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55 U. Cin. L. Rev. 943 (1986-1987)
A Pleasant Surprise: The Guilty but Mentally Ill Verdict has Both Succeeded in Its Own Right and Successfully Preserved the Traditional Role of the Insanity Defense

handle is hein.journals/ucinlr55 and id is 953 raw text is: UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI LAW REVIEW PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE BOARD OF EDITORS VOLUME 55 1987 No. 4 A PLEASANT SURPRISE: THE GUILTY BUT MENTALLY ILL VERDICT HAS BOTH SUCCEEDED IN ITS OWN RIGHT AND SUCCESSFULLY PRESERVED THE TRADITIONAL ROLE OF THE INSANITY DEFENSE Ira Mickenberg* INTRODUCTION For more than 200 years, the insanity defense has been the focus of intense legal and political debate. It is not surprising that the controversy has endured for so long, since it involves moral and emotional issues that are not easily resolved by rational discussion. What is astonishing, however, is that the form and content of the debate have remained virtually unchanged since the nineteenth century. The passage of time has had no effect upon an endless cycle that typically begins with a highly publicized trial in which the accused admits committing a criminal act, but is acquitted by reason of in- sanity. The public then becomes outraged at the spectacle of an apparently guilty defendant beating the rap, and petitions polit- ical authorities for assurance that such an injustice will not happen again. This in turn leads to predictable political attempts to do away with the insanity defense, followed by an equally predictable rash of scholarly treatises debating the moral, social, and legal conse- quences of maintaining, abolishing, or modifying it. In the end, the defense is either liberalized or restricted, but so marginally that neither side is satisfied with the outcome. The controversy then * Associate Professor of Law, University of Dayton School of Law; A.B., 1972, Williams College; J.D., 1975, LL.M., 1982, New York University Law School. 943

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