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Uses of the Insanity Defense · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from how stuff
0:04
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:12
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, I'm hungry, and there's Charlotte. Did that make
0:17
Speaker 1: you hungry? It did? We were just talking about I
0:19
Speaker 1: made my last chili the season, and Josh's over here
0:22
Speaker 1: mouth watering, yeah, because you're talking about for tea soup,
0:26
Speaker 1: white chili, bread chili. I'll eat any kind of chili really,
0:30
Speaker 1: And Jerry always eats in here. People don't know that
0:33
Speaker 1: she eats lunch while we were for so this smell
0:36
Speaker 1: of her stuff always wots over. It's delicious. The avocado
0:39
Speaker 1: looks top notch Jerry, It's insane how good that stuff is.
0:43
Speaker 1: Oh man, Uh, it's funny that you bring that up, Chuck,
0:48
Speaker 1: because we are talking today about the insanity defense. Is
0:51
Speaker 1: that why you just did that? Yeah, you know, Chuck. Yeah,
0:56
Speaker 1: for a very long time, basically since there was is
1:00
Speaker 1: such a thing as law, you know, prior to the
1:03
Speaker 1: advent of law in western civilization, if I killed your brother,
1:09
Speaker 1: you would come kill me. Yeah, and I right, that
1:13
Speaker 1: was actually the first law, the Code of Hammurabi from
1:17
Speaker 1: the Bible. But a little after that, right, and actually
1:20
Speaker 1: I think it predates the Bible Hammurabi. Yeah, I mean
1:24
Speaker 1: it's like on a black obelisk. Yeah, all right, that's old.
1:30
Speaker 1: That's what I mean. Um, the pretty much the whole
1:35
Speaker 1: idea behind law from the get go was the idea
1:38
Speaker 1: of what was going on in your head when you
1:41
Speaker 1: did something motive tent. There's a difference between accidentally killing
1:48
Speaker 1: somebody and killing someone on purpose, and this was the
1:52
Speaker 1: idea behind law, to get to the bottom of it
1:54
Speaker 1: and then punish accordingly. And so it's it's a pretty
1:58
Speaker 1: short hop, skip and a jump from getting to the
2:02
Speaker 1: bottom of what someone was thinking at the time to
2:05
Speaker 1: finding that some people weren't thinking anything that any sane
2:09
Speaker 1: human being would recognize as rational. And with that understanding
2:16
Speaker 1: came the beginnings the premise of what we recognize now
2:20
Speaker 1: is the insanity defense. But this this whole idea that
2:23
Speaker 1: somebody can that the insane, those who are mentally ill
2:30
Speaker 1: um can't understand or grasp the criminality, the moral wrongness
2:38
Speaker 1: of their act um. The idea that that's out there,
2:43
Speaker 1: that people like that are out there, has moved us,
2:45
Speaker 1: I think, quite compassionately, like this check one for humanity.
2:49
Speaker 1: In my opinion, to protect them, like we need to
2:51
Speaker 1: make sure they don't do that again. But that's not
2:54
Speaker 1: evil and the point of law is to punish evil,
3:00
Speaker 1: right fielders. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, you know so. Um,
3:04
Speaker 1: the from the beginning of understanding this too, even to today,
3:10
Speaker 1: that the insanity defense has undergone evolution after evolution after evolution. Yeah,
3:16
Speaker 1: and you know quite a bit about this a little bit. Um.
3:20
Speaker 1: It started out in sixteenth century England and um. At
3:23
Speaker 1: the time, Uh, they had the wild beast test in
3:26
Speaker 1: England where a person was so depraved of understanding or
3:32
Speaker 1: memory of like what they had done that uh quote
3:35
Speaker 1: no more than an infant of brute or a wild
3:37
Speaker 1: beast could be found not guilty of his crimes. Um.
3:41
Speaker 1: And it's important to say in insanity is not a
3:43
Speaker 1: medical condition, Like you can't look it up and define
3:47
Speaker 1: insane in like the medical what was was the book
3:51
Speaker 1: the d S d S, d S M. Insanity is
3:54
Speaker 1: not in there, I don't think, um. And there's no
3:57
Speaker 1: single standard in the United States were defining it um
4:00
Speaker 1: in the court system as far as the defense goes
4:03
Speaker 1: even today. Yeah, Like different states have different methods. There's
4:08
Speaker 1: not like a single federal standard. Yeah, and there's actually
4:10
Speaker 1: a conversation now of whether or not that should be.
4:14
Speaker 1: That's a constitutional right protected by the Eighth Amendment that
4:17
Speaker 1: you are, um, you have a right to plead insanity
4:22
Speaker 1: or try to prove that you were insane. And yeah,
4:24
Speaker 1: because some states recognize it, right, Uh yeah, as we'll
4:27
Speaker 1: find out. Um. So there's a couple of different um
4:31
Speaker 1: tests that the United States generally operate under. And the
4:35
Speaker 1: first one is the uh monoton test. You pronounced that.
