Mental Illness, Evil, and Blame

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. It's hard to "win" an insanity case

because juries want to hold the person responsible and they don't want someone who did something really awful to "get off." Some interesting comments here:
http://www.startribune.com/local/west/124545478.html?refer=y

The 1978 case they mention, June Mikulanec, which I remember, was one of the few successful insanity defenses (she stabbed another woman about 90 times because that woman had just married the man June thought was her boyfriend; she claimed Jesus told her to do it). She went to a mental hospital instead of prison, and she's still there. This place is the state hospital for the criminally insane, and it might as well be prison. She will probably never get out.