Replace the Insanity Defense with “Guilty and Insane”

Mental illness can explain a crime. It should not erase guilt or reduce accountability.

We, the undersigned, call upon lawmakers across the United States to abolish “Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity” as a defense to criminal responsibility and replace it with a new legal framework:

GUILTY AND INSANE

Under this system, a defendant’s severe mental illness could still be formally recognized by the court. It could determine what psychiatric treatment that person receives and where that treatment occurs.

But insanity would not erase guilt, excuse the crime, or reduce the sentence imposed for it.

If the prosecution proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the criminal act and otherwise establishes the elements required by law, the defendant should be found guilty.

Mental illness may explain why the crime happened.

It should not change whether the offender is accountable for it.

A victim is no less dead because their killer was psychotic.

The consequences of violent crime do not change according to the mental condition of the offender.

A murdered child does not return home because the person who killed them was experiencing delusions.

A victim’s injuries do not disappear because their attacker was suffering from psychosis.

A grieving family does not suffer less because a psychiatrist can explain what was happening inside the offender’s mind.

Yet under the traditional insanity defense, a person who committed an act that would otherwise constitute murder or another serious crime can receive a verdict containing two words that can be devastating for victims:

Not Guilty.

We believe the law can acknowledge severe mental illness without using those words.

Insanity should be a diagnosis—not an acquittal.

This proposal does not deny mental illness.

It does not deny psychosis.

It does not claim that every mentally ill offender experiences reality in the same way as everyone else.

Instead, it draws a distinction between medical explanation and legal accountability.

If qualified experts establish that an offender was suffering from a severe mental disorder when the crime occurred, the justice system should be permitted to recognize that finding.

The verdict could reflect both realities:

Guilty — because the defendant committed the crime.

Insane — because severe mental illness was present.

Neither fact needs to erase the other.

Treatment should accompany the sentence—not replace it.

A “Guilty and Insane” verdict should guarantee access to appropriate psychiatric care.

If an offender is so psychiatrically ill that treatment in a secure forensic hospital is necessary, that treatment should be provided.

But hospitalization should be part of the offender’s custody—not an alternative to accountability.

When the offender becomes psychiatrically stable, the criminal sentence should remain.

If someone receives a life sentence, psychiatric stabilization should not transform that life sentence into release.

If someone receives a term of imprisonment, time spent receiving necessary treatment should occur within the framework of that sentence.

Treatment addresses the illness.

The sentence addresses the crime.

Those are separate issues, and our laws should treat them as such.

Insanity should not reduce the value the law places on a victim’s life.

Criminal sentences are imposed not only because of what was happening inside an offender’s mind, but because society recognizes the gravity of what was done to another human being.

Consider two victims murdered under otherwise comparable circumstances.

One is killed by an offender who is legally sane.

The other is killed by an offender suffering from severe psychosis.

From the perspective of the victims and their families, the result is identical.

Both lives were taken.

We reject the idea that the criminal justice system should assign dramatically different legal consequences to those deaths solely because one offender was mentally ill.

Mental illness can explain the difference between the offenders.

It does not create a difference in the value of their victims.

Compassion does not require the absence of consequences.

Some will argue that severely mentally ill offenders deserve compassion.

We agree that they deserve humane treatment.

But compassion and accountability are not opposites.

We can provide psychiatric medication.

We can provide therapy.

We can maintain secure forensic hospitals.

We can protect mentally ill prisoners from inappropriate conditions.

We can recognize severe psychiatric disorders honestly and scientifically.

None of those things requires declaring someone “Not Guilty.”

And none requires reducing the sentence for the crime they committed.

A civilized justice system should be capable of doing both:

Treat the illness. Punish the crime.

This proposal would preserve competency protections.

“Guilty and Insane” should not eliminate the requirement that defendants be competent to stand trial.

A defendant who cannot understand the proceedings or meaningfully participate in their defense should continue receiving treatment until legally competent to proceed.

Competency asks whether someone is capable of participating in a trial now.

Insanity asks about their mental condition when the crime occurred.

Those are different questions.

Our proposal concerns the second.

What we are asking lawmakers to change

We call upon state legislatures and Congress, within their respective constitutional authority, to establish a Guilty and Insane framework under which:

“Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity” would no longer be available as a verdict.
A defendant proven to have committed a criminal offense would remain criminally accountable notwithstanding insanity or severe mental illness at the time of the offense.
Courts could formally recognize that a guilty defendant was suffering from qualifying severe mental illness at the time of the crime through a “Guilty and Insane” verdict or finding.
Such a finding would not reduce, suspend, or eliminate the sentence otherwise authorized for the offense.
Offenders requiring psychiatric hospitalization would receive treatment in secure forensic facilities while remaining in criminal custody.
Once sufficiently stabilized, offenders could be transferred to the appropriate correctional setting to continue serving their sentences.
Competency-to-stand-trial protections would remain intact.
Mental illness would never justify denying an incarcerated person necessary psychiatric treatment or humane conditions.
Why “Guilty and Insane”?

Because both things can be true.

A person can be profoundly mentally ill.

And that person can have killed another human being.

The justice system should not be forced to choose which reality it recognizes.

We believe the law should acknowledge both.

Guilty and Insane.

Recognize the illness.

Treat the illness.

But recognize the victim, too.

A psychiatric diagnosis should determine what treatment an offender needs.

It should not determine how much accountability their victim deserves.

We call upon lawmakers throughout the United States to replace the traditional insanity defense with a system built upon a simple principle:

Mental illness can explain a crime. It should never erase the crime.

Treat the illness. Serve the sentence. Remember the victim.