History Main / InsanityDefense

** A rare case where it's actually valid involves a schizophrenic man who [[AccidentalKidnapping abducts a child]] that he mistakes for his own estranged son and kills two people who try to stop him, believing they're trying to hurt his "son". The detectives determine that he really didn't understand what he was doing, and he's sent to a psychiatric hospital rather than prison. They later find out that the care facility he was living in illegally denied him his medication so that no one would believe him about witnessing another patient dying due to neglect; this makes the facility's owners liable for the kidnapping and resultant deaths.

** A similar case in the below mentioned ''SVU'' had a spree killer be sentenced to a psychiatric facility until he is deemed fit to stand trial (which will likely never occur) after it is discovered that his erratic behavior and murders were caused by his mind being destroyed by a now terminal case of Syphilis, which an insurance company had detected during an exam, but failed to inform him of.

** A rare case where it's actually valid involves a schizophrenic man who [[AccidentalKidnapping abducts a child]] that he mistakes for his own estranged son and kills two people who try to stop him, believing they're trying to hurt his "son". The detectives determine that he really didn't understand what he was doing, and he's sent to a psychiatric hospital rather than prison.

* Vincent Gigante was nicknamed "the Oddfather" because he used ObfuscatingInsanity to hide the fact that he was a [[UsefulNotes/TheMafia Mafia boss]] and be unable to stand trial. Almost every day, he would emerge disheveled from his home and accompanied by one of his bodyguards. His own family even went so far as to bribe and/or intimidate doctors into stating he was mentally incapacitated. This "crazy" stunt eventually came back to haunt him in 1997 when mobsters from other families stated it was a ruse to shake off law enforcement. Gigante finally admitted to pulling this crazy stunt in 2003 before dying of heart disease in 2005 while behind bars.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "Insane in the Mainframe", SimpleCountryLawyer Hyperchicken uses the insanity defense in favor of Fry and Bender, and offers as proof the fact that "they done hired me as their lawyer." What then happens is that they're put in the mental institution, similar to what would have happened now if they weren't found "Guilty but Insane". Unfortunately for Fry, the human insane asylum is full because being poor has recently been classified as a mental illness, so he gets sent to the robot insane asylum with Bender.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/DeltaState'' has a psychiatric patient trying to convince his therapist he is insane so the court will accept his insanity defense. He's ''terribly'' bad at it, the therapist knows beyond all reason that he's full of crap, and [[spoiler:since the "therapist" turns out to be [[HumanoidAbomination the rifter]] Maria looking for easy victims, it [[GrandTheftMe ends about as well for him as you would expect]].]]

* In one old ''ComicStrip/TheWizardOfId'' strip, a lawyer pleads insanity for his client, even though the crime was ''stealing a pie''. The reason? Would a sane man steal a [[StockYuck rhubarb pie]]?

** A 2009 ComicCon panel of lawyers noted that nearly all of Batman's villains did not, including Joker.

In RealLife, the insanity plea is rare and difficult to succeed with. It is also a risky gamble, since it is an affirmative defense that requires the defendant to concede culpability in the crime in question and places the burden of proof on the defense to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that their client was insane at the time they comitted the crime. Perhaps one percent of criminal cases even attempt an insanity defense, and only about a quarter of those are accepted, primarily if the defendant already has a history of mental illness. Furthermore, it requires expert testimony from a reputable psychiatric authority that the defendant was insane ''at the time they committed the crime'', not just insane in general. Naturally, since the insanity defense is dramatic, it is used much more often in fiction.

A variant is "Temporary Insanity," in which the defendant is claimed to have been suffering from an "irresistible impulse" during the crime, but is now sane. Thus, they can be released immediately, rather than being incarcerated for psychiatric treatment. This defense was first used in the United States by U.S. Congressman Daniel Sickles of New York in 1859, after murdering [[{{Cuckold}} his wife's lover]].[[note]]Sickles is an interesting figure, because after getting away with this defense he became a general in the Union Army during [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar the Civil War]]. His [[LeeroyJenkins recklessness at Gettysburg]] may have accidentally saved the Union by spooking the Confederates.[[/note]] It was most prevalent as a defense during the 1940s and '50s. Most states do not allow this defense today.

Along similar lines, the "Extreme Emotional Disturbance" defense argues mitigating factors compromised the defendant's ability to think rationally. For instance, a man who shot his wife after catching her in bed with her lover could argue his emotional state at the time makes him guilty of the lesser crime of Manslaughter and not 2nd degree Murder.

