As Beaver County, Pa. authorities have charged Richard S. Baumhammers with the murder of five individuals and wounding of another, the issue of the insanity plea is in the news once again. Federal law states that insanity is a fair defense if "at the time of the commission of the acts constituting the offense, the defendant as a result of a severe mental disease or defect, was unable to appreciate the nature and quality of the wrongfulness of his acts."

The origin of the insanity defense dates back to 1843, when Daniel McNaughtan attempted to assassinate British Prime Minister Robert Peel. McNaughtan killed Peel's secretary but was found not guilty by reason of insanity at the trial. The U.S. criminal justice system quickly adopted the legal precedent established by the McNaughtan decision.

The insanity defense received harsh public criticism when, after the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley Jr., Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Many argued that his premeditation of the crime was undeniable proof of his sanity. Public criticism of the insanity defense has continued to grow with each high profile case. While the jury was presented with an insanity defense in the trial of Jeffrey Dahmer - the Milwaukee man who killed, mutilated and consumed his young victims - he was found both sane and guilty. In the famed Unabomber case, defendant Theodore Kaczynski refused to allow his attorneys to present an insanity defense, and instead pled guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.

One the One Hand...

An insanity plea is a poor excuse for serious lawbreaking, and should have no bearing on punishment. In a majority of criminal cases, especially murder trials, an insanity plea is merely a defense strategy aimed at delivering guilty defendants from the death penalty or serving time in prison. Defendants feign mental illness, and their attorneys use this loophole as a way to confuse jurors with complicated and questionable psychiatric evaluations. Most defendants who are found not guilty by reason of insanity are released from mental hospitals years, if not decades, earlier than they would be had they served prison sentences. The insanity defense ensures that criminals can avoid the punishment that fits their crimes.

On the Other Hand...

Although high profile cases have distorted the facts surrounding insanity defenses, the insanity plea is a valid legal defense. Insanity defenses involve a thorough process of psychiatric evaluation to determine the mental health of the accused. In order to gain release, a hospital or state appointed board must approve their request. Insanity pleas are not made that frequently and are usually uncontested by prosecutors.

• A study conducted in the early 1990s involving eight states found that less than one percent of criminal defendants used insanity defenses. A quarter of these resulted in successful acquittals.

• A number of states have replaced the option of pleading "not guilty by reason of insanity" with pleading "guilty but mentally ill".

• Between 60 percent and 70 percent of cases in which the insanity plea is invoked are for crimes other than murder.

• Idaho, Montana, and Utah currently prohibit insanity defenses, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

• The McNaughtan rule was defined as: "To establish a defense of insanity, it must be proved that at the time of committing the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as to not know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing something wrong."

• Following his trial, McNaughton spent twenty years in a mental asylum until his death.

U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Post, American Psychiatric Association, Time, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Salon, PBS Frontline, University of Missouri-Kansas City