Court Opinion

ID: 9530655
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:02:12.064298+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:12.667280
License: Public Domain

CROCKETT, Justice
(concurring).
I concur upon the basis, that under any of the various views, the instruction which was given on insanity adequately and properly protected the interests of the defendant. Compare our statement, through Chief Justice Henriod, .in State v. Kirkham, 7 Utah 2d 108, 319 P.2d 859.
I suggest that an instruction covering the same elements might be given as follows :
A person is not responsible for his criminal conduct if at the time he is so affected with mental disease or deficiency that he lacks the capacity to appreciate his conduct is wrong in the sense that it is condemned by morals or law; or is incapable of knowing the nature of the act he is committing; or even though he may know the nature of 'the act and that it is wrong, yet, by reason of such a mental disease or deficiency, he is under an irresistible compulsion which compels him to perform the unlawful act.