Court Opinion

ID: 9452479
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:41:50.353678+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:13.702393
License: Public Domain

CUMMINGS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
In the District Court, the United States Attorney requested the Court to apply the 1843 M’Naghten “right from wrong” test1 in ruling upon the defendant’s insanity defense. At the trial, the Government stated that this test had been approved by this Court in United States v. Westerhausen, 283 F.2d 844 (7th Cir. 1960). However, in Westerhausen, Chief Judge Hastings observed (at p. 851):
“This case does not involve the proper test for legal insanity.”
Thus the Westerhausen case did not approve the M’Naghten rules.
In opposition to the Government’s position in the court below, defense counsel urged the District Court to apply the insanity instruction promulgated in 1963 by Judge La Buy for use in the Seventh Circuit. That instruction provides as follows (33 F.R.D. at p. 560):
“The defendant has interposed insanity as a defense. The law presumes that a defendant is sane. This presumption is rebuttable. Where a defendant introduces some evidence that he had a mental disease or defect at the time of the commission of the crime charged, the prosecution must establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not have a mental disease, or that despite the mental disease he had the capacity either to know the criminality of his conduct, or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law.” (Italics supplied.)
Defense counsel pointed out that the La Buy instruction is in effect “a promulgation acceptance of the American Law Institute” 1962 Model Penal Code which provides:
“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 a susbtantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law.” (Italics supplied.)
He pointed out too that the Model Penal Code rule was recently adopted by the Second Circuit in United States v. Freeman, 357 F.2d 606 (2nd Cir. 1966).2 It should be noticed that the Model Penal Code employs “appreciate” the wrongfulness of conduct instead of the stricter *80“know” in the La Buy instruction. This difference is substantial and not a mere exercise in semantics (see 357 F.2d at pp. 618-619, 623, 624; see also Comments cited in note 3 infra).
After the colloquy on the proper test to be applied respecting the defense of insanity, the District Court stated:
“But, I think, when all is said and done, the real test in an alleged crime of this kind is whether or not the defendant was capable of distinguishing right from wrong.”
Although it is possible that in his own mind the District Judge followed the correct standard, we cannot so presume when, as shown, the record affirmatively indicates the contrary. Hightower v. United States, 117 U.S.App.D.C. 43, 325 F.2d 616, 623 (1963; dissenting opinion of Judge Fahy). Moreover, the Government had been pressing for the application of the right from wrong test.
In United States v. Cain, 298 F.2d 934, 936 (7th Cir. 1962), certiorari denied, 370 U.S. 902, 82 S.Ct. 1250, 8 L.Ed.2d 400, this Court approved a mental competency instruction because it was “substantially that provided in the Illinois Code” which had adopted the ALI Model Penal Code standard (Ill.Rev.Stat.1965, Ch. 38, § 6-2).3
This Court’s most recent consideration of the proper test governing the insanity defense was in United States v. Cooks, 359 F.2d 772, 773, 778 (7th Cir. 1966). There Judge La Buy’s standard instruction was applied by the District Court, and this Court refused to hold the instruction erroneous.
For the reasons given in United States v. Freeman, 357 F.2d 606 (2nd Cir. 1966), the ALI Model Penal Code standard of criminal responsibility should be adopted in this Circuit. As noted, Illinois has already approved this test by statute. Wisconsin has also approved the Model Penal Code standard in State v. Shoff-ner, 31 Wis.2d 412, 143 N.W.2d 458 (1966).
At the oral argument of the instant case, we were advised that the Government does not object to the adoption of the Model Penal Code rule for this Circuit. If that standard had been applied here, the defense of insanity might have been sustained, as shown by the psychiatric testimony partly summarized in the majority opinion. Since this defendant’s responsibility was determined under the obsolete M’Naghten rule, the conviction should be reversed and the case remanded for a new trial employing the criteria of the Model Penal Code.
Rehearing denied en banc.
CUMMINGS, C. J., voted to grant.

. Although this test was expressed in the 1843 M’Naghten case, it is actually 375 years old. United States v. Currens, 290 F.2d 751, 764 (3rd Cir. 1961).

. In addition to the three-judge panel assigned to the Freeman case, four other members of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit have approved the standard of criminal responsibility adopted in Freeman (see 357 F.2d at p. 606). See also United States v. Currens, 290 F.2d 751 (3rd Cir. 1961) and Wion v. United States, 325 F.2d 420 (10th Cir. 1963), certiorari denied, 377 U.S. 946, 84 S.Ct. 1354, 12 L.Ed.2d 309.