In the United States, neither [[TheSociopath psychopathy]] or a personality disorder is generally accepted as grounds for an insanity plea, and most states will simply throw the perpetrator in jail like any other criminal if that is their mental illness, since though such persons may have the adequate LackOfEmpathy that you can say they don't appreciate the ''moral'' reasons for why their crimes were wrong, in general they still understood that they were breaking the law, and having pathological justifications for doing so isn't good enough. However, other countries, such as the United Kingdom, do accept these as valid grounds, and many notorious British {{serial killer}}s are locked up in mental institutions whereas in America they would be imprisoned for life or sentenced to death. Such British prisoners, however, are usually not expected to ever be released and most of their appeals fail. In fiction, many cases of the insanity defense are often based on personality disorders, even if they are American.

** Most of the inhabitants of Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane have had a successful Insanity Defense entered on their behalf. Many of them are also, not coincidentally, crazy. However most of them are not legally ''insane'' by any reasonable interpretation. A pathological obsession with hats, cats, birds, or riddles does not mean someone isn't aware of what they're doing. The same goes for being an eco-terrorist, wanting to eat people, or most of the various eccentricities Batvillains develop while pursuing a criminal career. The vast majority of notable Batman villains are serial offenders who are fully aware that they are breaking the law and in many cases even brag about it, and several methodically and deliberately plan their crimes out- in other words, they know full well that they are committing crimes but they do it anyway.

** In ''The Joker: Devil's Advocate'' , a new D.A. decides to go for broke and push for the death penalty after a series of killings with the Joker's MO. After a "Trial of the Century" with accompanying media circus, he is found guilty and sentenced to death. However, he claims to have no knowledge of the murders. Batman, who has never known the Joker to deny any of his crimes, investigates and finds out that [[NotMeThisTime this time he really is innocent]]. Joker is returned to Arkham when this is revealed.

** The general consensus is that the insanity defense is almost guaranteed to work in the Gotham court system regardless of how much sense it makes legally, but since it means going to Arkham, [[{{Pun}} you'd need to be crazy]] to try it. In ''ComicBook/ArkhamAsylumLivingHell'', Warren White, an embezzler who stole millions of dollars and unfamiliar with Gotham, made this mistake and found himself in Arkham instead of the cushy rehab center he expected to be sent to. Things didn't go well for him. Killer Croc attacked him, slashing his throat and giving him "gills". Then an encounter with Jane Doe in Mr. Freeze's specialized cell left him without hair, ears, nose, and lips. Then White filed his teeth to points and took the name "Great White Shark". Essentially, while he might not have been crazy ''before'' his insanity defense worked, he certainly was ''after'' it.

** Harley herself almost qualifies, as she's something of a textbook case of StockholmSyndrome made worse by being sent back to Arkham right along with the Joker, her abuser. Her ComicBook/{{New 52}} origin story retconned this to some form of permanent psychosis from brain damage or drugging, with Harley eventually rejecting Joker outright. In this version of events, she's not legally insane, and sent to [[Comicbook/SuicideSquad Belle Reve Penitentiary]] instead of Arkham.

** Clayface III (Preston Payne) was also a legitimate case. Due to his TouchOfDeath and PowerIncontinence, his mind's snapped from the guilt of killing innocent people, to the point where he believed his cell was an apartment he shared with his wife, unbeknownst to him a mannequin. While Payne knows what he is doing is wrong, he believes he experiences severe pain if he doesn't periodically kill someone.

** An additional legitimate case is the Ventriloquist, who truly believes that his DemonicDummy Scarface is alive and forcing him to commit crimes under threat of violence, with the delusion being so strong that even destroying the puppet fails to free him, as Wesker will instinctively create a new body for his "boss" at soonest opportunity when it happens. The exact nature of Scarface itself is [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane purposely uncertain]], but whatever the case, Wesker's certainty that he has no agency in his crimes and is only committing them under duress is easily provable, and he could probably get a successful plea off the simple fact that he compulsively [[SelfHarm self harms]] as result of Scarface, doing things like shooting his own hand or purposefully beating himself with the puppet when Scarface supposedly gets mad at him.

