Insanity in Criminal Law

Insanity is defined in a standard dictionary as "more or less permanent derangement of one or more psychical functions, due to a disease of the mind" (Stein, 1979, p. 735). However, in law, such derangement need not always be permanent in order to relieve an individual from standing trial for an offense alleged to have been committed by the individual (Morse, 1978), to absolve an individual from responsibility for an act committed by the individual (Hardisty, 1973) or to relieve a condemned individual from execution ("Insanity of the Condemned," 1979).

There is disagreement about the meaning of insanity and about whether an individual's condition should ever be characterized as insanity (Redlich, 1952,; A Psychiatric Glossary, 1964). The legal definition of insanity was originally derived from the medical profession (Hardisty, 1973). Within the judicial system, there are differences in interpretation (Dershowitz, 1973) and application of tests of insanity (Goldstein, 1973) and conflicts about the desirability of the use of insanity as a legal defense (Moore, 1980).

Regardless of the disagreement surrounding the issue of insanity in both law and psychology, insanity remains a legal defense in certain cases of criminal law (Floud, 1974). Different tests of legal insanity are applied in different jurisdictions (Fingarette, 1972). The most widely applied legal test of insanity is the M'Naghten rule, which dates from 1843 in the United Kingdom and is now used in most of

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o provide a legal definition for mental disease or mental defect, when it stated "that a mental disease or defect includes any abnormal condition of the mind which substantially affects mental or emotional processes and substantially impairs behavior controls." In an attempt to standardize the use of a test of insanity, the American Law Institute proposed a model penal code, which included in it a test of insanity in criminal law applications: "A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he lacks substantial capacity to either appreciate the criminality (wrongfulness) of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law" (Model Penal Code, 1962, ?4.01). However, in spite of all these additions and refinements, the M'Naghten rule, as it was first introduced, remains the only test of insanity in criminal law in most states of the United States. Controversies Surrounding the M'Naghten Rule and Insanity as a Defense Criticisms of the M'Naghten rule must be considered both in relation to other tests of insanity and in relation to the use of insanity as a defense. The difficulty lies in the absence of a measurable, easily underst

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