4:40
Speaker 1: I think it's m apostrophe not in and it looks
4:43
Speaker 1: like it should be McNaughton, but they left the sea
4:45
Speaker 1: out and replace it with an apostitis exactly. So he's
4:48
Speaker 1: very stylish. And that was in the UK and the
4:52
Speaker 1: eighteen forties, and I guess we should go ahead and
4:54
Speaker 1: talk about that case now. Well, Daniel Manon, Yeah, yeah, um.
4:57
Speaker 1: He was a Scottish woodwork um who believed that Prime
5:02
Speaker 1: Minister Robert Peel and the Pope were plotting against him. Yeah,
5:07
Speaker 1: so um, Manaunton went to London and he shot and
5:12
Speaker 1: killed Peel's um secretary. Now, was that a mistake in
5:15
Speaker 1: the identity thing or was it just a bad shot?
5:18
Speaker 1: I didn't see kill the wrong person. Yes, but he
5:21
Speaker 1: did kill that person with the intent of killing Peel
5:24
Speaker 1: because he thought that Peel was out to get him. Um,
5:27
Speaker 1: and so Peel was. He was tried, but he was
5:32
Speaker 1: acquitted by reason of insanity and he was sentenced to
5:36
Speaker 1: life in Bedlam, which was not a nice place to be.
5:40
Speaker 1: It just sounds like, you know, why would you name
5:42
Speaker 1: it Bedlam unless it was just awful. Well, you know,
5:45
Speaker 1: this is where it comes from. Yeah, because Bedlam was
5:47
Speaker 1: like kind of a British um. I think it was open.
5:50
Speaker 1: It was open in twelve seven and it was kind
5:52
Speaker 1: of short for Bethlehem, and it was the first mental
5:54
Speaker 1: asylum in Europe. Yeah, and this guy was sentenced to
5:58
Speaker 1: life there, which is that's that was not a nice
6:00
Speaker 1: thing to have happened to you. But even still, the
6:03
Speaker 1: fact that some guy tried to kill the Prime Minister
6:06
Speaker 1: and was not thrown into prison, which I imagine was
6:09
Speaker 1: even worse than Bedlam. Um. Queen Elizabeth herself came out
6:13
Speaker 1: and said, well, what are you guys doing? What courts
6:17
Speaker 1: explain yourselves. And what the courts came up with was
6:20
Speaker 1: what came to be known as the Magnaton rule. They said,
6:23
Speaker 1: if you here's a test for insanity. If somebody UM
6:28
Speaker 1: doesn't know what they're doing at the time they commit
6:30
Speaker 1: the crime, or they don't know what they're doing was
6:34
Speaker 1: right or wrong. It's also called the right wrong test.
6:36
Speaker 1: Then from now on under British law, we're going to
6:39
Speaker 1: uniformly say that that person is insane and can be
6:43
Speaker 1: acquitted of a crime. They really called it the right
6:45
Speaker 1: wrong test. It's along the nose UM, so that's a
6:49
Speaker 1: monoton test and what we'll get to how that applies today.
6:52
Speaker 1: UH and then came along UM American Law Institute the
6:56
Speaker 1: a l I established an insanity test in nineteen two,
7:00
Speaker 1: um laid out in the Model Penal Code, and they
7:04
Speaker 1: then began to consider what they called irresistible impulse. So
7:09
Speaker 1: if you're a defendant, you could not refrain from doing
7:13
Speaker 1: something you knew was wrong, like you you can see red,
7:16
Speaker 1: you know what's wrong to kill someone, but you just
7:17
Speaker 1: couldn't help yourself, like what you might call a crime
7:20
Speaker 1: of passion or something like that, like you're so overwhelmed
7:23
Speaker 1: with rage or vengeance or whatever. You know what you're
7:25
Speaker 1: doing is wrong, but you can't stop yourself. It's also
7:27
Speaker 1: called the volition rule. YE you're doing it like Shawshank
7:31
Speaker 1: for instance, although he didn't really kill anyone, but that's
7:35
Speaker 1: what they thought was Tim Robbins had walked in on
7:38
Speaker 1: his wife and like, try this guy. So, um, under
7:41
Speaker 1: this test, h you were criminally insane if you're unable
7:44
Speaker 1: to quote appreciate the criminality of conduct or to conform
7:49
Speaker 1: your conduct to the requirements of the law. So you
7:52
Speaker 1: can still go out and kill someone and uh use
7:56
Speaker 1: gloves and dispose of the body and all that stuff
8:00
Speaker 1: and still be considered insane under this standard used to
8:04
Speaker 1: it was pretty it was pretty controversial. And then twenty
8:07
Speaker 1: years after that, I got named John Hinckley changed all
8:10
Speaker 1: that again, which led to the Insanity Defense Reform Act
8:14
Speaker 1: of eighty four. So what happened with Hinkley? We all
8:17
Speaker 1: remember that, right, Yeah, he went after Reagan to impress
8:20
Speaker 1: Jodie Foster and he shot Reagan and he was acquitted.
