Opinion ID: 1921421
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Definition of antisocial conduct.

Text: State v. Shoffner, supra , extensively considered the defense of insanity in criminal proceedings. The result of Shoffner was that the definition of insanity propounded by the American Law Institute, Model Penal Code, secs. 4.01 and 4.03, was established as an available defense. Subsequently, and by the enactment of the Wisconsin Criminal Procedure Code, Laws of 1969, ch. 255, effective July 1, 1970, the American Law Institute definition of insanity, recognized in Shoffner, was embodied verbatim in sec. 971.15, Stats. Sub. (2) thereof provides: 971.15 Mental responsibility of defendant. . . . (2) As used in this chapter, the terms `mental disease or defect' do not include an abnormality manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise antisocial conduct.  One of the psychiatrists testified that he found the defendant to have an antisocial personality disorder. The doctor defined antisocial personality disorder to include a person who did not learn by experience, who grew up in a kind of an environment where the behaviors of that person were viewed as wrong, as unacceptable, and yet the person would act out toward other people, doing illegal or immoral kinds of things with very little sense of conscience. Therefore, argues the defendant, a person found to have an antisocial personality disorder has a mental disease or defect so as to lack substantial capacity to either appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. Thus, urges the defendant, we should interpret the American Law Institute definition which excludes antisocial behavior as a mental disease and as first approved by this court, State v. Shoffner, supra , and later adopted by the legislature as sec. 971.15, Stats., so as to conform to the medical definition of the mental illness called an antisocial personality disorder. As we view such a suggestion, it would have the practical effect of abolishing the statutory exclusion of an abnormality manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise antisocial conduct, from the definition of mental disease or defect. This we decline to do because, by adopting sec. 971.15, the legislature has deliberately and positively excluded antisocial conduct from the statute. By the Court. Judgment and order affirmed.