Quote:
Originally posted by Spartak
Only something like 5% of insanity defences actually succeed, not sure of the exact statistic though, but its very low.
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According to the news story I was watching, only 1% of murder defendents used the insanity defense, I don't remember how many of those actually succeed, although 5% sounds right.
I was surprised to hear it was such a small number. I seem to recall a few local cases where the insanity defense was used. Maybe people in Michigan are a bit nuttier than most.
I recall reading about a woman a few cities to the west of where I live who drowned her kids in a bathtub, four or five of them. She did it supposedly because voices were telling her the world was going to end (an interesting thing was that this happened on Sept 10th, 2001). Certainly insane by anyone's definition, but should she ever be allowed to roam the streets, unsupervised?