[reposted November 7, 1998]
| Abraham Goldstein's extenuation | Hart's comment | David Walker's explanation |
The Oxford Companion to Law *(1980):
M'Naghten (or McNaghten or Macnaughton) Rules. Daniel M'Naghten killed the Prime Minister's Secretary by mistake for the Prime Minister under an insane belief that the Government was persecuting him. He was tried and acquitted on the ground of insanity and committed to Bethlehem Hospital ((1943), 4 St. Tr. (N.S.) 847). The House of Lords then sent a number of questions to the judges of England, who returned answers in the form of rules: these are reported in 10 C. & F. 200. The Rules, stated shortly are:(1) Persons acting under the influence of an insane delusion are punishable if they knew at the time of committing the crime that they were acting contrary to law.
(2) Every man is presumed sane and to have sufficient reason to be held responsible for his crimes.
(3) To establish a defense on the ground of insanity it must be clearly proved that, at the time of committing the act, the accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong. If the accused was conscious that the act was one that he ought not to do, and if the act was at the same time contrary to the law of the land, he is punishable.
(4) A person under a partial delusion is to be considered as if the facts with respect to which the delusion exists were real.
The rules have been treated in England almost as if of statutory force, and have been followed in many Commonwealth countries and parts of the U.S.A., but not Scotland.
Excerpt (pages 189-90 & 191-2) from H.L.A. Hart,
"Changing Conceptions of Responsibility,"
from his Punishment and Responsibility (Oxford University Press*: 1968):
* * * The main doctrine of English law until recently was of course the famous M'Naghten Rules formulated by the Judges of the House of Lords in 1843. As everybody knows, according to this doctrine, mental abnormality sufficient to constitute a defence to a criminal charge must consist of three elements: first, the accused, at the time of his act, must have suffered from a defect of reason; secondly, this must have arisen from disease of the mind; thirdly, the result of it must have been that the accused did not know the nature of his act or that it was illegal. From the start English critics denounced these rules because their effect is to excuse from criminal responsibility only those whose mental abnormality resulted in lack of knowledge: in the eyes of these critics this amounted to a dogmatic refusal to acknowledge the fact that a man might know what he was doing and that it was wrong or illegal and yet because of his abnormal mental state might lack the capacity to control his action. This lack of capacity, the critics urged, must be the fundamental point in any intelligible doctrine of responsibility. The point just is that in a civilized system only those who could have kept the laws should be punished. Why else bother about a man's knowledge or intention or other mental elements except as throwing light on this?
Angrily and enviously, many critics pointed to foreign legal systems which were free of the British obsession with this single element of knowledge as the sole constituent of responsibility. As far back as 1810 the French Code simply excused those suffering from madness (démence) without specifying any particular connexion between this and the particular act done. The German Code of 1871 spoke of inability or impaired ability to recognize the wrongness of conduct or to act in accordance with this recognition. It thus, according to the critics, treated as crucial to the issue of responsibility not knowledge but the capacity to conform to law. The Belgian Loi de Défence Sociale of 1930 makes no reference to knowledge or intelligence but speaks simply of a person's lack of ability to control his action. * * *
* * * When Lord Atkin's Committee recommended in 1923 an addition to the M'Naghten Rules to cater for what it termed 'irresistible impulse', it was enough in the debate in the House of Lords8 for judicial members to prophesy the harm to society which would inevitably flow from the amendment. Not a word was said to meet the point that the laws of many other countries already conformed to the proposal: nothing was said about the United States where a similar modification of the M'Naghten Rules providing for inability to conform to the law's requirement as well as defects in knowledge had long been accepted in several States without disastrous results. But in 1957, largely as a result of the immensely valuable examination of the whole topic by the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment9 the law was amended, not as recommended by the Commission, but in the form of a compromise. This was the introduction of the idea borrowed from Scots law of a plea of diminished responsibility. S. 2 of the Homicide Act of 1957 provides that, on a murder charge, if what it most curiously calls the accused's 'mental responsibility' was 'substantially' impaired by mental abnormality, he could be convicted, not of murder, but only of manslaughter, carrying a maximum sentence of imprisonment for life. This change in the law was indeed meager since it only concerned murder; and even here it was but a half-way house, since the accused was not excused from punishment but was to be punished less than the maximum. The charge does not excuse from responsibility but mitigates the penalty.
* * * What has happened [after six years experience with the new plea] is that the plea of insanity under the old M'Naghten Rules has virtually been displaced in murder by the new plea.12 * * *
Excerpts from: Abraham S. Goldstein, "M'Naughten: The Stereotype Challenged," from A. Goldstein & J. Goldstein (eds.), Crime, Law and Society (Free Press: 1971); pp. 392, 394-5, 398-401.
