Describe the history of the development of the insanity defense

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ANSWER: Answers may vary: In Victorian England in 1843 when Daniel M'Naghten believed in his paranoia that the British Prime Minister was trying to kill him, he mistakenly killed the Minister's secretary Edward Drummond. The court recognized that M'Naghten was not well and articulated the eponymous test for insanity. In the 1950s, appellate judge David Bazelon articulated the Durham Rule in the case Durham v. United States which encompassed not only the traditional insanity defense, but all offenders who crimes were a product of a "mental disease or defect." The "substantial capacity test" is a variant of the M'Naghten test for insanity and a defendant could use it successfully if because of mental disease or defect he lacked either the "substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or the ability to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law." Because of the public distaste for the defense, some states have abolished the insanity defense, others have adopted the Guilty But Mentally Ill (GBMI) standard and the U.S. Supreme Court held in the Clark v. Arizona (2006) case held that states may limit not only how the defendant raises the insanity defense at trial but the type of evidence used and introduced at trial as well.