Lunacy as a defense

I read recently about the young man accused of sexually abusing children in Kenya.  His defense includes some disorganized statements about "an evil spirit" (named "Dan", I think) who apparently "made him do it".  Among many psychologists.. well, maybe just me... this is known as "The Devil Made Me Do It"/  Clearly we should be highly skepticsl of such claims. In fact, the ONLY instances of such a claim being legitimately made are if the claimant is schizophrenic.  Schizophrenia is not a part-time disease that comes and goes.  The symptoms recede with medication most of the time, but without medication the schizophrenia is full time and in every aspect of the person's life.

Schizophrenia is a real disease, and in a small percentage of cases the schizophrenic may hear "command" hallucinations, ordering him/her to do certain things. But true schizophrenia is very difficult to fake unless the person attempting the fake is both very knowledgeable about schizophrenia and a hell of a good actor. It might be noted that schizophrenia is a disorder that almost invariably develops in the young person, roughly ages 15 to 30.  So the young man mentioned above is probably in the right age range.

A lot of the symptoms consist of what the schizophrenic does NOT do or show.  People deriving their knowledge of mental illness from movies or tv invariably get it as wrong as it can possibly be, so their attempt at faking it is detected in minutes or even seconds in an interview.  Many less well-educated people think that schizophrenia has to do with "multiple personality"; they apparently think if another part of the self does the bad deed, especially if they "don't remember" that it will not be their fault and they shouldn't be punished.  So we should just punish that part of them.  Of course, the rest of the person will go to jail too.

Schizophrenia is an illness that deserves and requires treatment, not punishment.