Court Opinion

ID: 9766926
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:03:25.909954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:27.261313
License: Public Domain

McDERMOTT, Justice,
concurring.
In Weinstein II,1 this court departed from the strictures of the M’Naghten rule to allow psychiatric testimony as *322evidence of diminished capacity in murder prosecutions. The majority did not define what psychiatric evidence is admissible. They may be excused, for while its neologistic patois is the delight of sophomores, its definition varies among its most learned practitioners, too often, some think, to fit the miscreant at hand. Neither did the majority specify the qualification of those who proffer the evidence. Presumably, it is left to the occasion and fashion.
In my memorandum opinion in Weinstein II, I faulted the use of psychiatric evidence except as an insanity defense under M’Naghten.
Whatever the consequence may be following a verdict of insanity, the consequences do not invalidate the legitimate defense of insanity. Insanity, is as it must be among civilized people, a defense and excuse for an act. It must, however, be pleaded and its basis b¿ defined. The long standing M’Naghten rule, the law in Pennsylvania, sets the standard exactly:
[A]t 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 what he was doing was wrong.
Commonwealth v. Roberts, 496 Pa. 428, 434, 437 A.2d 948, 951 (1981); Commonwealth v. Woodhouse, 401 Pa. 242, 249-250, 164 A.2d 98, 103 (1960), quoting Queen v. M’Naghten, 10 Cl. & Fin. 200, 8 Eng.Rep. 718 (1843).
I concur with the majority in holding that psychiatric evidence, whatever it may be, is inadmissible to dilute the specific intent to rob, as I would hold for any offense, including murder.
I also believe that when the full gamut of psychological excuses are spread across homicide records, Weinstein II will become one with the once fashionable theories of Lombroso and other physiognomists and head bump counters.

. Commonwealth v. Weinstein, 499 Pa. 106, 451 A.2d 1344 (1982).