Legal Question in Criminal Law in North Carolina
Question for a class: what is the punishment for malingering, and what happens to the plea if the initial plea was "not guilty by insanity" but the defendant is found to be not insane but fully competent?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Malingering is "exaggerate or feign illness in order to escape duty or work". In the military this is also known as "gold bricking". There is no punishment for malingering as it is not a crime in NC. Usually, malingering comes up in criminal law as part of some sort of fraud crime such as a person pretending to be disabled in order to receive benefits they are not entitled to or with regard to a defendant pretending to be incompetent to stand trial. However, it is the associated crimes like fraud, perjury etc. that are actual crimes not the malingering itself. Your question of what happens to a plea of "not guilty by insanity" but the defendant is found to be not insane but fully competent is moot. A competency hearing is done before a plea is entered. It would be extraordinarily rare for a person to be found competent after entering a plea of not guilty by insanity.but the likely outcome if it did happen would be to vacate the sentence and remand for another competency hearing.
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