At least outside the confines of mad Massachusetts, it’s rare for a criminal defendant to successfully invoke the insanity defense, but it is still possible. In principle, what’s the difference between that and someone being found not criminally responsible for an illegal act because they were poisoned by alcohol?
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Bear with me…
There is substantial evidence that someone may be prone to alcohol use disorder (AUD) if his family has a history of misuse. It’s easy to condemn such moral turpitude, but we all know some otherwise upstanding people who have succumbed to debilitating AUD, with horrendous consequences. Unfortunately, they “chose” the wrong parents.
Alcohol is the devil’s drink. It can truly play havoc with both mental functioning and exercise physiology. The human brain seeks equilibrium, so the initial jollies that alcohol elicits invariably lead to chemical reversals (partially manifested as a “hangover”) to compensate for the initial high. Repeated impairment can lead to long-term depression. In some severe cases, it is not a stretch to describe the behavior of someone under its chronic influence as “insane.”
The other day, I watched a couple episodes of the real-life show Cops. For the most part, the cops are truly admirable in their interactions with the public. Nevertheless, I was taken aback by how harshly the law treats down-on-their-luck alcoholics. Whatever their offense, they are carted off in cuffs. Often, that’s entirely proper — for their own safety and that of the public at large. Most crimes only require general intent (choosing to perpetrate an illegal act, without full regard for or appreciation of the specific consequences), and being drunk does not usurp that.
For specific intent crimes (like first-degree murder), there is the option of a diminished capacity defense — for example, the criminal was too inebriated to form a specific plan. This is known as mens rea, which can be summarized as ”the act is not culpable unless the mind is guilty.” It doesn’t clear the person of all guilt, but it may reduce the charge.
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Diminished capacity defenses based on alcoholism or voluntary intoxication have an exceptionally low success rate.
A compassionate conservative may wonder: Given the high rate of hereditary alcoholism, how much intoxication is truly “voluntary”? Sure, we have free will when it comes to our conscious thoughts, but demons underneath are tempting those who are predisposed (hereditarily or genetically) to the devil’s drink. Up to 60 percent of patients relapse with the first year of treatment for AUD. We should be circumspect in condemning them all as lacking morality or agency.
The following seems reasonable, presuming reason prevails in leftist Massachusetts. Someone who imagines hearing a single, sudden male command to perpetrate an atrocity, then methodically and deceptively plans a triple-filicide, then brutishly executes it within a narrow time frame, then asks about lawyers, has formed about as much specific intent as someone suffering from AUD could possibly muster.
Why legally treat one differently from the other? Best to send them both off to jail for a long time.
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