[ noun ] relatively permanent disorder of the mind <noun.state>
Insanity \In*san"i*ty\, n. [L. insanitas unsoundness; cf. insania insanity, F. insanite.] 1. The state of being insane; unsoundness or derangement of mind; madness; lunacy.
All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity. --Johnson.
Without grace The heart's insanity admits no cure. --Cowper.
2. (Law) Such a mental condition, as, either from the existence of delusions, or from incapacity to distinguish between right and wrong, with regard to any matter under action, does away with individual responsibility.
Usage: Insanity is the generic term for all such diseases; lunacy has now an equal extent of meaning, though once used to denote periodical insanity; madness has the same extent, though originally referring to the rage created by the disease; derangement, alienation, are popular terms for insanity; delirium, mania, and frenzy denote excited states of the disease; dementia denotes the loss of mental power by this means; monomania is insanity upon a single subject.
"You can't legislate against insanity," the Conservative Party legislator said Thursday.
On Wednesday, the judge took nearly three hours to outline the 19 charges against Heidnik to the jury, and explained all the possible verdicts, among them innocent by reason of insanity and guilty but mentally ill.
Terry Nolan, Dobben's court-appointed attorney, has said he will maintain Dobben was innocent by reason of insanity.
Hamlet marries Ophelia, and they live happily ever after." Ziad Rahbani has put the chaos and insanity of war-battered Beirut to music in an attempt to blend Arabic music and jazz into a new form.
"Yes," she said. "I just realized the absurdity of it." Her testimony came one day after state Supreme Court Justice Harold Rothwax denied a defense motion to change Steinberg's plea to not guilty by reason of insanity.
To describe the plot of this bit of insanity is akin to writing a study guide to a Marvel Comic, but here goes.
The defendant then said softly, "There's nothing I can do about it, man." The turmoil Wednesday was sparked when Kindler asked Dr. Daniel Schwartz if Smith could be faking insanity to receive lenient treatment.
His opinions, he says, had become "an obsession" and "a mild form of insanity."
During the court appearance before state Justice Burton B. Roberts, Gonzalez's lawyer, Richard Berne, repeated his plan to use the an insanity defense.
Hinckley, found not guilty by reason of insanity in the March 1981 assassination attempt on then-President Reagan, has been a patient at St. Elizabeths since August 1982.
Luff had pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.
His lawyers are expected to assert an insanity defense to any weapons charge.
Fifteen years of insanity have almost destroyed what once was a Mediterranean coast of exquisite beauty.
Assistant District Attorneys Peter Casolaro and John McCusker charged last week that Steinberg's lawyers were presenting an insanity defense by using the testimony of lay witnesses.
Since 1983, the American Comedy Network has been producing zany, irreverent skits, mock interviews and fake commercials that disc jockeys around the country use to boost the insanity level of their shows.
What can be said without giving anything away is that Ms. Ingalls has not written a set of case studies of insanity.
In that case, a judge acquitted Mrs. Maxwell of murder by reason of insanity, and sent her to a state psychiatric hospital for treatment.
In 1972, doctors at the state hospital said Murphy had been cured of his insanity, and he was tried on the rape charge and found innocent by reason of mental illness.
Defense attorney John Philip White, who urged the jury to deliver a verdict of innocent by reason of insanity, characterized Rod Matthews as having a "diseased intellect" that made him unable to act rationally.
"We're shocked," defense attorney Pat Nolan said, adding he would appeal the verdict. "We expected a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Hinckley, charged with the attempted assassination of the president, was found innocent by reason of insanity in 1982 and since has been confined at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington D.C.
"This insanity has got to stop," he said.
A jury rejected an insanity defense Sunday in the second phase of the trial of an 18-year-old already convicted of first-degree murder in the ax slayings of his parents and two siblings.
Here, as played by John Nettles, Leontes has all the marks of a man close to insanity.
Federal budget deficits were decried Tuesday as "fiscal insanity" as the nation's governors wound up a meeting marked by grudging acceptance of a steady drop in federal aid to the states.
It's creepy." A man pleaded innocent by reason of insanity Tuesday to charges that he set his pregnant daughter on fire during an argument.
A finding of insanity could have put Moody in a psychiatric institution and he didn't want to risk that, his lawyer said.
As Susan descends further and further into insanity, Ayckbourn darkens the comedy.
The judge said insanity pleas usually must come with in 30 days of a defendant's plea to an indictment.
He said he wanted his motion granted so the jury could consider a verdict of innocent by reason of insanity.