Murder with a mental disease?

Question

If someone were to kill someone and have a mental disorder that was stated by a psychiatrist would they get less of a penalty than someone that were to kill a person and not no mental?

Answer 1

it depends on their state of mind, the insanity plea is actually rarely used and not often does it fall through.
If the person was not aware they were doing anything wrong due to their mental illness (a sociopath does not fall into this category) then they would get psychiatric care instead of jail but they would be evaluate by top psychiatrists to see whether it is genuine or if someone is just posing as though they were mentally ill at the time, their medical records and their life history would be evaluated also to see what kind of upbringing they had whether they presented any signs of mental illness or whether they developed any in their life.
So if you are thinking of attempting the insanity plea without being insane its a pretty tough thing to fake many who actually are insane get jail sentences and don't get psychiatric treatment as even though they are "insane" the court found them not at the time of the crime so they were sentenced the same length of time in a jail that anyone else who would have committed the same crime would receive,

Answer 2

Not necessarily-it depends on how it goes in court. The jury would have to believe the psychiatrist. The defense and the prosecution might each have their own psychiatrists or psychologists who have different opinions.
Also, the defense attorney would have to convince the jury that the defendent didn't know the difference between right and wrong. That's more of a legal concept than a mental health concept.
If the defense attorney is successful, the judge will declare the defendant "not guilty by reason of insanity" (NGRI)
I used to work at a mental hospital where some patients had commited murder or other crimes and where considered NGRI. We had one guy who was stuck there for more than ten years and all he did was try to break into a car. Staying in the mental hospital can be just as bad as staying in prison.
After that I worked at a prison--we had some seriously mentally prisoners who had schizophrenia or whatever, but they were not found NGRI; they were sentenced to life imprisonment and sometimes death by lethal injection. We even had prisoners who were mentally retarded.

Answer 3

Insanity, meaning severe mental disease/condition, would be the reason for murder, wih a less penalty.

Answer 4

Not necessarily. It all depends on the facts of the crime; what state the crime was commited in, the age of the victim/perpetrator, if the perp commited felonies before, if there was a previous diagnosis of mental illness, how the person was killed, etc.

Answer 5

in order to plead insanity, most states require that a person not know that what they were doing was wrong. just having a mental illness, in and of itself, is not a defense and does not result in a reduced sentence

Answer 6

probably, but the judge would send them to a place to get help.