How Has the Insanity Defense Been Used in the Films Primal Fear and Nuts - Movie Review Example

Legal defense of insanity The films d “Primal Fear” and “Nuts” both revolve around crimes that have been committed, where the counsel for the defendants base their defense on the criminal insanity defense – “not guilty by reason of insanity.” (Bartee and Bartee, 1992:83). In both these films, the defendants are guilty of committing a crime but are mentally competent individuals. In the case of “Primal Fear” the defendant is able to escape the charge through the application of the defense of insanity, contending that he is actually a multiple personality who loses awareness of his actions when his murderous alter ego takes over his consciousness. In the case of “Nuts” the defendant is declared to be mentally insane but seeks to establish that she is mentally competent to face trial. While these two films have a different orientation to the subject of legal insanity, both of them deal with the courtroom proceedings surrounding the establishment of this legal defense. In both these films, the defendants admit to their criminal acts, but it is the defense that puts forth the insanity plea in “Primal Fear”, while it is the prosecution that advances the insanity defense in challenging the defendant’s competence to stand trial. The film “Nuts” revolves around a call girl, Claudia, who has killed a client and has been declared to be insane by the resident jail psychiatrist. She comes from a respectable, middle class white family and her mother, a timid woman together with her stepfather, are eager to ensure that the psychiatrist’s finding is substantiated, so that their daughter is declared not guilty and the publicity involved with a public trial can be avoided. As the film progresses, Claudia’s hostile attitude which even extends to clipping her attorney on the nose, coupled with the huge chip she carries on her shoulder only appear to corroborate this diagnosis and make it even more difficult for Claudia to prove that she is mentally competent to stand trial for her crime. As the film unfolds, some of the character’s motivation and reasons for her lifestyle and attitude become clearer, one of them being the revelation about her stepfather’s abuse in childhood and her mother’s tacit knowledge of the situation, while failing to address it. The film ends with Claudia successfully establishing her competence to stand trial, since her hostility and violent attitude is partly explained by her background. The film “Primal Fear” presents a defendant who is a vulnerable looking altar boy, accused of killing the archbishop. A savvy defense attorney Vail, sniffing after free publicity, hones in on this crime, and sets out to get the defendant off the hook by emphasizing his innocence. But the defendant himself presents a complex mixture of innocence and an underlying ruthlessness, so that attorney Vail is puzzled by the apparent contradictions in the character of the defendant. As the story progresses, it is revealed that the archbishop was sexually abusing the defendant. In contrast to the apparent vulnerability and innocence of the young altar boy defendant, there are sudden glimpses of a more ruthless individual. The psychologist who examines the defendant concludes that he is suffering from a mental disorder and is a split personality, leading to the inference that the defendant’s criminal act was committed by his alter ego, without his active consciousness of the murder having taken place. In a series of tense courtroom scenes, Vail sets out to convince the court that the defendant is mentally incompetent to stand trail by virtue of insanity and must be declared not guilty. He succeeds in his objective, moving from a cynical perspective of wanting the defendant to appear innocent while he actually believes his client is guilty to actually believing that his client is insane and hence innocent of the crime he is accused of committing. The film has a twist at the very end, where it becomes clear that the defendant was not actually mentally disturbed at all, but had only been playing the role very cleverly. The history of the insanity defense started with the 1843 case of Daniel McNaughton, who attempted to assassinate the British Prime Minister and was acquitted on grounds of insanity (Bartee and Bartee, 1992:83). The rule, which was established through the case of McNaughton, was that if a mentally incapacitated defendant admitted to having committed a crime, then he or she would be found not guilty by reason of insanity. In “Primal Fear” the defendant denies having committed the crime, only to admit to it finally while in his split personality role of Roy, the aggressive and violent character. In “Nuts”, the defendant Claudia admits to the crime right at the beginning, but has to establish her mental competence to stand trial. The McNaughton rule would therefore apply to both these defendants, in establishing an insanity defense. In the McNaughton case however, it was also stated that if a defense of insanity was to be successfully established, then it was also necessary to establish that the defendant committed the criminal act while action under a delusion so powerful that he could not understand his surroundings or appreciate the significance and consequences of his or her actions1. In the case of the defendant in “Primal Fear”, this is established by successfully proving to the Court that the altar boy committed the crime without a full knowledge or consciousness of his actions. The reason was that the murder was committed while under the influence of his alter-ego, due to suffering from a split personality mental disorder. This resulted in the defendant being exonerated of the crime under the insanity plea. In the film “Nuts” however, the objective of the defendant is completely the opposite. While others, including her parents, seeks to have her declared insane so that’s she can be declared non guilty, the defendant herself seeks to overturn such an insanity finding, and instead, establish her competence to stand trial. As a result, she has to establish that she is not suffering from any delusions, but that she is competent enough and rational enough to appreciate the grave consequences of her actions and fit to accept the