8:23
Speaker 1: He was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and
8:26
Speaker 1: the nation went crazy. Yeah, people were like because it
8:30
Speaker 1: was the president, you know, like, how can you acquit
8:31
Speaker 1: this guy? Right? Well, not only that, it was when
8:35
Speaker 1: Monoton was sentenced to bedlam and the Monoton Rule came
8:38
Speaker 1: about for about a hundred years after that, maybe a
8:42
Speaker 1: little less. If you were found insane, whether or not
8:47
Speaker 1: you're acquitted, you still spent the rest of your life
8:49
Speaker 1: in an insane asylum. As psychology progressed further and further
8:54
Speaker 1: and got to the point where they're like, hey, this
8:55
Speaker 1: person's cured. This person's cured. That person. Sometimes when you
9:00
Speaker 1: were found not guilty, very's in insanity, you weren't even
9:03
Speaker 1: like you got out after a couple of years. It
9:06
Speaker 1: was basically tantamount to getting off. And by the time
9:09
Speaker 1: Hinckley was acquitted, UM that the public kind of saw
9:14
Speaker 1: that that was the case, like he wasn't going to
9:16
Speaker 1: get any kind of punishment, and we need to do something.
9:19
Speaker 1: So they came up with a reform for the insanity defense. Yeah,
9:23
Speaker 1: and basically that sort of put the ali standard aside
9:27
Speaker 1: and brought us back to something more like the magnoton rule.
9:31
Speaker 1: And UH even more significantly, probably they federal and state
9:36
Speaker 1: shifted the burden of proof after Hinckley to UH defense,
9:41
Speaker 1: so you had to instead of being in on the prosecution, UM,
9:45
Speaker 1: it was on the defense to prove that they were
9:48
Speaker 1: UH with clear evidence that they were legally insane. At
9:51
Speaker 1: the time, So that was a big deal that shift. Yeah,
9:53
Speaker 1: and yeah, they did away with the volition rule too, right,
9:56
Speaker 1: I think so. And and it's important to know that
9:59
Speaker 1: when you there's two ways to to use the insanity role.
10:01
Speaker 1: You can go guilty by reasons of insanity or not
10:04
Speaker 1: guilty by reasons of insanity, which is interesting that you
10:07
Speaker 1: can use the same thing for guilty or not guilty.
10:11
Speaker 1: But um, it's there to protect the mentally ill, you know.
10:14
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a good thing, and it's not
10:17
Speaker 1: it's pretty tough to get it through. Like only one
10:20
Speaker 1: percent of cases are successful, and then only about fifteen
10:25
Speaker 1: of that one percent are actual acquittals. So it's not like,
10:28
Speaker 1: you know, oh I was I was insane at the time,
10:31
Speaker 1: and so you can't throw me in jail. Yeah, well
10:34
Speaker 1: it's pretty rare at the time. Is a really big
10:36
Speaker 1: thing too. You can't just be like, oh, well, I'm
10:38
Speaker 1: mentally ill, so I gotta let me off, because then
10:40
Speaker 1: I have blanket immunity from any of my actions. You
10:43
Speaker 1: have to be able to prove that at that time
10:45
Speaker 1: you didn't understand what you were doing was wrong, you
10:48
Speaker 1: were not competent to too. I guess stand trial, Yeah,
10:54
Speaker 1: and for that and convince a jury of that, which
10:56
Speaker 1: is that's the trick. Yeah. So we have some famous
10:59
Speaker 1: cases here. Yeah Manton his case came in uh eighteen
11:04
Speaker 1: forty three, but um, he wasn't the first one in
11:08
Speaker 1: the West to uh, I guess get off for being insane.
11:13
Speaker 1: Acquitted by reason of insanity. Um. In the United States
11:17
Speaker 1: back in eighteen thirty five, a guy named Richard Lawrence,
11:21
Speaker 1: who was a house painter, um, was acquitted by reason
11:25
Speaker 1: of insanity. We're trying to kill the president. Yeah, trying
11:28
Speaker 1: to kill him really hard to Andrew Jackson was the
11:31
Speaker 1: president at the time. Yeah. I don't think I knew
11:34
Speaker 1: this until this article. I didn't need did you know
11:36
Speaker 1: you didn't know? Okay, I'm not a dummy. Then he
11:38
Speaker 1: had a derringer, and I think derringers at the time
11:40
Speaker 1: were notorious for not firing. It fired, it fired bullet,
11:47
Speaker 1: so it went off, but the bullet didn't come out. Well, yeah,
11:50
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. They were known for not firing correctly.