** There was a period where Comicbook/WarMachine had an advanced interface that displayed how many people his foes had killed, allowing him to decide whether or not it's okay for him to use lethal force against said bad guys. When he faced ComicBook/NormanOsborn, Osborn pointed out that War Machine couldn't kill him since all of the Goblin's murders were committed while either being certifiably insane as the Goblin (such as [[Comicbook/TheNightGwenStacyDied Gwen Stacy]] and Terri Kidder) or while in the service of his country ([[ComicBook/SecretInvasion Queen Veranke]]). War Machine's response was to say "Interesting theory" [[AvertedTrope and then blast him with a rocket]]. For the record, Osborn was lying- he attempted, arranged and committed plenty of murders even after being (temporarily) "cured" of the Goblin personality, and the first time he was thrown in jail it was actually because he was [[SerialKiller murdering young women for kicks]] as Norman Osborn, not as the Goblin; Rhodey (hopefully) blasted him because he knew this.

* ''Film/TwentyTwoJuly'': Breivik's attorney advises him to plead insanity, telling him it could keep him out of prison. Breivik initially goes along with the idea purely because he finds it funny since people would inevitably be upset at the prospect of him avoiding jail entirely. Breivik backtracks on this only because he realizes that, if he's declared insane, no-one would take him or his ideals seriously.

%% * ''Film/PrimalFear''

* ''Film/SideEffects'' has suicidal Emily take various antidepressants before taking a new experimental drug called Ablixa, which appears to be working until [[spoiler:she murders her husband while sleepwalking]]. At the trial, her current psychiatrist Dr. Banks argues that the drug is to blame, and the defense ends up offering an insanity plea. The trope is slightly subverted in that it's specifically mentioned how low the percentage of success for this type of defense is. Emily is only acquitted by reason of insanity in a plea deal, since the prosecutor realizes that he can't win here, and she must remain in a hospital over a set period. Subverted in that [[spoiler:she knew precisely what she was doing and planned the whole thing with her former psychiatrist Dr. Sieber in order to kill her husband and cash in on the pharmaceutical company's stock plunge]]. At the end, [[spoiler:Dr. Banks character figures it out and puts her back into the mental hospital]].

* ''Film/PrimalFear'': After the trial starts, an accused murderer's attorney realizes that his client has Multiple Personality Disorder (i.e. split personality) and that one of the personalities committed the crime. He tries to change his plea from "Not Guilty" to an Insanity Defense. After a dramatic courtroom scene the judge agrees and says she'll send the client to a mental hospital for treatment. [[spoiler:At the end, it's revealed that the client was faking insanity to get away with the murder.]] The killer, for all his cunning, seems not to be aware of the "institutionalization is usually longer than prison" trope, though he might just have been trying to avoid the death penalty (lethal injection was mentioned earlier in the film).

* Appears in ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_Minutes 15 Minutes]]'', in which the murderers exploit IfItBleedsItLeads and plan to plead this, get sent to an asylum, be suddenly "cured", and make a killing by selling the story afterwards. Their mistake is explaining this on tape, since a key component of an insanity defense is that you didn’t know the criminal action was wrong at the time you committed it.

* ''Primal Fear'', as with the FilmOfTheBook above, has an accused murderer's attorney discover his client has multiple personalities, and that one of them is the actual killer. The judge dismisses the case and orders him committed to a mental institution until he's cured. In the sequels, he manages to fool his doctors into thinking he's cured and get out -- where he kills again.

* What Benjamin and his lawyer try to pull in ''Literature/HollowPlaces.'' While it's obvious that a serial killer who murders women by drying them out in glass boxes and and has a ''[[ILoveTheDead thing]]'' for dead bodies isn't entirely sane, it's made clear he knew exactly what he was doing.

* ''Literature/TheZombieSurvivalGuide'': In one account of a zombie incident that took place in early 20th Century Africa, a NativeGuide named Simon is accused of the murder of a white man called Schmidt. Simon's lawyer states that Simon's people believe in an illness that causes corpses to rise and attack the living, and his decapitation of Schmidt and [[BurnTheUndead burning of his body]] was motivated by self defence as he believed Schmidt had contracted the illness. He then quickly adds that he himself doesn't believe in this illness and only mentions it to the court because he believes it qualifies Simon as insane. Unfortunately [[DeliberateValuesDissonance the court rules that only whites qualify for the insanity defence]] and sentences Simon to death.