due punishment for them. Therefore the insanity plea was to be rejected in her case and this is the objective she finally attains. The justification behind the establishment of the insanity defense lies in the mens rea that must be established before a defendant can be held guilty of committing a crime. There are two elements that will be considered by a Court in arriving at a finding of guilt in a criminal case – the actus reus and the mens rea - the act itself and the intent that lay behind that act. When it can be successfully established that a defendant carried out a criminal act willfully and intentionally, it strengthens the possibility of a conviction. In the case of mentally disturbed patients, their illness or sickness may result in an alteration of their perception of reality, so that they fail to realize the criminal nature of their actions. Alternatively, they may have no choice but to commit the crime, while not necessarily having the cold-blooded intent to commit the criminal act. In such a case, mens rea cannot be successfully established and the defendant cannot be held responsible for his or her actions. As a result, this will support a finding of not guilty. In “Primal Fear” the defendant’s perception of reality was held to be altered, thereby failing to establish mens rea. In “Nuts” the defendant was forced to commit the crime out of having no other choice. But while the defendant in the former sought to establish insanity, the defendant in the latter fought to resist an insanity finding. Another aspect that is very important in cases involving the defense of insanity concerns the testimony of expert witnesses. In establishing a defense of insanity, the defense is required to provide expert testimony that corroborates the defendant’s disturbed mental state and can also explain how such a mental state could have function as a bar to comprehending the consequences of the criminal act. There has been a great deal of controversy in recent years about the role of an expert witness in the case of an insanity defense. While some have argued that expert testimony should be eliminated altogether in trials involving the insanity defense, others argue that the scope of such testimony should be controlled and limited. The amendment of the Federal Rules of Evidence in 1984 was carried out to prevent expert testimony on the so-called ultimate issue (Simon and Aaronson, 1988). Experts play a vital role in both the films, in establishing the validity of the insanity defense. In the film “Nuts”, Dr. Herbert Rosenthal, the chief of the Bellevue prison ward, has diagnosed Claudia as a paranoid schizophrenic. Claudia’s hostility, mood swings, anti social behavior and tendency to exhibit violence, including hitting her own lawyer on the nose, all serve as reinforcing factor that appear to corroborate Dr. Rosenthal’s diagnosis. The respect garnered by such an expert opinion plays a significant role in the film, in enhancing the difficulties for Claudia to establish herself as a mentally competent individual, because the doctor is in a position to influence judges by virtue of his standing as an expert witness. His limited social viewpoints serve to substantiate the case of the prosecution by correspondingly limiting the mental abilities of his patient and sticking a label on her that she does not strictly conform to. In the case of “Primal Fear” the expert witness the psychologist is strengthening the case of the defense rather than the prosecution. Unlike Claudia who is attributed to be mentally insane at the commencement of the film, the purported insanity of the defendant in the film “Primal fear” is only gradually discovered, as the existence of a split personality becomes evident. In this case also, the psychologist’s views are not provided to be valid, because of the revelation at the end that the character was not in fact, mentally disturbed at all but a cold blooded individual who had deliberately murdered the archbishop and played out an elaborate charade to escape conviction. Both these cases establish the failure of the expert witnesses to provide substantive evidence that led to a correct diagnosis of the problems of the defendant’s problems. In Claudia’s case, the psychiatrist was wrong in his diagnosis of insanity, similarly, in the case of the alter boy, the psychologist was also wrong in the diagnosis of a split personality. Proposals have been mooted for changes to be introduced where expert witnesses are concerned, in clarifying the mental condition when the defendant is putting forth an insanity defense plea. It has been suggested that the scope of expert testimony be restricted, the jurors’ understanding of their role in evaluating expert testimony be improved and that it be left to the Court to appoint the expert witnesses when required in insanity defense cases. (Simon and Aaronson, 1988). The quality of the expert witnesses can be seen to be of paramount importance in a plea of insanity defense, because they can help a court to determine the mental competence of a defendant to stand trial and whether or not the mens rea that must mandatorily be established in a criminal conviction exists, in committing the criminal act. In conclusion, it may be noted that the insanity defense has been used in different ways in both these films. The basic objective in both the films is to establish the disturbed mental state of the defendant, thereby questioning the intent to commit the crime and the failure to establish the mens rea required for a conviction. But while the film Primal Fear seeks to establish the insanity defense to gain a verdict of not guilty from the Court, the insanity defense is used more peripherally in the film “Nuts”, because the objective in this case is to establish the competence of the defendant to stand trial for her crime. References: * Bartee, Wayne C and Bartee, Alice Fleetwood, 1992. “Litigating Morality: American Legal Thought and its legal roots”, Praeger Publishers * Finger v State, 27 P.3d 66 (Nev 2001) * Nuts. Starring Barbra Streisand and Richard Dreyfuss * Primal Fear. Starring Richard Gere and Edward Norton. * Simon, Rita J and Aaronson, David E, 1988. “The insanity defense: a critical assessment of law and policy in the post-Hinckley era”, Praeger Publishers Read More