11:53
Speaker 1: And uh. He actually had two derringers and they both misfired,
11:56
Speaker 1: and apparently Jackson went after him with his cane like
12:00
Speaker 1: you know this dude was trying to kill me. Like
12:02
Speaker 1: there was no secret service at the time. I guess
12:03
Speaker 1: secret service was his cane, right. He happened to be
12:05
Speaker 1: coming out of a state funeral. And so not only
12:07
Speaker 1: did Andrew Jackson beat this guy with his kane, none
12:10
Speaker 1: other than Tennessee Senator Davy Crockett helps to subdue again,
12:14
Speaker 1: of course he did. Richard Lawrence is like, this is awesome.
12:19
Speaker 1: I'm getting beat by Davy Cross Jackson. I'll be remembered forever.
12:24
Speaker 1: And he was and as uh if you know about him, Um,
12:27
Speaker 1: but he was acquitted and committed to a mental asylum
12:31
Speaker 1: and that was the end of Richard Lawrence as far
12:34
Speaker 1: as we know. Yeah, and we should say like he
12:36
Speaker 1: was it wasn't just going after the president that made
12:39
Speaker 1: him insane. He was He believed he was Richer the
12:41
Speaker 1: Third uh, the king who was recently found buried beneath
12:45
Speaker 1: the parking lot. Oh yeah, um, he thought he was
12:48
Speaker 1: Richer the Third and the Andrew Jackson had killed his
12:50
Speaker 1: father and that by killing Andrew Jackson, um, a lot
12:53
Speaker 1: more money would be available. This is during a depression,
12:56
Speaker 1: and Jackson actually, for his part, came to believe that
13:00
Speaker 1: Richard Lawrence was a patsy in an assassination attempt carried
13:04
Speaker 1: out by the rival I think Wig Party who wanted
13:08
Speaker 1: him out of the presidency, which wasn't true, no, but
13:11
Speaker 1: he spent the rest of his life paranoid about it. Alright,
13:15
Speaker 1: So uh ezra Pound, poet, writer, and unbeknownst to me,
13:23
Speaker 1: uh anti Semite and fascist. I had no idea. I
13:27
Speaker 1: didn't either. He was um. And this was a tricky
13:30
Speaker 1: case because most people believe now that he wasn't insane
13:34
Speaker 1: and that he just really I knew the right people
13:36
Speaker 1: and pulled the right strings to get out of a crime.
13:39
Speaker 1: So he was a big Mussolini guy. Moved to Italy
13:42
Speaker 1: and started doing a radio broadcast, began writing and broadcasting
13:46
Speaker 1: these anti Semitic, anti Roosevelt rants during World War Two.
13:51
Speaker 1: That doesn't sit well with the United States, of course,
13:53
Speaker 1: especially not when we invade Italy and take over Ya.
13:56
Speaker 1: And so uh it was an act of treason, and
13:59
Speaker 1: he was arrested and imprisoned in Italy, and then after
14:02
Speaker 1: Mussolini died, he was extradited. Uh faced these charges and
14:06
Speaker 1: he pled insanity and was actually found not competent to
14:09
Speaker 1: stand trial and spent the rest of his days in
14:13
Speaker 1: a middle asylum, Saint Elizabeth's in d C, Washington, DC.
14:16
Speaker 1: He didn't spend the rest of his days. He got
14:18
Speaker 1: out in nineteen fifty eight. Oh. I thought he died
14:21
Speaker 1: at night, and while he was at St. Elizabeth's, which
14:24
Speaker 1: was headed by a devotee of Ezra Pound, a guy
14:28
Speaker 1: named Dr winfried Overholser, Sr. That's not a real name.
14:31
Speaker 1: I swear he was the head of Saint Elizabeth and
14:34
Speaker 1: he thought Pound was just one of the greatest literary
14:37
Speaker 1: figures alive. I thought he died there and no, and
14:40
Speaker 1: so he vouched for him and um. Basically Pound was
14:44
Speaker 1: allowed to have like visitors over for sex anytime, and he
14:47
Speaker 1: he had a really cushy um life while he was there,
14:51
Speaker 1: and got out and got around being tried for treason
14:54
Speaker 1: even though he was never declared insane. No doctor ever
14:57
Speaker 1: said this man's insane. They just vouched for him that
15:00
Speaker 1: he was. I can't remember how they put it, but
15:03
Speaker 1: basically they got around it with some antickes off his
15:07
Speaker 1: rocker is that the legal term. Uh. The next one
15:12
Speaker 1: is pretty interesting to Anthony and William Esposito brothers dubbed
15:16
Speaker 1: the Mad Dog killers in one in January, New York City,
15:20
Speaker 1: they held up their office manor and office manager for
15:24
Speaker 1: about six fifty bucks and then shot and killed him.
