Articles Index

Insanity Pleas & Capital Punishment
Sometimes, when one person kills another, the defense offered in court is that although the accused did commit the crime, they should not be held legally culpable because they were insane. How is such a person deemed insane? Before we decide that a person is legally insane, we first have to determine what it means to be sane, much less insane.

What Price Justice?
Capital cases are very expensive. Indeed, their expense is one of the reasons that people call for changes in how they are handled. Those accused of and convicted on capital charges get many opportunities to challenge what has happened to them, with appeals sometimes dragging on for years. Should the public pay for all of this?

Death & Insanity
It is a known fact that a great many of the people sitting on death row are either mentally handicapped or mentally ill. According to a 1987 report by the Clearinghouse on Georgia Jails and Prisons, 20% of that state’s death row inmates were either severely mentally handicapped or of below normal intelligence.

Victims' Rights
Since the 1970s, a movement has grown around the idea of 'Victims' Rights,' displacing the more traditional concept of 'Law and Order' being the basis of criminal law and prosecution. According to this new theory, crimes are committed not so much against a community, but instead just against individuals - and because of this, those individuals need to have a new say in how accused criminals are prosecuted and/or how convicted criminals are sentenced.

Innocence, Guilt, and Money
The OJ Simpson trial provided interesting lessons regarding guilt, innocence and criminal procedure, but the most interesting lesson was that none of the real lessons were ever learned or broadly applied. People all over America watched the trial, but it’s unclear whether they really learned anything from it. That’s a shame because it was such an opportunity.