There is little doubt that the American public has become more fearful of violent crime and less inclined to give the violent criminal the opportunity to offend a second or third time. Different states have addressed this concern in different ways, with laws mandating stiffer sentences, life sentences for career criminals, harsher sentences for those using violence in other crimes, and less inclination to excuse criminals with an insanity defense. Still, the law does recognize the influence of mental illness on the offender, though this leaves society with a problem--what to do to protect the public. The public is often aghast when a murderer successfully pleads insanity, is sent to a mental institution, and then is released once a team of doctors asserts that he or she is "cured" and can return to society. The public does not see this as punishment, which indeed it is not, and is often not convinced that the murderer is truly "cured" and will not harm someone once released. There is also the impression that such an offender has "gotten away with murder." Proposals have been made for different forms of punishment to correct this problem, such as preventive detention to assure that a criminal will not commit another crime, or a new verdict such as "guilty but insane" so that the offender serves a prison sentence after being certified as sane once more. A recent case in North Carolina has brought this issue to the fore when Wendell Williamson, a student who killed two people on a shooting spree, was deemed not guilty by reason of insanity, was sent to a state mental hospital, and is soon to be released. The issue is how can society protect itself from people like Wendell Williamson when there is no way of assuring that they will not become violent once released?
The essential modern insanity defense in America derives from an English trial in 1843 in which Daniel McNaughton (or M'Naghten) suffered from delusions of persecution...