15:27
Speaker 1: And then this wild police chase on foot down Fifth
15:31
Speaker 1: Avenue or up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, like darting in
15:35
Speaker 1: and out of department stores, shooting and stuff. One of
15:38
Speaker 1: the guys gets popped in the leg, goes down, plays dead,
15:42
Speaker 1: and then shoots and kills the officer as he approaches them.
15:45
Speaker 1: The dirty rat, Oh man, that's such a dirty right move.
15:48
Speaker 1: The other guy or when he shot and killed the
15:51
Speaker 1: cop um, he got up and starry to run off
15:54
Speaker 1: in a bunch of New Yorkers got on top of
15:56
Speaker 1: him and beat him unconscious. That's the beauty of New York.
16:00
Speaker 1: And they they found the other guy his brother in
16:03
Speaker 1: in a convenience store, and so they were caught and tried,
16:08
Speaker 1: and throughout the trial they barked and drooled and banged
16:13
Speaker 1: their heads on the on the desk because apparently this
16:15
Speaker 1: is what insane people do exactly, And the jury didn't
16:18
Speaker 1: buy it and convicted him both sentenced him to death.
16:21
Speaker 1: Actually yeah, And while they were at sing sing they
16:24
Speaker 1: continued this I mean I I don't know if people
16:28
Speaker 1: thought it was real or not, So I don't I'm
16:30
Speaker 1: hesitated to say continued the charade because maybe they were
16:33
Speaker 1: a little off. But um, they continued this in prison,
16:38
Speaker 1: and they basically didn't care in sing sing and they
16:41
Speaker 1: were put to death in so unsuccessful in their bid
16:46
Speaker 1: to get off on the insanity rule. Yeah, like you said,
16:49
Speaker 1: only is effective in one percent of cases, Andrew Goldstein, Yeah,
16:54
Speaker 1: I remember this going down, do you really? Yeah, this
16:58
Speaker 1: is such a stead case. Nine He uh pushed a
17:02
Speaker 1: woman named Kendra Webdale in front of the end train
17:05
Speaker 1: at the twenty three Street station during a psychotic episode.
17:10
Speaker 1: And this was a true case of someone who was deeply,
17:14
Speaker 1: deeply troubled. You know. It wasn't someone who said, let
17:17
Speaker 1: me use the insanity defense because I didn't know what
17:19
Speaker 1: I was doing at the time. He uh started off
17:22
Speaker 1: his life as a pretty bright guy and then started
17:24
Speaker 1: suffering delusions in college and had been in and out
17:28
Speaker 1: of psychiatric hospitals. Um had had violent episodes with his mother,
17:33
Speaker 1: violent behavior, basically committed self committed thirteen times over a
17:38
Speaker 1: two year period, and was just released a few weeks
17:41
Speaker 1: before he had pushed this poor woman in front of
17:43
Speaker 1: the train which killed her. Yeah, and um, as a
17:46
Speaker 1: result of her death, New York came up with something
17:49
Speaker 1: called Kendra's Law, which gives judges the power to um
17:54
Speaker 1: forcibly commit people they think need psychiatric attention for up
17:59
Speaker 1: to seventy two hours. Um, which is a big deal.
18:02
Speaker 1: But in this case it doesn't quite jibe from what
18:05
Speaker 1: I understand, because Goldstein did voluntarily seek treatment. Oh yeah,
18:12
Speaker 1: it's just a sad case. He was tried three times
18:15
Speaker 1: for it. The first time there was a hung jury.
18:18
Speaker 1: He played insanity. The second time he was found guilty.
18:21
Speaker 1: But um, that uh, that finding what was what would
18:25
Speaker 1: that be called? Verdict? Yeah? That verdict? Man, something's up
18:30
Speaker 1: with me? That was thrown out on a technicality as
18:32
Speaker 1: I understand. And then in two thousand and five he
18:35
Speaker 1: was tried for a third time and play guilty, yeah,
18:37
Speaker 1: to manslaughter though not murder. Yeah, and he has in
18:41
Speaker 1: prison and he was sitce the twenty three years plus
18:43
Speaker 1: five of probation, and like you said, Kender's Law was
18:47
Speaker 1: passed as a result. So yeah, very very sad case. Yeah,
18:52
Speaker 1: there's no nobody comes out a winner on that. You
18:55
Speaker 1: got one more yeah, um? John Delling I mentioned or not,
19:00
Speaker 1: um that there was a discussion about whether or not
19:03
Speaker 1: someone has a constitutional right to plead insanity. Um. This
19:07
Speaker 1: is the guy that brought it up most recently. Um.
