It was scary as hell. They transfered me from jail to a mental health facility for those who were locked up but needed to get sane to appear in court. Out of 40 ppl i was the only one who got evaluated for the (NGRI) not guilty by reason of insanity plea. I had to tell them what was going on in my head while i was commiting my crimes.
Important note tho: i was there for 5 misdemeanors and violating two different probations stemming from misdemeanors. I was facing 5 years max prolly, but all my charges got dropped and i only did 6 months. I dunno why the heck my lawyer wanted me evaluated for insanity, cuz i was scared cuz i was only one being evaluted for that at facility, none of my charges were even violent, just frivelous stuff. I also had to be evaluated as competent to stand trial but so did everyone.
They say that once u plead not guilty by reason of insanity there is a shi+ton of stigma attached. And if u do get off on the plea u have to spend at least 5-6 years in state hospital proving ur sane enough to return to real world.
Jeez that sounds â– â– â– â– â– â– up. 5 years in jail vs 5 years in mental hospital. Then you get out and everyone probably looks at you like you got off easy.
Just my opinion, but I would rather deal with the ordinary criminal justice system and take my chances with jail rather than an institution for the criminally insane. With regular jail and the regular court system you have Constitutional rights and there would be a set amount of time you would have to serve before they would have to release you. But with the N.G.B.R.I. route, they can keep you indefinitely. There are stories out there of people who got into a bar fight (assault, a felony) and if they had just done their time in ordinary jail, they would have spent 6 months in jail, but because they plead Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity, they end up in the state mental hospital for the criminally insane (which is much worse than the regular mental hospitals) for years and years, because they fear they might be a danger to others if released. They don’t have the same rights of ordinary criminals who may be equally violent, but are treated much better and released on time.
I recently got arrested due to a prank that got out of hand, and there ended up being unintentional collateral damage to the private property of a neighbor. I lawyered up and remained silent, and fortunately the neighbor lady agreed to not press charges if I paid for the damages. So they released me. It was a costly lesson, and I’ve stopped the pranks on my friends. Time to grow up. I’ll be turning 24 soon. Time to act like it. But if I had involved the mental health system, I’d probably still be in a mental hospital right now.
P.S.-- I’d try to find a different lawyer if I was you. Any lawyer who tries to push that plea over misdemeanors is not much of a lawyer. In fact any lawyer who pushes that defense at all, either doesn’t know how terrible it will be for their client or does not care. Terrible attorney.
I’ve never received an NGRI verdict, but I have been declared “incapacitated”. I imagine if I committed a serious crime it would be easy to get an NGRI verdict, not that I want to. One day this woman came knocking on doors at our apartments, wanting us to vote for her for county clerk, or some such position. If a person wasn’t registered she would offer to take them to a place to register. A person who is declared “incapacitated” can’t register to vote. When she asked me I told I couldn’t do that because I had been declared “incapacitated”. I think she took it as insolence, because her voice started to have a really hard edge in it. I swear I wasn’t being insolent. She was mistaken about my motives. Not too long after that my food stamps got cut by over half, but that was probably due to some other trouble I had.
Its been almost six years since i’ve been in trouble with the law. Yea, u r right, it’s pretty crummy to end up in mental health system cuz u lose rights to speedy trial etc. I wonder if my lawyer had me evaluated for it cuz she wanted the ppl pressing charges against me to know that i was crazy at the time, cuz noone ended up showing up to court in the end. I normally like her, she defended me most of my arrests and usually got me off light due to MI.
It’s very, very hard to get an ngri verdict. And unless ur gonna do 10 years or more like @Wesley said, it’s better to just take regular punishment cuz state mental hospital can keep u indefinetly, it’s not like normal mental hospital where u get out within a month.
How are the conditions in those criminal mental hospitals in your countries?
Here in Italy they got closed following many scandals about the very poor conditions of the patients.
