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C Cirincione

Publications and source records attributed to C Cirincione.

4 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

Identifying insanity acquittals: is it any easier?

Following the highly publicized insanity acquittal of John Hinckley in 1982, legislators throughout the country attempted to reform the insanity defense. At the time, policy makers had virtually no empirical evidence with which to guide their reforms. The focus of this research is to determine if more informed policy-making would be possible today? Results show that more states are able to identify cases involving an insanity acquittal than during the 1980's and provide annual data on the number of rate of insanity acquittals. The data collected by many of the states have significant limitation.

Data Collection↗
PubMed1996

Revisiting the insanity defense: contested or consensus?

The author assesses the accuracy of both the public's opinion and researchers' conclusions regarding the method of adjudication of insanity cases and investigates the impact of the various types of reforms enacted in the 1980s on the degree to which insanity cases are contested. Data from seven states are analyzed. The public's view that insanity cases are typically resolved by a jury trial is inaccurate. Only 14.4 percent of the 7,299 insanity cases involved a jury trial. Likewise, scholars' views that most cases are resolved through plea-bargained insanity acquittals are inaccurate. Only 42.9 percent of all insanity cases are plea bargains, and 87.9 percent of all plea bargains are to a conviction. Jury trials are most likely to occur when the case involves a violent crime such as murder and the defendant has not been diagnosed with a major mental illness. Public fears that defendants easily "fool" juries into an inappropriate insanity acquittal are also unfounded. Only 16.1 percent of all jury trials result in an insanity acquittal. In three states, the figure is 10 percent or less. Contrary to the conclusions drawn by some scholars, this author finds that several types of reforms enacted in the 1980s affected the processing of insanity cases.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Rates of insanity acquittals and the factors associated with successful insanity pleas.

The frequency of use of the insanity plea, the probability of being acquitted by reason of insanity given the plea has been used, and the overall volume of insanity acquittees was determined for seven states. Across the seven states, there was an inverse relationship (r = -.67) between the frequency of use and the likelihood of success. As a result, the overall volume of insanity acquittees was stable. Based upon a sample of 8,138 people indicted for a felony and who raised an insanity plea at some point during the processing of their cases, the characteristics of insanity defendants and their cases differed by state, and a number of these characteristics, particularly diagnosis and type of crime were related to the likelihood of an insanity acquittal. The inverse relationship between the plea and success rates was at least partially explained by the differences in the composition of the cases. States with high plea rates tended to have a higher proportion of cases that involved defendants who were unlikely to succeed. States with lower plea rates tended to have higher proportions of cases that involved defendants who were likely to succeed.

Adult↗