19:10
Speaker 1: Back in two thousand seven, he shot over the course
19:13
Speaker 1: of a couple of months, he shot three of his
19:16
Speaker 1: friends friends, Yeah, and killed two of them. One was
19:19
Speaker 1: a childhood friend, were friends since childhood. And um, it
19:24
Speaker 1: was he was a diagnosed paranoid. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
19:30
Speaker 1: And um, he was under the impression that people were
19:33
Speaker 1: stealing his powers. I guess the people he that he killed. Yeah.
19:39
Speaker 1: The thing is, um, even the defense and the judge said,
19:43
Speaker 1: you know, the whole reason that you did this was
19:45
Speaker 1: because of your mental illness, and you this is a
19:49
Speaker 1: perfect insanity defense. Idaho doesn't recognize the insanity defense. So
19:53
Speaker 1: he was sentenced for to two life terms in solitary
19:57
Speaker 1: confinement without parole for were the killings. Yeah, and like
20:02
Speaker 1: everyone agreed that this guy was mentally ill. But like
20:06
Speaker 1: you said, wrong state, wrong crime, and uh that's what
20:12
Speaker 1: prompted like like you were talking about like is this
20:15
Speaker 1: should this be a federal right? And you know, after
20:18
Speaker 1: the Hinckley verdict, a lot of states repealed the insanity defense, um,
20:23
Speaker 1: and then a lot of them went back and reinstated
20:26
Speaker 1: it under different terms. Yeah, like Utah for example, repealed
20:29
Speaker 1: it and then allowed it to come back. But it's
20:33
Speaker 1: next to impossible to prove it under the definition that
20:37
Speaker 1: that's out there. But Idaho was like, no, there's no
20:39
Speaker 1: insanity defense. And I think there's a couple of other
20:43
Speaker 1: states too. Well, that's all the cases I have same here. Man,
20:48
Speaker 1: It's it's definitely I mean, it's there to help the
20:51
Speaker 1: mentally ill. But I think you're right. For a little
20:54
Speaker 1: while there, it was you know, plead insane, go to
20:58
Speaker 1: a hospital, a few years, get out. Well, you know
21:02
Speaker 1: what's interesting is we we talked about um, we talked
21:06
Speaker 1: about them getting rid of the volition rule, right, but
21:10
Speaker 1: like just quickly Lorraina Bobbitt she was basically temporarily insane
21:14
Speaker 1: and she was acquitted of her actions assault. And the
21:18
Speaker 1: Dahmer was a very famous case too. Yes, but he's
21:21
Speaker 1: his insanity plea didn't work out because the jury believed
21:25
Speaker 1: he knew what he was doing was wrong. Neither did
21:27
Speaker 1: his prisons day. You know that guys, he's trying to
21:30
Speaker 1: write a book the guy who killed him. No, I
21:32
Speaker 1: didn't know that. Yeah. I'm kind of interested too, because
21:34
Speaker 1: he always like, there's not a whole lot of information
21:38
Speaker 1: on what's his name, Uh, somebody Carver, Clarence Carver. I think, no,
21:43
Speaker 1: you're thinking of the saxophonist for the Bruce Springsteen bangand
21:46
Speaker 1: that's Clarence Clemens. And he's passed away. His name is
21:50
Speaker 1: Christopher Scarver, Clarence Carter Carver, Christopher Scarver, Clarence Clemens passed away. Yeah, man,
21:58
Speaker 1: like last year. I think I didn't know that, said, um.
22:02
Speaker 1: So anyway, he's trying to write a book, and I
22:03
Speaker 1: was always curious because there's not a lot of information
22:05
Speaker 1: like why he killed he killed those two guys that day?
22:08
Speaker 1: Oh he killed someone else that day, Yeah, he killed
22:11
Speaker 1: He was on bathroom duty with two other dudes, two
22:13
Speaker 1: other murderers and another guy. And I think he got
22:17
Speaker 1: a piece of like a metal bar from the gym
22:19
Speaker 1: and beat them to death. And uh, he wants to
22:22
Speaker 1: write a book now to like explain why he did
22:23
Speaker 1: it and to reveal Bomber's final words, which you know,
22:27
Speaker 1: it's very salacious. But of course I'm like, what do
22:30
Speaker 1: you say, Well, I hope he does do it and
22:31
Speaker 1: then finds out later on that you're not legally allowed
22:34
Speaker 1: to profit from your crime. Yeah, that's true, so he
22:37
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to If you're listening to this, I
22:40
Speaker 1: didn't just say that, Scarborough. I don't think he's listening. Okay. Uh,
22:44
Speaker 1: people do listen to this in prison. We know that
22:46
Speaker 1: for a fact. Yeah, he's probably making a mould wine
22:49
Speaker 1: in a sock. Uh. You got anything else on mould wine? Nope? Okay.
