Criminal Insanity & Serial Killers - PowerPoint Presentation

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?Slide19
Slide20

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

?