Essay/Term paper: The insanity plea by winslad and ross: summary

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Politics

The Insanity Plea by Winslad and Ross: Summary

The Insanity Plea is a book about the Uses & Abuses of the Insanity Defense in
various cases. The book is by William J. Winslade and Judith Wilson Ross. In
this report, I will basically summarize the book and tell you different ways
people have used and abused the Criminal Justice System using The Insanity
Plea.

I will first talk about the case of Dan White. On November 18, 1978,
Preliminary reports began broadcasting news of the events in a town called
Jonestown, at first all that was known, was that people of a religious cult
shot and may have even killed California Congressman Leo Ryan. Then on
November 27, 9 days after the news of the death of Congressman Ryan another 2
deaths happened. George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco, and Harvey Milk,
a city supervisor and the leader of San Francisco's politically active gay
community, had been shot and killed at death in the San Francisco City Hall.
The Police then sniffed-out and charged Dan White with the murders of the 3
people.

In 2 years the trial ended with the verdict of guilty on the account of
manslaughter. He was later sentenced to 7 years and 8 months in a Prison,
with a possibility of parole after 5. After the verdict there were Riots
breaking out in the streets because of the verdict. Before hand he was elected
a Supervisor and resigned because he didn't like the way that Politics worked.
The point before, that I may not have mentioned, is that the defense argued
that he was insane and that "a person with a normal background who was brought
up in a good home, something is obviously missing." Since he was being charged
on 3 accounts of Murder in the 1st, they somewhat bought the insane defense so
they lowered his charges to 1 account of voluntary manslaughter, where he
received 7 years and 8 months with a possibility of parole after 5 years.

In the summer of 1978, Lyman Bostock seemed to have it made very good. He
was one of the 3 highest paid players EVER in the American League and he was
highly regarded by fans and sportscasters alike. Then one errie, summer night
at 10:30 Lyman Bostock was gunned down at Fifth and Jackson in downtown Gary,
Illinois while he was riding in the back seat of his uncle's Buick with a
twelve gauge shot gun, that was fired by a Mr Leonard Smith. Leonard Smith
was a 33 year old, unemployed Truck Driver, who lived in Illinois. He had
never met or seen Lyman Bostock, but if you think about it, if he actually sat
down to think about it, a pro baseball player would obviously be very high.
Leonard had dreamed about getting it as good as Lyman, he dreamt about a wife,
a kid, a dog, a nice house with a fence around it, and job security, but his
attempts always failed because of things like his wife, his employers, racial
prejudice and life itself. Although it was not lucky at all for Lyman to be on
Fifth avenue and having his skull blasted away with a gun, it because extremely
more lucky for Bostock because in 21 months after the shooting, he walked out
of jail after receiving 4 months of physiciatric treatment and three months of
evaluation. He was found not guilty of all charges due to the plea of Insanity.
To get that verdict he had to go through 2 trials. In the first trial, that
lasted 3 days, it ended in a hung jury. Dr. Frank Hoggle and Dr. Lee Michael
testified in the 1st trial. Dr Hoggle saw him on and off for about 3 months.
Dr Perioclat only saw him twice and each of those times they were very brief.
Both had testified, that he was both legally sane. Dr Hogle was a little
doubtful about his legally sane verdict but the other one was very certain of
it. In the second trial that was held, they eventually got to the not guilty
verdict due to insanity and some time in a crazy phicility(is that a scientific
term?).

The last case that I will tell you about in this report is the case of
Robert Torsney. Robert Torsney was a New York City Cop who always carried
around his gun. The killing occurred in daylight while he was sober, working,
alert, and paying attention to details. Torsney had a stable job, was happily
married and was in good physical health. On the night of Thanksgiving, Torsney
fired his gun at 15 year old, Randy Evan's from a distance of about 20 inches,
penetrating his skull then penetrated his brain and he died. He left the kid
laying there, dying on the street as he casually walked back to the car with
the 2 other officers that were in the car. Needless to say, they arrested him
and he was then brought to court on the charges of 1st degree murder where he
was found not guilty due to the plea of Insanity. On Thanksgiving Day, 1976,
Torsney had to work and was unhappy about it. At thirty-four he had been on
the force for about 8 years and he was sick and tired of the conditions he had
to work through. He would rather be at home with his wife and kids at
Thanksgiving, just like the average person in America was doing. He made a
note of the crappiness that he felt at the top of his log book that read "Happy
Working Felony Thanksgiving." The police officer received a call from a
residence of a neighbor hood that a person with a gun was lurking around.
Officers Robert Faity, Matt Williams and Torsney were dispatched to the Cyprus
Houses. He searched the house and found nothing. He undid the leather to
allow easy access to his gun as he came out of the building. A group of black
teenagers, including Randy approached the building and shouted out to Torsney
and asked if his apartment had been searched. Torsney immediately pulled his
gun and shot him in the head. Torsney was found with 5 years in a Loony Bin
with help from other people.

The book itself only gave the plain hard facts on the case and the author
did not say anything about his oppinion on any case so I will expand my
oppinion. I think that the Insanity Plea is often mis-used, ordianary people
just like you and me get of with only 4 years in a mental home for killing
people. Also the people who actually ARE insane sometimes get ruled down and
are put in jail, where they commit even more crimes.

So as you can see, sometimes the Insanity plea was put to good use and
some bad, well I guess that is just an opinion. There were more cases left in
the book but those were the most important ones in the book, if I took the time
to do all of them, This report would be 20 pages long. I thank you for reading
it, adios.