.
The
controversy laid in the fact that prior to the assassination attempt, the insanity defense was only used in 2 percent of the felony cases and in those cases failed over 75 percent of the time. Slide12
Other infamous insanity trials
Lorena
Bobbit
Jeffery
Dahmer
Sex, cannibalism, necrophilia, dismemberment
Showed symptoms of social withdrawal since childhood
Collected dead animals, would then dissect, dissolve, or mutilate them in various ways
Committed his first murder in 1978, bludgeoning to death a hitchhiker named Steven Hicks because “the guy wanted to leave and I didn’t want him to”
Committed 18 murders, stored their bodies in vats
Kept trophies such as human skulls and genitalia in his closet, save the biceps and human heart in in the freezer for later consumption
(Katy Perry?? “She eats your heart out. Like Jeffrey
Dahmer
”)
Dahmer
plead not guilty by reason of insanitySlide13
Dahmer
(cont’d)
Dahmer’s
plea was rejected and he was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences in prison
The case was seen by many as the death of the insanity plea
Many contended that if a deranged criminal like
Dahmer
is rejected on the insanity plea, then no other criminal would qualify for the defense
Why do you think it is so hard to prove criminal insanity?
Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Tomorrow:
What is the deal with the American obsession with serial killers?Slide14
Serial KillersSlide15
Serial Killers: Born or Made?
Do
you think that serial killers are simply born that way? Or are they created? Is
nature
or
nurture
to blame?Slide16
What is a serial killer?
A person who murders
three or more people
with the murders taking place over more than 3 months, with a significant break (a “cooling
off period”) between them
Not the same as mass murdering, and not spree killing
The motive is generally psychological gratification
Victims often have something in common (i.e. race, appearance, sex, etc.)Slide17
History of Serial Killers
Jack the Ripper 1888 is said to be the first identified serial killer
The Ripper murders were also important because they marked an important watershed in the treatment of crime by journalists
H.H. Holmes was one of the first documented serial killers in America, killed at least 27 people at a hotel in Chicago in the early 1890s
Possible Motives
Visionary
(“The Devil told me to
!”)
Mission-oriented
(
Dexter
)
Hedonistic
Lust
Thrill
Comfort (profit)
Power/Control
Media CoverageSlide18
They did what?!
Your table will choose an infamous American serial killer to research
You have 25 minutes to
create an infographic to inform the public about your killer
. Be sure to include the following:
Who are they?
Background?
What did they do? Number of victims?
What were their motives?
What did the media coverage look like?
Legacy?
Do you think they are a product of
nature
or
nurture
? Why?Slide19Slide20
The Hay Day of Serial KillersSlide21
Spotlight on Crime
:
What does the Media Choose to Cover and Why?
Child kidnappings during the 1920s and 1930s
became a symbol of societal decay during the Great Depression
Charles Manson and the Tate Murders in 1969
were symbolic of a sexual revolution gone mad
Serial Killers of the 1980s & 1990s
: fear that the scariest thing out there is the normalcy we so desperately crave
The Columbine Massacre of 1999
was symbolic of parental fears of the effect of violent video games and movies
What are our serial killers today…. ?Slide22
Why America?
76%
of serial killers are American
What about American values creates this phenomenon?
The
existence of famous serial killers in contemporary American culture brings together two defining features of American modernity:
stardom and violence
.
“Violence
is cinematic…It's like putting mustard on a hot dog
.”
- Filmmaker
Abel
Ferrara
Serial Killer Celebrities
Hannibal
Lecter
, Dexter
The Zodiac KillerSlide23
The State of American Violence
We have largely lost our ability to be appalled
It takes a really radical crime for us now to recover that fear
But why so much Serial Killer Fiction??
This is an archetypal story, it is a narrative that is reassuring, although it is not necessarily real.
Reductive: good vs. evil
Helps us to manage the incomprehensible
Evil doesn’t need to be understood, just eliminated
We have turned this very scary thing into a stock character
The criminals in much of this fiction have become the protagonists –
why
?