Strange Defenses: The Matrix defense
In 1999, the now iconic sci-fi film The Matrix was released. The movie depicted a future in which human beings were encased in cocoons so that their life-force could be harnessed to power the machines that ruled the earth. Within this dystopian future, these enslaved humans go about their lives within an artificial simulated reality in order to keep them under control, which they wholeheartedly believe and accept to be their reality. In the past two decades there have emerged a series of high profile, gruesome crimes committed by people who actually seem to believe that the world of The Matrix films is literally real, that it fueled their bloodlust, and that their crimes have taken place within this false reality, even going so far as to use this as a defense in court. It is a phenomenon now known as “The Matrix Defense.”
In 2000, 27-year-old computer science student at San Francisco State University Vadim Mieseges brutally murdered fellow student Ella Wong, who had been renting him a room in her apartment. Mieseges was found by the police, wandering around a mall with a knife, on drugs, and acting bizarrely. Upon his arrest he told authorities that he was living in the virtual reality of The Matrix, and that therefore Wong had never actually been a real person or existed. The judge in his case declared him mentally incompetent to stand trial and he was institutionalized.
In July of 2002, 37-year-old Tonda Lynn Ansley, of Butler County, Ohio, got a gun and proceeded to shoot a Miami University professor who she was renting a house from, Sherry Lee Corbett, 55, multiple times in the head. The coldblooded murder was carried out in full view of startled witnesses in broad daylight, and Ansley was quickly detained. Upon questioning, Ansley told detectives that she believed that the world they were in was not real, and that she was living in a computer simulation like in The Matrix. In this alternate reality, she said that her landlady had been involved in a conspiracy to keep her brainwashed and under the control of the simulation, as well as “invading her dreams,” with the ultimate goal of killing her. In Ansley’s mind, this was all simple self-defense against the sinister agents conspiring to keep her in the
virtual dream world. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Later that same year in October of 2002 18-year-old Lee Boyd Malvo was tried for the murder of 10. Over a 3-week period he carried out a series of coordinated sniper attacks with accomplice John Allen Muhammad throughout Maryland, Virginia, and DC. Although he did not use the films as a legal defense, while in prison Malvo drew sketches and wrote messages in his cell that alluded to The Matrix films, such as one that read: Wake up! Free your mind, you are a slave to the matrix ‘control.’ The outside force has arrived. Free yourself of the matrix ‘control.’ Free first your mind. Trust me!! The body will follow. Remove fear, doubt, distrust, watch the change then. He also allegedly told investigators that if they truly wanted to understand him and his motives then it was imperative that they watch The Matrix films.
The use of films and other strange defenses as ways to shirk responsibility for heinous crimes seems to be a disturbing trend, and one which has seen much debate as to how much weight it should be given in a court of law. It seems that criminals are not above trying to latch onto whatever is popular at the moment to attempt to bolster their defense, whether they really believe it or not, but the fact is that these people were probably already in a sense predestined to commit their violent deeds even without such help from the pop culture they were inundated with. Although violent films can certainly give criminals a sense of justification for violent impulses or reinforce them in their minds, it has mostly been doubted that the movies are what generated these impulses in the first place. After all, out of all of the millions of people who have seen The Matrix films, very few of them have gone out and killed anyone. The “Matrix Defense” and other strange defenses rarely work, in fact they are only used in 1% of cases and only work 25% of the time within that 1%.
While I agree that a “not guilty for reasons of insanity” verdict does somewhat shirk one’s responsibility for a crime, I think it is important to remember that this doesn’t mean they can walk free. They are sent to get treated in a mental hospital until the Court decides to release them, which could be never. So, in actuality, they could be serving the equivalent prison sentence, just not in an actual prison. This is a common misconception, and one I actually believed in until recently. After learning this, my views on the insanity defense completely changed. While I do see that trend of people claiming insanity to help their defense, I do think “not guilty for reasons of insanity” offers help to the people who need it–the people who genuinely don’t understand right from wrong and have lost control of their actions, possibly by thinking they’re in The Matrix.
ReplyDeleteI think this is really interesting. They did not use the matrix to excuse their crime but to lessen the punishment. I feel like if I knew any of the victims I would not think justice had been served. People watch the movie knowing it is fiction. I see how they could be influenced but does that remove their sense of right and wrong? I also wonder if their are other movies that have been used as insanity defense.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like there are plenty of people willing to use popular concepts and tropes to justify their actions. The Matrix defense kind of reminds me of the Slenderman stabbing, in which two 12-year-olds stabbed their 11-year-old friend about 40 times because they thought that Slenderman wanted them to do it. This raises the question of where one can draw the line in the insanity defense.
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