Court Opinion

ID: 9582934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:32:54.195304+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:45.726888
License: Public Domain

*404G. Duncan Bellinger,
Acting Associate Justice (concurring in result).
I concur in the result reached in this case, reserving my opinion upon whether the McNaghten rule of “right and wrong” is the proper test of insanity. The McNaghten test of insanity that has been adopted by our Courts was argued at length and criticized by the counsel for appellant, but he stated very frankly, “It is not our purpose to say that the court should change a time-tested rule merely because of changes in psychological criterion or psychiatric concepts * * The appellant had not sought or obtained permission from this court to argue against any of the cases of this State holding to the “right and wrong” rule and did not seek to have those cases adhering to that rule be reversed. I, therefore, reserve my opinion upon this question until and unless I am called upon to pass on it when it has been properly raised.
My present impression is that our test of insanity adhering to the principles of the McNaghten test is not the proper test, especially when we repudiate the element of irresistible impulse regardless of the nature or the type of the insanity in view of the great advance that psychiatry has made since the pronouncement of the rule or test in that case.