** One episode has the unusual spectacle of a guy using an insanity defense while [[AFoolForAClient defending himself]]. His claim is that he was insane when he committed the crimes, but now is normal thanks to medication, so it's not as ludicrous as it first seems. He is a paranoid schizophrenic, leading to him becoming homeless and murdering people due to his delusions. Before, however, he earned a law degree, and is practicing (while defending himself) for the first time.

** Then there was an interesting case. The defendant actually ''was'' hearing voices in his head. However, it wasn't insanity causing the voices, it was a ''brain tumor,'' and the defendant had such a short life expectancy that putting him on trial would be rather pointless. His doctor was charged for criminal incompetence, with the promise that once the defendant died, the doctor would also be charged with homicide (since the tumor was operable when the doctor discovered it).[[note]]Had the original case gone to trial, the brain tumor would still have been a viable defense, since the actual defense is not "insanity" but "mental disease or defect". The exact nature of the problem is irrelevant; it's all about the defendant's state of mind.[[/note]]

** In one episode a psychiatrist murders a child who had murdered the doctor's son and then tricked him (the victim's father) into pushing for leniency, which it's now too late to retract. The psychiatrist is acquitted on an insanity defense, but later admits that it actually was planned and not a fit of grief/rage as had been claimed. Since he's already been acquitted, there's nothing they can do about it.

* Used in ''Series/{{Bones}}''. [[spoiler:Zach Addy]] was deemed insane in an off-screen trial, and went to a mental institution. Eventually, the audience finds out that [[spoiler:he didn't actually commit the crime he was accused of, but believes that he may have committed a lesser crime and refuses to confess, because then he could be re-tried and might go to jail]].

* The Firm on ''Series/ThePractice'' would cut-and-paste the Insanity Defense around any [[SympatheticMurderer sympathetic defendant]] who performed a VigilanteExecution to give the jury an excuse to acquit their client, since arguing an eye for an eye would be considered jury nullification. The chances of a jury buying it were generally low. The episode "Committed" showed the aftermath of one these: a {{serial killer}} who used a successful insanity defense some years ago hires Lindsey to help him get declared sane and released from the institution he is now in.

* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': In "Act of Terror", a Marine guard is charged for murder after he shot a terrorist suspect during a prisoner transfer, on live TV. Harm, as defense counsel, begins to explore the option of an insanity defense, but he’s taken off the case by the defendant, who’s hired a different attorney.

* Played with in the second ([[ShortRunners and final]]) episode of ''Series/MadeInJersey''. Martina defends a severely schizophrenic young woman who took an insanity plea for murder, but now wants a retrial so she can go home. [[spoiler:She's innocent and Martina successfully gets her acquitted.]]

* ''Series/Accused2023'': "Danny's Story" features this. The titular character, faced with an attempted murder charge, refuses to let his lawyer argue insanity, insisting that his stepmother really murdered his mother and he stabbed her to protect the rest of his family. Everyone else though believes he's mentally ill, and he finally acquieces. [[spoiler:It apparently worked, with Danny sent to a mental institution rather than prison. However, he now can't get out either, and his stepmother really ''did'' do what he claimed, having now murdered his father and begun to poison his brother as well.]]
* ''Series/TheConfessionsOfFrannieLangton'': Frannie's barrister proposes using her experience of enslavement in Jamaica by saying this unhinged her mind when she's charged with a double murder. Frannie firmly rejects this angrily. Later though he uses a different variety, through claiming she might have committed both murders in a state like sleepwalking but wasn't really aware of her acts. Frannie herself at first fears she did this and doesn't remember it.

* Roy Brown's "[[MurderBallad Butcher Pete]]";

** In Catholicism the three requirements for a sin to be mortal (i.e. severe enough to warrent eternal damnation) are Grave Matter, [[ObliviouslyEvil Full Knowledge]], and [[ForcedIntoEvil Deliberate Consent]]. Since insanity takes away the second two, people who are insane are incapable of committing mortal sins.
* In Islam, the Prophet Muhammad is recorded as saying the following with regards to this trope.

* ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'': The DL-6 incident in the backstory has the defendant, Yanni Yogi, get off because his lawyer claimed insanity (specifically, that he'd suffered brain damage from oxygen deprivation after being trapped in an elevator for several hours). [[spoiler: It's a DeconstructedTrope, because said lawyer was an AmoralAttorney who pressured his client into entering an insanity plea because the lawyer didn't believe in his innocence, but was too crooked to advise a plea bargain. Yanni Yogi was both innocent and sane, but being forced to pretend to be crazy to keep up his insanity plea ruined his life and caused his fiancee to kill herself. He later murders his lawyer for what the guy had done to him.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Corpse Party}}'', this is how Yoshikazu Yanagihori avoided going to jail for abducting four children and killing three of him. He actually ''was'' pretty insane at that point [[spoiler:and he wasn't even the real killer, just an accomplice to the real killer, who was manipulating him]], so a mental hospital was probably the best place for him. Unfortunately, security was not very good (it ''was'' 1973 Japan) and he ended up breaking out. He then broke into the school where the children were killed and [[DrivenToSuicide hanged himself]].

** Sam is a larcenous, silver-tongued alien squid. He mentions that spending more than three weeks with him is legally grounds for an individual insanity plea.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': [[spoiler:After having his ass ''thoroughly'' kicked and having no other option besides trying to talk his way out, Belos transforms back into his younger self, who Luz met when he was still going by Philip Wittebane, and tries to claim that everything he's done over the last 400 years was the result of a horrible curse claiming ownership over his mind. Nobody buys it for a ''single'' second, and Luz just stands there and watches as it starts to rain boiling water, melting Philip down while he begs for help until he's just a skull floating in a puddle of necrotic ooze, which Eda, King and Raine proceed to stomp on until there's hardly anything left.]]

* [[UsefulNotes/CanadianHistory Louis Riel]]'s lawyers wanted him to plead insanity to be found not guilty of treason. People will never know if it would have worked, because Riel wanted to use his time in court as a final opportunity to make public the Métis' problems. Riel actively sought to disprove his lawyers’s insanity plea and argued that it was in fact the Canadian government that was “insane and irresponsible”. He was found guilty and hanged.
* One of the better known cases in recent American history was the murder of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone in San Francisco. Former Supervisor Dan White's defense team was able to convince the jury that he was in such a mental state as to be incapable of premeditation, so he ended up being convicted of voluntary manslaughter (causing riots by San Francisco gay men who saw this as an inadequate outcome motivated by homophobia). Among other things, they cited White's shift from health nut to junk food addict as evidence of his declining mental state. The references to junk food led to the coining of the term "Twinkie Defense". The term "Twinkie Defense" has now entered the language to describe a frivolously thin defence of insanity, with a common belief being that White's lawyers claimed that he should be let off because he did the killings while on a sugar high; no such argument was actually used by the defense (and Twinkies were mentioned only in passing), [[BeamMeUpScotty but people think it was]].

* The lawyers of the British child-killer Ian Brady tried this, basically relying on circular reasoning: "My client has done something so horrible he must be insane, therefore he is insane." It didn't work initially, though he was since been transferred to Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital -- which is specifically for the ''criminally'' insane (mostly those who've killed people) and, for someone like him, basically means the most secure detention facility in the UK. He since survived a murder attempt by another inmate, which left him blind in one eye, before dying in 2017 while still incarcerated. It seems safe to say being deemed insane didn't given him any better treatment than in prison.
* James Holmes, the perpetrator of the 2012 Aurora Colorado shootings, has apparently been called this by his defense attorney. Holmes had also dyed his hair orange and was referring to himself as "the Joker". Then again, he propped open an emergency exit before his rampage so that he could sneak into the theater past the front, and had placed a large number of complicated, connected traps in his apartment that police took several days to disable. In the end, he was found guilty by the jury, but spared the death sentence.

* In 1970 Twiggs Lyndon, the road manager of Music/TheAllmanBrothersBand, got in a fight with Buffalo, New York nightclub owner Angelo Aliotta, after Aliotta paid the band just $500 of a $1000 guarantee. In the middle of the fracas, Lyndon stabbed Aliotta, who died a short time later. At the trial, Lyndon's lawyer argued that being the manager of a band that heavily indulged in SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll had affected his sanity. As proof, they called bassist Berry Oakley to the stand, where he admitted to regularly using drugs, including ''right before he came to the courtroom''. Lyndon was acquitted of first-degree murder, given credit for time served, and sentenced to a few months in a psychiatric hospital. Then [[HereWeGoAgain he went back to managing the Allmans]].