Note that the complete article is also found in a wonderful collection of essays by Abraham S. Goldstein, The Insanity Defense, (Yale University Press: 1967)
The phrase "nature and quality of the act" is sometimes omitted completely from the charge to the jury. More often, it is either stated to the jury without explanation or treated as adding nothing to the requirement that the accused know his act was wrong. The underlying theory is that if the accused did nor know the nature and quality of his act, he would have been incapable of knowing it was wrong. There have been a few efforts to treat the phrase as if it added something to the rule. In England, for example, it was suggested that "nature" meant the act's physical nature, while "quality" referred to its moral aspect. The court rejected the suggestion, holding that "nature and quality" refers solely to the physical character of the act.[citing R. v. Codere, 12 C.A.R. 21, 26-27 (Cr. Ct. App. 1916)] In the United States, the rule seems to be similar, though the Wisconsin court has held that "nature and quality" gives "important emphasis" to the realization of the wrongfulness of an act. It marks the distinction between "vaguely . . . [realizing] that particular conduct is forbidden" and "real insight into the conduct." [citing State v. Essex, 115 N.W. 2d, 505, 521 (Wis. 1962)] This construction illustrates the close connection between the definition of "know" and that of "nature and quality," The broader reading of "nature and quality" carries with it the broader construction of "know" and vice versa. To know the quality of an act, with all its social and emotional implications, requires more than an abstract, purely intellectual knowledge. Likewise, to talk of appreciating the full significance of an act means that "nature and quality" must be understood as including more than the physical nature of the act. [Goldstein, p. 392]
There is virtually no support in law for the view that M'Naghten is responsible for inhibiting the flow of testimony on the insanity issue. Wigmore states the rule to be that when insanity is in issue, "any and all conduct of the person is admissible in evidence." And the cases support Wigmore's view. The almost unvarying policy of the courts has been to admit any evidence of aberrational behavior so long as it is probative of the defendant's mental condition, without regard to the supposed restrictions of the test used to define insanity for the jury. [citing Wigmore, Evidence, § 228 (1940)] [Goldstein, pp. 394-5]
In short, M'Naghten does not preclude a presentation to the jury of "the true picture of the defendant's mental condition." The source of this line of criticism, and it is a recurring one, seems to be a misunderstanding of certain aspects of the trial process. Occurrences which should be passed off as rulings on procedure are seized upon as illustrations of the baleful influence of M'Naghten. This becomes quite evident if we look closely at the much- discussed case of People v. Horton. On direct examination, the defense presented several psychiatrists who were allowed to testify in the most detailed terms about the nature of defendant's mental illness--that he was schizophrenic, that his behavior was delusional, that he was "incapable of distinguishing a right from wrong." They were also permitted to explain fully their understanding of the meaning of the words of the M'Naghten rule. Among them was Dr. Brancale. He testified that the defendant could not be said to "know" what he was doing unless he was emotionally aware of the significance of his actions. On cross- examination the prosecutor tried to obtain affirmative answers to questions which would show the defendant to be following a "normal behavior pattern" and to be aware of the physical nature of his acts. Again and again, Brancale, anticipating the implications of his answers and assuming that they would point to the sanity of the defendant, tried to qualify his answer by, referring back to his definition of the word "know." The trial judge informed him that he should confine himself to specific answers to the questions; and that any elaboration could be brought out by the defense on redirect examination. From then on, the trial judge struck portions of Brancale's answers as going beyond the scope of the questions asked. This action was affirmed by the New York Court of Appeals which pointed out that ample opportunity for exploring the full meaning of the word "know" had been provided on direct. They did not add, as they might well have done, that the defense made no effort to go into the matter once again on redirect examination." [citing People v. Horton, 123 N.E. 2d 609, 615 (N.Y. 1954)]
Horton illustrates not so much the failings of M'Naghten as it does the abrasive effect of the adversary process, particularly when its assumptions and procedures are not clearly understood. Certainly, it cannot be used to support the view that the meaning of "know" is the narrow one, or that psychiatrists will not be permitted to explain what they understand the word to mean. The case holds no more than that the evidence must be presented in the manner dictated by existing procedural rules, which would be applicable under any test of insanity. * * *
A first clue comes from the fact that there are forces in addition to the case law which define the scope of the insanity defense. The question of responsibility is, after all, presented through an adversary process which leaves the principal initiative to the parties. Judges will not ordinarily ask for evidence which is not presented to them. They will not rule on objections which are not made. They will not tell counsel and expert how to present their positions. However confident we may be that rules of law do not deny the insanity defense to anyone suffering from serious mental illness, it hardly follows that the defense will be asserted by everyone who can qualify for it. The preconceptions of the participants may be as important as the rules of law in determining the effective scope of the defense. The most important of these preconceptions is the operative assumption of psychiatrists and lawyers that the law regards insanity and psychosis as identical. Certainly, the trial of the insanity defense tends to revolve around the issue of psychosis. In their testimony, psychiatrists often define insanity as a "psychotic reaction" and psychosis as "the medical term for insanity." A man who does not have the symptoms of psychosis (e.g. "delusional beliefs" or "hallucinations") is "for that reason . . . considered to be sane." If he is "in contact with reality," then he is "sane in our sense ." [citations omitted] * * *
Equating insanity with psychosis has two contradictory consequences. It confirms the earlier assertion that M'Naghten does not limit the defense to a small group of "totally deteriorated" psychotics. At the same time, it perpetuates the view that the "lesser" mental illnesses cannot qualify. The roots of the equation are to be found in the widespread assumption among lawyers that insanity describes medical entities, and among psychiatrists that psychosis is the only such entity which satisfies the law's requirements. The misunderstanding was facilitated by the tenets of pre-Freudian psychology which tended to see mental life as divided into discrete parts. And it reflected what is still the practice in civil commitment, which is the area of law most familiar to psychiatrists. [Goldstein, pp. 398-401]
Footnotes to the Hart excerpt; the original numbering has been retained: 8 57 H.L. Deb 443-76 (1924), 'if this Bill were passed very grave results would follow' (Lord Sumner, p. 459). 'What a door is being opened!' (Lord Hewart, p. 467). 'This would be a dangerous change to make' (Lord Cave, p. 475).
9 [The Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, ] Cmd. 8932 (1953).
12 For the statistics, see Murder: Home Office Research Unit Report, H.M.S.O. 1961, Table 7, p. 10.
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