22:56
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about the insanity defense, um,
23:00
Speaker 1: there's a great article on how stuff works dot Com
23:03
Speaker 1: called ten Uses of the Insanity Defense. And there's another
23:06
Speaker 1: one called, um, what is the definition of insanity? Right? Yeah,
23:10
Speaker 1: which we'll go back. We may want to do that
23:12
Speaker 1: one in full. We'll see if it's got more stuff
23:14
Speaker 1: in there. Um. You can check both of those out
23:17
Speaker 1: by typing insanity into search bar the search bar how
23:21
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com Because, as I said, search bar, Uh,
23:24
Speaker 1: that means it's time for this. No, it's sime for
23:26
Speaker 1: listening now, okay, Josh. Part three not listener mail, but
23:32
Speaker 1: part three of what Okay, administrative details. If you haven't
23:45
Speaker 1: learned by now's when we thank people for sending us
23:47
Speaker 1: nice things, and we're almost done, like like we're caught up. Man.
23:51
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I have a few on my desk, but
23:52
Speaker 1: that's nothing like a few was no big deal, all right.
23:56
Speaker 1: We got some awesome aluminum prints from Dan Gaffney of
23:59
Speaker 1: tech Lab Photo in Baltimore. Yeah, thanks Dane. Um you
24:02
Speaker 1: remember him. We corresponded with him recently. Yeah, good guy.
24:05
Speaker 1: Thanks Dan. Uh is their website on there? Uh no,
24:09
Speaker 1: but tech Lab Photo in Baltimore. Use the old search
24:12
Speaker 1: engine of your choice to figure that out, or you
24:14
Speaker 1: can just drive there. Um. We got a nice postcard
24:17
Speaker 1: of Jesus's baptismal site in the Jordan River from Christina Curtis,
24:21
Speaker 1: who researches water resources in Jordan. Thank you for that.
24:25
Speaker 1: We got some coffee from Singing Rooster Coffee dot com.
24:29
Speaker 1: The proceeds go to help Project Haiti dot org. And
24:32
Speaker 1: I think I just said of the proceeds, you sure did,
24:36
Speaker 1: so that's that's pretty awesome. So support Singing Rooster Coffee
24:40
Speaker 1: dot com. Yeah. Um. We got a postcard of Minari,
24:43
Speaker 1: Pakistan tower from or Fom. Thank you very much for that. Uh,
24:47
Speaker 1: Don Kobi or Buddy Coops Sini. That awesome. It was
24:51
Speaker 1: on glass, right, Yeah, it's like a cutting board. How
24:54
Speaker 1: is that what that is? I believe so it's what
24:56
Speaker 1: that's what I've been using it for. I know that's
24:59
Speaker 1: what it's. It's goal her photograph underneath a photograph that
25:02
Speaker 1: she took of like a landscape. Um, but it's I'm
25:04
Speaker 1: pretty sure it's a cutting board. All right. You should
25:07
Speaker 1: probably let us know, Koby, don't break it. Uh. And
25:09
Speaker 1: we also got a letter from boy scout Brandon W.
25:12
Speaker 1: Who wrote us to earn his communications merit badge. Um.
25:16
Speaker 1: We got a handwritten note card suggesting we do three
25:19
Speaker 1: D printers from I think another erfon. We're gonna have
25:23
Speaker 1: to do that. Everyone is asking for three D printing.
25:26
Speaker 1: It's the hot thing I know Atlantic core Vet's drum
25:33
Speaker 1: and Bugle core patch. Um. And I don't know who
25:37
Speaker 1: sent it, and I apologize that we don't have the name,
25:39
Speaker 1: but the Atlanta Corvette Drum and Bugle Corps is a
25:42
Speaker 1: patch and I might put it on a hat. Oh
25:44
Speaker 1: wow wow. Uh. We got some nice letters um, requesting
25:50
Speaker 1: info on unsolved questions like the Bermuda triangle, Handenberg exorcism
25:56
Speaker 1: from Andrea P. Jake M. Jason S, Stephanie B and
26:00
Speaker 1: Vanessa be All from the eighth grade class at North
26:03
Speaker 1: Carol Middle School in Hampstead, Maryland. Sorry we didn't write
26:06
Speaker 1: back in time. I believe they're all in high school now. Really, yeah,
26:09
Speaker 1: but thank you for writing in guys, keep growing up.