* Vincent Gigante was nicknamed "the Oddfather" because he used ObfuscatingInsanity to hide the fact that he was a [[UsefulNotes/TheMafia Mafia boss]] and be unable to stand trial. Almost every day, he would emerge disheveled from his home and accompanied by one of his bodyguards. His own family even went so far to bribe and/or intimidate doctors into stating he was mentally incapacitated. This "crazy" stunt eventually came back to haunt him in 1997 when mobsters from other families stated it was a ruse to shake off law enforcement. Gigante finally admitted to pulling this crazy stunt in 2003 before dying of heart disease in 2005 while behind bars.

** The general consensus is that the insanity defense is almost guaranteed to work in the Gotham court system regardless of how much sense it makes legally, but since it means going to Arkham, [[IncrediblyLamePun you'd need to be crazy]] to try it. In ''ComicBook/ArkhamAsylumLivingHell'', Warren White, an embezzler who stole millions of dollars and unfamiliar with Gotham, made this mistake and found himself in Arkham instead of the cushy rehab center he expected to be sent to. Things didn't go well for him. Killer Croc attacked him, slashing his throat and giving him "gills". Then an encounter with Jane Doe in Mr. Freeze's specialized cell left him without hair, ears, nose, and lips. Then White filed his teeth to points and took the name "Great White Shark". Essentially, while he might not have been crazy ''before'' his insanity defence worked, he certainly was ''after'' it.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Gigante Vincent Gigante]], boss of the Genovese crime family from 1981 to 2005, used ObfuscatingInsanity in an effort to throw law enforcement off his trail and to hide the fact that he was a major [[UsefulNotes/TheMafia Mafia kingpin]]. Almost every day, he would emerge unkempt, dressed shabbily with pajamas and a windbreaker from his home, and accompanied by one of his bodyguards. Because of this, he was nicknamed "the Oddfather." Psychiatrists and his own relatives claimed that since he had a low IQ stemming from injuries he sustained in his earlier career as a boxer, and that he suffered from various mental diseases such as psychosis and dementia, he was mentally unfit to stand trial. This "crazy" stunt worked for many years, but it eventually came back to haunt him in 1997, when mobsters from other families testified that he used it as a ruse to shake off law enforcement. Gigante finally admitted to pulling this crazy stunt in 2003, and died in prison while doing a 12-year stint for murder and racketeering charges.

** A rare case where it's actually valid involves a schizophrenic man who [[AccidentalKidnapping abducts a child]] that he mistakes for his own estranged son and kills two people who try to stop him. The detectives determine that he really didn't understand what he was doing, and he's sent to a psychiatric hospital rather than prison.

** It doesn't help that Gotham's psychiatrists tend to get outed as villains themselves (Scarecrow, Hugo Strange, Dr. Hurt, Harley Quinn, the various Doctors Arkham) or are shown to be grossly incompetent or negligent. When a steady stream of new inmates ensures new test subjects or funding from bribes, it's easy to see why they'd play fast and loose with the legal definition of insanity.
** It's frequently implied that Gotham's legal system is [[KangarooCourt overloaded at best, openly corrupt at worst.]] Given that Arkham's infamous for its escapes and the horrific nature of its inmates, part of the high rate of legally sane people incarcerated there is because they fully intend on leaving soon, and partly because many of Gotham's lawyers and judges seem hellbent on keeping all of Gotham's worst right in one place. With Blackgate's introduction, it also helped separate the big-name villains from their CannonFodder henchmen.

* ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice''. Lex Luthor (who certainly is suffering from an AmbiguousDisorder) claims he's too crazy to stand trial after being thrown into prison. His smugness slips a fraction when Batman agrees... and informs Luthor that he's being shipped to Arkham Asylum, where Batman has some friends who'll make Luthor's life unpleasant. Of course, Luthor is ''definitely'' unhinged after witnessing a god-eating abomination ''heading straight for Earth''.

