Melissa Hinton

CJUS 2050
2.3 Critical Thinking Exercise

There are many reasons a guilty person may not be held accountable for their actions.
Their crime may have been committed in self-defense. It is left up to the courts to
determine if self-defense is applicable in the crime. This will depend on who was the
aggressor, were their actions reasonable, and was the force used in the act excessive or
reasonable.
There are also insanity defenses. Although these defenses are rarely upheld by judges,
they are entered as pleas. So we cannot assume a person is guilty until they receive a fair
trial and a certified psychiatrist, psychologist, etc., has testified.
People that are using or abusing alcohol and/or drugs will sometimes argue that they are
mentally incapacitated during the time of their crime. Therefore, they may not be charged
with a crime that has specific intent. If a person under the influence of alcohol has an
accident and kills another person, they may be charged with murder. However, because
they were under the influence there cannot be specific intent and the charge may be
lessened to vehicular manslaughter.
In addition to the defenses above, a person may also plea that he/she was entrapped. They
were coaxed into committing a crime by the government then they are punished for it.
Example is Sherman v. United States. Joseph Sherman, a recovering addict, was
repeatedly solicited by a government informant (Kalchinian) for drugs. Kalchinian informed
the FBI and Sherman was arrested. Sherman won his case against the United States when
the Supreme Court overturned his conviction.