Many people in the world suffer from mental illness, but far fewer can be called insane. Severe and ongoing anxiety is a mental illness. In the venn diagram, mental illness is the larger circle and insanity is a smaller one within it. Insanity is a detachment from the reality of the present and real world.
In John Gilbeaut’s article “A Matter Over Mind.” This was the central question presented being argued in the case. No one disputed that Eric Michael
Clark was mentally ill as he was documented as having paranoid schizophrenia. What the judge was implicitly stating in his sentences Clark to prison and not to a mental institution was that Clark, though he was mentally ill, was acting of his own free will.
The reason the judge determined that Clark’s mental impairment was insufficient for an insanity plea is the same reason that the he McNaughten rule cannot be used to defend the actions of a person who drinks alcohol and then murders someone. Someone who gets drunk is acting on their own freewill, and can distinguish right from wrong.
In rational and guilty a person from the beginning, during and after the act is in a sane state of mind. Guilty but insane means that a person, while insane, was in a state of mind in order to bring criminal charges against them for the crime they committed. Not guilty by reason of insanity, means the person committed the act in question, but that their state of mind was both not their fault and was preventing them from being aware of the severity of the act in question.
References:
"A Matter Over Mind - ABA Journal." Error. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 June 2013. <http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/a_matter_over_mind/>.
