the courts say gerald lee loughner is mentally incompetent and cannot be put on trial until successfully treated. it is raising a specter that long troubled americans. the idea that the insanity defense were be easily used to get violent criminals off the books, but is that true? jim acosta picks up the story. >> reporter: you are entering a world few will ever see in person. inside of a mental institution that houses criminally insane patients. this is st. elizabeths hospital in washington, d.c. as captured in a remarkable movie shot last year by the patients themselves. one of them is louis eckerd, he beat and strangled to death a u.s. senator's aide more than four decades ago. >> i came in in 1967. that's reik 43 years, this was my home. this is where i live. believe me, lived and died. >> reporter: the movies two young miamimakers got the permission to put the hands in the hands of a few select patients. this unprecedented access was granted to give the swins a better understanding of a person found guilty of insanity. >> it's through their eyes. >> what did you learn about them? wha