Peeping Into The Intersection: A Legal And Extrapolative Analysis Of Crime & Insanity In Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island- A Review Of Literature

Abstract

It has been the order of criminal law in all its manifestations that a person at the age of discretion is presumed to be sane for her conduct, unless the defence proves contrary to it. A bill of indictment and an order of trial, therefore, necessitates acknowledgement of this order. And the same holds true for the excusatory defence of Insanity, surrounding different criminal regimes across the world. The statement then rightly holds, that “The insanity defense exists in criminal law not to identify the mentally ill, but rather to determine who among the mentally ill should be held criminally responsible for their conduct.” Since the regime of Edward III, insanity as a defence has been subjected to chronic controversies and dissent. Legislators and Judicial structures across the world have found it immensely difficult to define what actually counts as ‘insane’ to absolve a person of all his liabilities. In an attempt to look at a curious case and find the applications of the law that stands both in common law regime as well as in India today, this literature review is undertaken. Whether insanity as a defence, provides the comprehensive space for accommodation is the question one must ask, in continuance of such a regime, while it goes on to invoke extraordinary interest and triggers the old debate on the essentiality of the defence itself in criminal law. To check the authority of law and the defences it permits, a critical analysis and to find in true sense the dimensions of ‘justice’ in criminal jurisprudence, is called for. This review of literature attempts to carry out the same. Theoretical approaches intermingle in such an attempt and this review attempts to capture those holistic areas with equal essentiality while applicating and finding the right fit of deal for present and future considerations in a case of insanity, that is not ordinary, but instead, lies on the threshold of the sane and insane, in the Dennis Lehane’s crime genre genius.