Usage and Success Rate
This increased coverage gives the impression that the defense is widely used, but this is not the case. According to an eight-state study, the insanity defense is used in less than 1% of all court cases and, when used, has only a 26% success rate. Of those cases that were successful, 90% of the defendants had been previously diagnosed with mental illness.
Read more about this topic: Insanity Defense
Famous quotes containing the words usage, success and/or rate:
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“A tragic irony of life is that we so often achieve success or financial independence after the chief reason for which we sought it has passed away.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)
“We honor motherhood with glowing sentimentality, but we don’t rate it high on the scale of creative occupations.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)