Criminal Defense Case Analysis

Criminal Defense Case Analysis

CJA 344

June 16, 2014

In the Criminal Justice system there are many of reasons that one may be justified when a criminal offense is committed and there are times when criminal defenses are used but denied and the criminal offender is convicted of the charges that they were looking to have dismissed or set aside due to the criminal defense that was used to fight the case. In the story of Andrew Goldstein, the insanity defense was used. In the criminal Justice system, Insanity is a legal term, not a medical term in which refers to any soundness of mind, mental defect, or lack of reason that prevents an individual from being able to determine the difference between right and wrong from understanding the extent or requirement for consequences of their actions. In the case of The people & c., Respondent, V., Andrew Goldstein, the sanity of Goldstein was being questioned. On January 3, 1999, Goldstein killed a woman that he did not know by throwing her into the path of an approaching subway train. Goldstein stood trial twice, the first time, there was a hung jury.

The second trial the main two witnesses, forensic psychiatrists, Spencer Eth and Angela Hegarty, confirmed that Goldstein was mentally ill and had been diagnosed with schizophrenic approximately ten years prior to his act for which he was standing trial. Not only did the doctors confirm that information but they also confirmed that Goldstein had been treated in a number of mental hospitals in the interim. The doctors also agreed that the role of the defendant’s mental illness played a role in the killing. Forensic psychiatrist Eth’s opinion stated that Goldstein pushed the victim to her death “when he was suffering an acute exacerbation… of sever psychotic symptoms,” possibly resulting from his failure to take his prescribed anti-psychotic medication. These are some of the reasons that the insanity defense was able to be argued as a justification for Goldstein’s...