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Understanding What It Means to Plea Temporary Insanity
A person can find themselves facing criminal charges for many reasons, but it isn’t always because they had malicious intent. It sometimes happens that crimes are committed without premeditation and occur as a response to a situation that compromised an individual’s ability to use sound judgment. In these cases, it may be possible to establish a defense of temporary insanity. Here’s what that means.
What Is Temporary Insanity?
Temporary insanity is a defense that can be used when the defendant believes they shouldn’t be held criminally liable for their actions due to a temporary impairment in their ability to make sound judgment. A temporary insanity defense may be suggested by a criminal lawyer when it can be established that the circumstances leading up to the criminal act had an immediate impact on the defendant’s state of mind.
To successfully establish a defense of temporary insanity, it must be shown that the defendant was suffering from a mental defect at the time the criminal act occurred and that this defect affected the defendant’s ability to differentiate between right and wrong.
Legal Standards for Temporary Insanity
Each state has the responsibility of determining how it defines and upholds a defense of temporary insanity. There are four basic standards that states follow – The M’Naghten Rule, The Irresistible Impulse Test, The Model Penal Code Test, and The Durham Rule.
Both Iowa and Nebraska follow the M’Naghten standard. The M’Naghten standard defines the insanity plea in criminal cases as the defendant being unable to distinguish between right and wrong actions, or that their judgment was impaired due to a disease of the mind.
What Happens After a Plea of Temporary Insanity?
While you might hear the phrase “temporary insanity” used quite frequently in crime drama’s the reality of its use as a defense is quite different. An experienced defense attorney isn’t going to attempt to establish temporary insanity in cases where the defining elements fail to exist. From a legal standpoint, this means that pleas of temporary insanity are relatively rare and even when they are employed, the success rate is low.
However, in true cases where a true mental impairment existed, a plea of temporary insanity provides the opportunity for someone who otherwise would not have committed a crime to receive rehabilitative treatment rather than more severe penalties of incarceration. In the event that a plea of temporary insanity has been accepted, the court will rule that the defendant be placed in a mental institution for evaluation and treatment.
On the surface, it might seem that this is a better option that incarceration. However, a judge does not determine the length of treatment. Instead, how long a person remains in the mental facility is determined by progress and periodic reviews. In some cases, the amount of time that a person spends in the treatment facility is longer than the sentence they would have received.
Contact an Experienced Attorney
The temporary insanity defense is not designed to be used as a get out of jail free card. However, there are certain situation in which it applies and can provide the best outcome for everyone involved. If you’ve been involved in a crime and want to explore a temporary insanity defense, we’re here to help. Contact Fitch & Stahle Law Office and speak to a criminal defense attorney today.
