Opinion ID: 2438728
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Tests of Criminal Responsibility

Text: The issue of the defendant's criminal responsibility is fairly raised by the pleadings and proof. We discuss the various tests.
M'Naghten's Case, 1 C. & K. 130, 10 CL. & F. 200, 8 Eng.Rep. 718, was decided by the House of Lords in 1843. Daniel M'Naghten had murdered Edward Drummond, the secretary to Sir Robert Peel, the then Prime Minister of England. In the ensuing trial the jury found him to be not guilty by reason of insanity. History records that the Queen and her subjects, were incensed and a great hue and cry resounded throughout the realm. The matter was debated in the House of Lords and it was determined that they should take the opinion of the Judges on the law governing such cases. Five questions were put to the fifteen judges of England and the rules that emerged, since known as the M'Naghten rules, were as follows: [T]o establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party 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. (Emphasis supplied). 8 Eng.Rep. at 722. It will be noted that we refer to the M'Naghten rules. We do this because scholarly texts and the more precise judicial opinions use this terminology, and correctly so because there are two rules. The failure of the courts of some jurisdictions, including Tennessee, [4] to recognize this has caused the rules to become to be called the M'Naghten rule, with a resulting confusing and narrowing of the original rules. There are two M'Naghten tests: (1) knowledge of the nature and quality of the act and (2) knowledge of its wrongfulness. These criteria are expressed in the conjunctive in that it must be shown that the defendant knew right from wrong and knew the nature and quality of the act, in order to convict of a crime while laboring under a defect of reason or disease of the mind. If a defendant does not know the nature and quality of the act he is insane; if he knows this but does not know right from wrong, he is insane. The failure to recognize and apply both prongs of this two-prong test operates to narrow the rules. In Guttmacher & Weihofen, Psychiatry and the Law, Norton & Co. (1952) at page 404, the effect of applying only the right and wrong dichotomy, is expressed thusly: A defendant may remember many details of his act. The prosecutor may emphasize this fact, may bring out all the little details that the defendant can recall, and may argue from this that the accused has been shown to know what he was doing. But memory of details is not knowledge of the nature and quality of the act. That calls for something deeper and more vital. (Emphasis supplied). Brakel and Rock, in an American Bar Foundation Study, captioned, The Mentally Disabled and the Law, Revised Edition (2nd) 1971, at pages 379-80, pose the problem thusly: Despite the inclusion of alternative tests in the original M'Naghten case, the most common form in which the M'Naghten test now appears is  whether the defendant had the capacity to know right from wrong in respect to the particular act charged. Most jurisdictions which apply M'Naghten seem to assume that the requirement of knowing the nature and quality of the act adds nothing to the right-wrong test. A cogent argument might be made that a person may be able to retain intellectual knowledge of right and wrong and yet not understand the  nature and quality  of his act. (i.e., its social significance). (Emphasis supplied). It is of interest to note that Tennessee has adhered consistently to so much of M'Naghten as relates to right and wrong. No reported decision of this Court, in any criminal case, has discussed the nature and quality portion of the rules. In their 1971 study Brakel & Rock, at page 380, state that [t]oday M'Naghten is the sole test of criminal responsibility in fewer than half of the states. Reference to 21 Am.Jur.2d, Criminal Law, Sec. 33 and an annotation appearing in 45 A.L.R.2d at 1447, will indicate that possibly as many as twenty-seven (27) [5] American jurisdictions basically apply M'Naghten . Numerous criticisms of M'Naghten have surfaced in recent years. After pointing out that [t]he most cogent criticism of the rules is that they fail to aid in the identification of many persons accused of crime who suffer from serious mental disorders, the Tennessee Law Revision Commission, in its Proposed Final Draft, Tennessee Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, on page 38 lists other valid criticisms: (1) the concept of right and wrong is essentially an ethical or moral concept which forces the witnesses and decision-maker to make moral, rather than medical, social, and legal judgments; (2) The rules evolved at a time when faculty psychology held sway, and today the mind is known not to be neatly compartmentalized; and (3) the rules may well have been intended to apply only to one type of illness, that characterized by delusions. We think that unquestionably the rules tend to enforce outmoded and erroneous psychological theories, tend to limit or distort psychiatric testimony, focus on the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, ignoring the individual's ability to exercise self-control; focus on cognition and ignore the volitional aspects of personality; and punish persons for conduct beyond their capacity of control. In a word, its application is an impediment to the fair trial that is a part of the birthright of every American citizen.