My situation was different. I was arrested for DUI and possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, reckless driving and felony knife possession back in 2011. It was for a psychotic break. Everyone who knows me,no it’s me as a good guy, they didn’t want to send me to jail. I think I was facing 120 days. knows me as a good guy, they didn’t want to send me to jail. I think I was facing 120 days. I was also transfer from the jail to a psychiatric ward. Then I was let free. Ended back in the psych ward a couple days later, literally four days later I was hospitalized again for suicidal ideation. Then after a month in that psych ward they put me in rehab for another month. The trail was strung out over a long period of time, kept getting continuances, eventually I got every program in the state has the offer for alternative incarceration. Did 100 hours of community service, hundred hours of drug and alcohol classes even though I wasn’t drunk I was just psychotic. And after a year and a bunch of fines and a bunch of lawyer fees, The charges were dropped. I didn’t plead temporary insanity although I don’t understand why they didn’t let me. Well, we didn’t want to take that risk, just have me do the classes and ■■■■. It was good for me at the time actually. If I ever got arrested again Id go to jail, but I don’t break the law anymore… too Much.
Never been accused of anything, either before sz or afterwards. But I’ve read somewhere that the most common “crime” schizophrenics get charged with is … tresspassing
That’s what I got charged with when I thought the hospital was CIA headquarters. I was psychotic as hell. Luckily, I never ended up having that charge. Pretty sure they just asked for me to be removed from property.
I didnt go to the mental hospital designated for those who get NGRI. I went to the one for those awaiting trial. It was just like the mental hospitals they use for everyone else, had ur own bed, it even had a ninetendo wii that i used to play mario kart. The only difference was in this one they forced you to go to stupid groups for most of the day. You would play stupid games designed for six year olds, waiting for ur turn after 10 ppl took one.
Yes it is. I picked it cuz I was feeling like the guy in the movie who’s been through so much, and i been through and continue to go through so much with sz. I wanna find a [girl] like the main character at the end of the movie to lean against just to get a moment of solace and release. It was a powerful ending scene, if u’ve seen it.
I got that charge once when i was in regular hospital in icu but was psychotic and refused to leave once they asked me to. Security had to drag me out and then i got arrested. I remember I started yelling real loudly for all the nurses and staff to gather round me and they did LOL and then I started screaming psychotic things like “i replace nothing”.
A lot of sz’s are homeless, that prolly has to do with that statistic
My lawyer and (ex) husband decided my fate to accept the plea bargan, which was not acceptable to me- if my lawyer had been a good one, the charges would be dropped because the cop flat out lied on the police report-proven onhis own tape recorder-which was promptly “lost” after NOT being booked into evidence…so anyway, my lawyer thinks I should be happy after the two years of monthly court appearances, and posibility of it going to trial by jury, which is more than he barganed for- he turns to me in the courtroom and says very loudly, "Do YOUR MEDS MAKE IT HARD FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND ME?"
What a dick.
Everyone stopped talking and turned to look at me.
I wanted to crawl under the carpet on the floor.
That’s pretty terrible. I am sorry u had to go through that. My lawyer always says to me “ur the smartest client i’ve had”. That means a lot cuz sz screwed with my brain but she still thinks that.
My lawyer wanted to go with the ngri plea. I told him I wasn’t guilty and don’t want that hanging over my head. He ended up talking to the judge and they dropped the charges. It was so stressful dealing with being paranoia and the Courts alongside all the delusions I was dealing with. I was really In a condition they should not have tried me. But I appeared normal for the longest time my lawyer didn’t even believe i was sick and I didn’t either. Eventually by the things I was asking for he realized I was sick. That’s when he got the charges dropped , think he pulled some strings.
I was never evaluated for that but I did have to go to court to fight a petition that I started to be put in the psych ward. Needless to say, they made me stay.
I think it was because I built up a surplus of $750.00 on my food stamps. I shopped with much less thrift for a while, and I got my surplus SNAP benefits down to $250.00, but I think they want me to spend that. I want to have a cushion of benefits, though. That $250.00 is my security blanket. Also, I’d hate to spend it, and find out they cut my benefits for some other reason.
