The Insanity Defense
The common standard for an insanity defense is to answer the question of whether the defendant knew the difference between right and wrong. If the answer to that is yes, then it is commonly believed, at least by legal standards, that the defendant is not insane. Yet, does that truly mean that someone is not insane? The Supreme Court has ruled over the last several years that minors, the mentally retarded, and the insane are not to be executed. While this is the legal standard when it comes to criminal offenses, that standard is often, or should be applied in other areas involving mental illness. And isn't insanity a mental illness? However, the question lies with, does the simple act of knowing the difference between right and wrong truly the test of insanity? Let's take hoarding for example. Over the last several years hoarding itself has been classified as a mental illness. Along with the act of what I call the "visible" hoarding, hoarders all o...