* This can play out in reality when a person is acquitted of a crime by reason of insanity. Many people think this means they got {{off on a technicality}} and see it as basically cheating. However, while they do avoid prison, "{{get out of jail free card}}" is only technically true. Instead, they are committed to the nearest mental institution for an evaluation and then treatment. Very often, that means they will spend more time than would have been the case in prison, possibly even the rest of their life. Not only that but of course the stigma remains regardless. This is assuming they're acquitted with the insanity defense at all (it only works in a tiny number of cases when tried). Some jurisdictions don't even have it, so mentally-ill defendants are simply treated in prison (often poorly, due to lack of resources) when they might be sent to a hospital otherwise.
** Studies have shown that the successful use of the insanity defense is much rarer than most media would have us believe. It is only tried in 1% of cases, and of those only 25% are successful. So that's 1 in 400, right? But it gets worse. Of those, 75% are agreed to before trial by the prosecutor/defense/judge (so basically EVERYONE agreed you were insane). So it is roughly 1600 cases in order to get 1 jury verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

* Not only is it very difficult to successfully argue insanity, in many cases it only makes the situation worse for the defendant. In some US states, being declared unfit only delays the trial, which must resume if the accused is to be released from custody; and since mental health hospitals are rare these days, this time will probably be spent in the prison that the offender would have been sent to anyway. Also, inmates who are "civil commits" have special restrictions that limit contact with properly convicted inmates, which would lead to a lonely (and indefinite) prison term.

* Aversion in ''Film/{{Nuts}}'', where Music/BarbraStreisand demands they declare her sane. The film notes (accurately) that if you are declared insane, you can be kept locked up for life, even for a crime that would only entail a few years in prison.

* ''Series/Accused2023'': "Danny's Story" features this. The titular characted, faced with an attempted murder charge, refuses to let his lawyer argue insanity, insisting that his stepmother really murdered his mother and he stabbed her to protect the rest of his family. Everyone else though believes he's mentally ill, and he finally acquieces. [[spoiler:It apparently worked, with Danny sent to a mental institution rather than prison. However, he now can't get out either, and his stepmother really ''did'' do what he claimed, having now murdered his father and begun to poision his brother as well.]]

* In ''Series/AppleTreeYard, [[spoiler:Mark]] pleads this after being charged with [[spoiler:George]]'s murder. It ultimately succeeds in his sentence being reduced from murder to manslaughter due to diminished responsibility. Whilst not confirmed, it's implied that at the very least he's got some pretty abnormal ways of thinking and behaving, including taking [[spoiler:Yvonne]] literally when she jokingly told him she wanted him to kill [[spoiler:George]] for raping her (she just wanted him to get [[spoiler:George]] to stay away from her).

* The MadeForTVMovie ''Film/TheBurningBed'' is a good example of a well-supported "temporary insanity" plea. The film is BasedOnATrueStory, and in RealLife, Francine Hughes was acquitted.

** The nearly abusive use of this defense among Batman villains in particular has caused more than one [[DanBrowned rant]] from [[http://www.worldfamouscomics.com/law/back20030401.shtml real legal professionals]]. It concluded that only ComicBook/TwoFace and [[DependingOnTheWriter sometimes]] The Joker are "legally" insane, though it's an old and incomplete list. For those who don't feel like reading the linked article in full, what the article concludes is that sometimes the Joker does appear to have a valid insanity defense for his actions (wrongfulness test: sometimes he literally doesn't think what he's doing is wrong; at other times he knows it's wrong but does it anyway ForTheLulz, which is ''not'' a valid defense), and Two-Face pretty much always appears to have one (irresistible impulse test: he knows it's wrong, but can't stop himself because the coin came up scarred). It specifically lists those two as examples of Arkham inmates who probably do belong there; it then gives a (short) list of others that ''don't'': the Scarecrow, the Mad Hatter, the Penguin, Poison Ivy, Tweedledum and Tweedledee. They don't exhibit any behavior compatible with the legal definition of insanity... mental illness, maybe; they're ''certainly'' eccentric... but they fail both prongs of the insanity definition: wrongfulness and irresistible impulse. The author explicitly mentions that he's not trying to give an exhaustive list either way, just examples so that readers can understand what the actual criteria for being judged legally insane are. It also concedes that the audience doesn't know that Gotham uses the same test the real-world US legal system does (which varies from state to state, but they're all more or less based on the Model Penal Code), so maybe under Gotham's definition voluntarily being seen in public in green spandex is all it takes.

* ''Series/{{Cracked}}'': Given that the show deals exclusively with cases involving TheMentallyIll in some capacity, many of its perpetrators would be judged not fit to stand trial, not guilty by reason of insanity, or to have suffered from diminished capacity. The episode "No Traveller Returns" is dedicated to establishing whether [[ImAHumanitarian cannibal]] murderer Mandar Kush, who has spent eleven years in an institution, can be released into society. The answer is [[spoiler:yes]].