By reason of insanity

Marci Weber, 46, is shown at the Elgin Mental Health Center in Elgin, Illinois, on May 22, 2013. She has been at the facility since being found not guilty by reason of insanity in the 2010 death of her four-year-old daughter. (Alex Garcia/Chicago Tribune/MCT)

A vast majority of the US public views a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) as ‘beating the rap’. The defence, raised in about 1% of felonies in the US, is successful 15 to 25% of the time.

SHACKLED to a hospital bed with a self-inflicted neck wound, Marci Webber described to the police visions of demons and skeletons, but wasn’t sure what had happened to her four-year-old daughter.