Basic Trope: A criminal defendant (or their attorney) argues he or she cannot be held responsible for a crime because they were or are too mentally incompetent to realize they were committing one.
- Straight: Bob kills Charlie. In court, his attorney argues that Bob suffers from a mental illness that made him incapable of understanding that stabbing Charlie would be fatal.
- Exaggerated: Bob is acquitted of causing an Apocalypse How because he was really, really mad.
- Downplayed: Bob is declared guilty but mentally ill; his sentence is reduced due to his mental illness, but he is still imprisoned and has the crime on his criminal record.
- Justified:
- Bob really is mentally ill and completely out of touch with reality; putting him in prison wouldn't help anything but a mental hospital might allow him to recover- and if Bob were sane, he wouldn't want to commit crimes.
- Inverted: The State Sec try to get Bob ruled insane to silence his dissent and avoid a trial that he stood a decent chance of winning. Bob thus fights to prove himself sane and fit to stand trial.
- Subverted: A.D.A. Alice remarks on how Bob is likely to plead not guilty due to insanity, but he instead enters an ordinary "not guilty" plea.
- Double Subverted: Bob is later found to be guilty of the crime, but also mentally incompetent, and his attorney changes his plea.
- Parodied: Bob pleads not guilty by reason of insanity to petty theft. "After all, would a sane man steal a sardine-and-pickle sandwich?"
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Bob acts very erratic and the prosecutor expects he'll try for the insanity defense, but Bob instead enters a normal guilty/not guilty plea.
- Enforced: The episode is Ripped from the Headlines, and the real-life criminal in the case plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
- Lampshaded: "Insanity? That's seriously his defense?"
- Invoked: Bob's partner in crime encourages him to enter an insanity plea in hopes of derailing the case.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied:
- To head off Bob's expected insanity plea, Alice presents Bob's attorney with evidence that Bob was very much sane at the time he committed the crime, promising she will crucify Bob if they make it to court and offering a plea deal.
- Bob's attorney Charlie wants to use the defense, but Bob refuses and insists he be judged sane. After all, if you're sane there really isn't much difference between being locked up in a secure asylum and locked up in prison, but at least with prisons you have set release dates while asylums can keep you indefinitely.
- Discussed: "What do you think Bob's going to do?" "Well, Alice, he's got a history of schizophrenia, he might try to cop an insanity plea."
- Conversed: "I bet Bob's going to try to claim he was insane to avoid jail time.. That is so totally not how it would work in real life."
- Implied: The crime and arrest happen in a Cold Open and the trial isn't shown. The next time Bob appears, he's in a straitjacket.
- Deconstructed:
- Bob enters an insanity plea, but his attorney has a devil of a time backing it up. He manages to convince the jury, but that only gets Bob remanded to a sanitarium for the rest of his natural life.
- Bob enters an insanity plea because he wants to avoid prison. Turns out, the asylum is a Bedlam House and much worse than the prison would've been.
- Reconstructed: Reputable evidence for Bob's mental state is shown by the defense. The defendant is not let completely off the hook, either: the court orders that Bob undergo psychiatric treatment as part of the case resolution.
- Played For Laughs: It's revealed after Bob enters his plea that he is himself a licensed psychologist.
- Played For Drama: While Bob did what he was accused of, his mental illness was such that he could neither understand nor control his actions. His defense attorney, Charles, has to fight an uphill battle to protect Bob from an undeserved punishment because the jury initially sees Bob as an animal to be put down, a sentiment encouraged by Alice and the rest of the prosecution team.
The main page is being sworn in here.
