if a person commits a murder and is found mentally incompetant to stand trial.?

Question

why can the courts retry them after treatment had rendered them sane.if they were insane at the time of the crime shouldn't that still apply after they have recovered??is this revenge or justice??i consider myself tough on crime but this makes no sense to me

Answer 1

You know they are sent to a special facility for the criminally insane, which is a prison with psychiatric treatment, right? They are only re-tried in Court if they are "cured" (can't think of a real accurate word here) AND they can remember the trial and assist in their own defense. Generally, when they are too incompetent to stand trial, they never recover the level of competency necessary to go back through the Court system. I've been doing competency hearings for 25 years by court-appointment and I cannot ever remember a client recovering enough to stand trial. I think it's a useless "feel good" provision of the law that's probably used about 1% of the time. Last case I had, the guy was a chronic paint sniffer. His brain damage was permanent.

Answer 2

Sane or insane, I think a crime is a crime. Now whether it be done in sanity or insanity doesn't make a difference. Just coz an insane person would not know he is committing a murder means we fill up our mental institutions and spend tax-payers' money in treating them? And for what? Coz he murdered my relative or friend? Or that once he is declared sane, he/she can come out in the open world and do the same after sometime and again be declared insane and sent to an institution to be cured, and the cycle goes on and on? I think insane people should be punished same as if they were sane coz whatever their condition they are a danger to society. Maybe you might think me heartless but say if someone like that hurts your child or whatever, wouldn't you want him/her to not harm another? How come some crazy people device such perfect and clever murder plans and seem to know right from wrong yet when their plan is executed and they are caught, they are considered insane and not punished justly for the crime they committed? Very unfair!

Well if that's the case then I'm insane all the time, I go and commit a crime and pretend to be insane so that the law thinks that I'm never in my senses! What an idea! All criminals must adhere to this one! This way no crime will ever be punished and we can all just crime and chill!!

Answer 3

I think you misunderstand the law. If one was incompetent at the time of the crime, that's it, game over. No trial because you weren't responsible. If you become incompetent AFTER the crime, you can't be tried while in that condition but may be tried if you can be restored to competency. In theory, of course. In practice prosecutors may be more interested in a conviction than in justice and people in the system at any point can make mistakes or have ulterior motives for doing otherwise.

Answer 4

You are mixing issues. One issue is the person compentant enough at the time of trial to understand what is going on and aid in the defense. A second issue was the person insane at the time of the crime.

Understanding a trial requires a greater level of compentancy then understanding at the time you committed the crime what you were doing was wrong.

A person could very well at the time of a crime be sane enough at the time of the crime to not have the insanity defense, but not be sane enough at the time of arrest to understand a trial, but with treatement become sane enough to understand a trial.

Since the attempted murder of Reagan, states have made the defense of insanity for the underling crime almost impossible to reach. But many of the mentally ill lack the capacity to understand the trial without treatment.

Answer 5

This is one of those Gray areas of the law,and depends on the state.Having said that,If they are determined to be insane at the time of the crime then they can't be tried for that crime later,however they can be locked up in a hospital for the rest of their life,or until at a point that they are not considered a danger to themselves or others,which rarely happens.If it is determined that you were not responsible for your actions at the time of the crime then you are considered "not guilty because of insanity".There is a difference between not not guilty and innocent.

Answer 6

Wouldn't they still have the defense if insanity or whatever it is they call it when you are not mentally responsible for your actions? Means you would be sentenced to detention under the mental health act rather than a criminal act? hospital not prison

Answer 7

I think that they retry them, when they have come back to their senses (LOL) so that they know that they must be responsible for their actions. Insane cannot be expected to understand what they are being told. So they cannot really defend themselves. Just incase they really had a defense.