26:13
Speaker 1: Um awesome insects science illustration postcard from Martha Iserman of
26:17
Speaker 1: Big Red Sharks dot com and New Zealand's not down
26:22
Speaker 1: under postcard in New Zealand facts. Uh and we can't
26:26
Speaker 1: really see who signed it because the post office stamped
26:28
Speaker 1: over it, so see our USPS podcast for why that happens. Um,
26:34
Speaker 1: but we thank you for that. We got a letter
26:36
Speaker 1: from Benjamin from Gardner's Avenue School in Livittown, New York,
26:40
Speaker 1: who wanted info on the Statue of Liberty. Thank you
26:43
Speaker 1: for that. National Radio Astronomy Observatory in New Mexico said
26:49
Speaker 1: it's a postcard from Dylan C. And he is in
26:51
Speaker 1: the Navy and an amateur astronomer. Yeah. He said it
26:54
Speaker 1: was like going to uh, I can't remember where, but
26:57
Speaker 1: it was like a pilgrimage for him. Nice. Yeah, um,
27:01
Speaker 1: let's see we got an exceptional hand drawn postcard. From Alex,
27:04
Speaker 1: who's an artist in North Carolina. We got a CD
27:09
Speaker 1: of the album The Broken Record by Twink, which is
27:12
Speaker 1: the Toy Piano band. Did you hear They're pretty awesome? Uh?
27:16
Speaker 1: Las Arena Chile. We got a postcard from Margaret's Seed
27:20
Speaker 1: from Chile, and uh coffee and coffee tips from Otto Kampa.
27:27
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I didn't see the coffee tips. Is there
27:29
Speaker 1: a question mark at the end of that person's name.
27:32
Speaker 1: We got a Mexican pizza menu from Christie Thid which
27:36
Speaker 1: includes like peach, leg of pork, avocado tuna, like a
27:41
Speaker 1: pork that struck my fancy. I would eat some avocado pizza. Like,
27:45
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, I'm putting avocado in my
27:46
Speaker 1: next pizza, right. I got some more coffee from Alex
27:50
Speaker 1: with a y X and our friends at the Adina,
27:55
Speaker 1: Minnesota Done Brothers Coffee place. Yeah, thank you for that. Um, well,
28:00
Speaker 1: you've been get lots of coffee. Huh, Like if you
28:02
Speaker 1: had to buy coffee in a couple of years. Oh,
28:03
Speaker 1: it's all gone, is it? Yeah? That's all from the
28:05
Speaker 1: coffee podcast. Okay, portrait book of and I shared? I shared, Oh,
28:10
Speaker 1: Sue or at least offered and I was like, no,
28:12
Speaker 1: you take the coffee, but I share. I think I
28:13
Speaker 1: gave some to Conal Bird and I think Jerry got
28:17
Speaker 1: some too, didn't you. Jerry, you got coffee? Okay? Yeah, Jerry,
28:21
Speaker 1: Like what you go? You guys still hear? Um, we
28:26
Speaker 1: got a portrait book of Justin and it's cat Waffles
28:29
Speaker 1: of Everything Waffles dot com. Yeah, it's definitely worth checking out.
28:33
Speaker 1: And a postcard of a man with a giant fish
28:36
Speaker 1: from Reagan t And I think you have one more, right,
28:39
Speaker 1: I do. Um, let's see, we got a lovely floral
28:44
Speaker 1: note congratulating you me and me on our wedding. Leo Ray,
28:48
Speaker 1: thank you very much for that. It's very nice. Boy.
28:50
Speaker 1: You have been holding onto these for a while. I
28:52
Speaker 1: know it's the February before last. Okay, so thank you
28:55
Speaker 1: for that. Finally, Yeah, thank you to everybody who's been
28:59
Speaker 1: sending us stuff. We really genuinely appreciate it. Super sweet
29:02
Speaker 1: and um, if you want to send something, you can
29:04
Speaker 1: find the address on the How Stuff Works homepage. He
29:07
Speaker 1: scrolled do out at the bottom of the homepage under
29:09
Speaker 1: contacts and click on that has our address. You can
29:11
Speaker 1: send us something that well done. And if you want
29:14
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us, just to say hi
29:16
Speaker 1: or whatever. UM, you can tweet to us at s
29:18
Speaker 1: y ESK podcast. You can join us on Facebook, dot com,
29:21
Speaker 1: slash stuff you Should Know, You can send us an
29:23
Speaker 1: email to Stuff Podcast and Discovery dot com, and you
29:27
Speaker 1: can join us at our home on the web, Stuff
29:30
Speaker 1: you Should Know dot com. For more on this and
29:38
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, is that how stuff works dot
29:40
Speaker 1: com I I I