Why do people believe in the insanity defense?

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Yes, I was going to point that out. Insanity is such a hard thing to prove in court that it's only tried in roughly 1% of all cases and the number of mentally ill people out there is significantly higher than that.

And as you note even if for some reason it does work, the ultimate consequences can be a much longer term incarcerated and they may decide that afterwards you're now good to be tried.

I do think that there should be reform to it, because It strikes me as being a bit unhelpful to throw people in prison that may not even know if they're guilty or not. Understanding a crime is definitely a reasonable reason to let somebody off the hook for the crime itself, but I do think that we're a bit unreasonable in terms of people that understand that something is criminal, but either don't remember doing it or lacked the evil intent that is a large part of why some of these things are considered felonies rather than lesser offenses.

Well in the case of someone being bipolar and then using memory loss as a defense, why do others accept that if the person is just going to do it again, and again and then use memory loss as a defense again and again? Do people think that if a person gets memory loss that that means the person is going to want to turn over a new leaf like in the Bourne movies?

First off: What does bipolar disorder have to do with "memory loss"?

Second: the hypothetical you're talking about doesnt even make sense for ANY disorder Ive ever heard of-except maybe ...multiple personality disorder. So lets go with that.

If you're like the girl in "Sybil" with thirty (or whatever double digit number it was) personalities, and none of your personalities remembers what any of the other personalities ever does...just blanks out- AND one of the personalities is homicidal, and the other 29 are law abiding, AND that one personality murders someone, and none of the other 29 remembers doing it, then...

There is no way you would get off scot free "to do it again".

Most likely it would go down much like it did for John Hinckley Jr...either ...you would end up doing life in a penitentiary (like Hinckley could have gotten)...or depending upon the exact circumstances and the skill of your lawyers etc...you would be put into a mental institution ...where you be similarly warehoused away from society (ergo not be able to "keep doing it again") for probably decades before they decide let you out on holidays or whatever (which is what Hinckley did get). Either hard time for life (for being sane and guilty), or soft time for decades (for practical purposes "life") for being "not guilty by reason of insanity". Basically a life sentence either way.

I wasn't going by the legal system per se, just situations where people's loved ones keep tolerating the crap, and expect their relatives and family to still show up to have to put up with that.

I don't know what memory loss has to do with bipolar disorder, but the person with bipolar disorder uses the 'they didn't mean to', or 'do not remember' defense.

Sounds like you're not clear yourself as to what exactly you're ...not clear about. Lol!

Is there some specific case you're thinking of?

Oh well when I was criticising a friend in the group for having bipolar disorder, others said that it's not his fault and he is not himself or may not remember.