ved desire that society considers 'sick?'... Otherwise, the more depraved the mind and heinous the crime, such as Hitler's 'final solution,' the easier it is to invoke the insanity defense and escape moral blame."
Kamenar's argument is sound, on the basis that it could be argued that anyone who commits a heinous act is mentally ill as a prerequisite for committing such an act in the first place. If this is the case, would we not then absolve all heinous criminals from their heinous crimes? In reality, as the case of David Berkowitz will attest, not all criminals who commit acts of extreme violence are insane. Many of them, like Berkowitz, are just looking for an easy way out. As "Son of Sam" killer Berkowitz later admitted from his jail cell (after the public did not buy his insanity defense), the whole things was just a fake.
There are those who would argue that the insanity defense is really just a non-issue, because it is actually used so infrequently. Jonas R. Rappeport, Med
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