Way back in 1843 a Scottish woodturner tried to kill the British Prime minister! That is not the shocking part! He missed him and shot his private secretary!
It is still not shocking!
He was not prosecuted for homicide!
Now do not lose your sanity since that was the plea!
In 1843, an unstable Scottish woodturner named Daniel M’Naghten believed that the British prime minister Robert Peel and his Tories were following and persecuting him!
One fine day he saw Peel walking along a London street and shot him in the back of the head, killing him!
Unluckily (you think!) he got the wrong man! His victim was Edward Drummond, Peel’s private secretary and longtime civil servant!
At his trial for murder, both sides agreed that M’Naghten suffered from delusions and other mental problems.
The Daniel M’Naghten case was a pivotal murder trial in England that resulted in the creation of the M’Naghten Rules, the first legal test for criminal insanity.
He was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and his acquittal led to the development of the new legal standard.
The defense argued that he was insane at the time of the act and had a mental delusion that made him unable to understand that his actions were wrong!
The jury acquitted M’Naghten of murder on the grounds of insanity, and he was committed to a mental institution for the rest of his life.
The public’s dissatisfaction with the verdict prompted the creation of the M’Naghten Rules, which established that an individual is not criminally responsible if they are suffering from a “defect of reason, from a disease of the mind, so as not to know the nature and quality of the act they were doing; or, if they did know it, that they did not know that what they were doing was wrong!
The rules specially states that to establish an insanity defense, it must be clearly proven that, at the time of the act, the accused was laboring under a “defect of reason, from disease of the mind,” such that they did not know the nature and quality of the act they were doing, or if they did know it, they did not know they were doing what was wrong.
Even if a person is under a partial delusion, they are to be judged as if the facts they believed were real. For example, if a person kills another believing they were acting in self-defense against an attacker (a valid delusion for an excuse), they may be exempt; but if they kill someone in revenge for a perceived character injury (not a valid excuse), they are punishable.
Of course the plea must be proven without a doubt and also note that even if you are prosecuted; you still would be held and treated for life; not exactly freedom!
So don’t even try to act insane! Acting is best left to stalwarts like Vikram Gokhale!
Shubh ratri …
ramadocblog 