M'Naghten rules

The M'Naghten rule(s) (pronounced, and

sometimes spelled, McNaughton) is a
legal test defining the defence of insanity,
first formulated by House of Lords in
1843. It is the established standard in UK
criminal law,[1]: 5 and versions have also
been adopted in some US states (currently
or formerly),[2] and other jurisdictions,
either as case law or by statute. Its original
wording is a proposed jury instruction:
 Daniel M'Naghten c. 1856

that every man is to be

presumed to be sane, and ... that
to establish a defence on the
ground of insanity, it must be
clearly proved that, at 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 he was doing what was
wrong.[3]: 632

The rule was created in reaction to the

acquittal in 1843 of Daniel M'Naghten on
the charge of murdering Edward
Drummond. M'Naghten had shot
Drummond after mistakenly identifying him
as the British Prime Minister Robert Peel,
who was the intended target.[4] The
acquittal of M´Naghten on the basis of
insanity (a previously unheard of defense)
caused a public uproar, for example by
Queen Victoria. The House of Lords used a
medieval right to question judges, to ask a
panel of judges, presided over by Sir
Nicolas Conyngham Tindal, Chief Justice
of the Common Pleas, a series of
hypothetical questions about the defence
of insanity. The principles expounded by
this panel have come to be known as the
"M'Naghten Rules". M'Naghten himself
would have been found guilty if they had
been applied at his trial.[5][6]

The rules so formulated as M'Naghten's

Case 1843 10 C & F 200,[7] or variations of
them, are a standard test for criminal
liability in relation to mentally disordered
defendants in various jurisdictions, either
in common law or enacted by statute.
When the tests set out by the Rules are
satisfied, the accused may be adjudged
"not guilty by reason of insanity" or "guilty
but insane" and the sentence may be a
mandatory or discretionary (but usually
indeterminate) period of treatment in a
secure hospital facility, or otherwise at the
discretion of the court (depending on the
country and the offence charged) instead
of a punitive disposal.
Historical development

Daniel M'Naghten

There are various justifications for the

exemption of the insane from criminal
responsibility. When mental incapacity is
successfully raised as a defence in a
criminal trial it absolves a defendant from
liability: it applies public policies in relation
to criminal responsibility by applying a
rationale of compassion, accepting that it
is morally wrong to punish a person if that
person is deprived permanently or
temporarily of the capacity to form a
necessary mental intent that the definition
of a crime requires. Punishment of the
obviously mentally ill by the state may
undermine public confidence in the penal
system. A utilitarian and humanitarian
approach suggests that the interests of
society are better served by treatment.

Historically, insanity was seen as grounds

for leniency. In pre-Norman times in
England there was no distinct criminal
code – a murderer could pay
compensation to the victim's family under
the principle of "buy off the spear or bear
it". The insane person's family were
expected to pay any compensation for the
crime. In Norman times insanity was not
seen as a defence in itself but a special
circumstance in which the jury would
deliver a guilty verdict and refer the
defendant to the King for a pardon[8]

eo quod sensu carent et ratione,

non-magis quam brutum animal
iniuriam facere possunt nec
feloniam, cum non-multum
distent a brutis, secundum quod
videri poterit in minore, qui si
 alium interficeret in minori
ætate, iudicium non-sustineret.
[Translation:] since they are
without sense and reason and
can no more commit a tort or a
felony than a brute animal,
since they are not far removed
from brutes, as is evident in the
case of a minor, for if he should
kill another while under age he
would not suffer judgment.[9]

In R v Arnold 1724 16 How St. Tr. 765, the

test for insanity was expressed in the
following terms
 whether the accused is totally
deprived of his understanding
and memory and knew what he
was doing "no more than a wild
beast or a brute, or an infant".

The next major advance occurred in

Hadfield's Trial 1800 27 How St. Tr. 765 in
which the court decided that a crime
committed under some delusion would be
excused only if it would have been
excusable had the delusion been true. This
would deal with the situation, for example,
when the accused imagines he is cutting
through a loaf of bread, whereas in fact he
is cutting through a person's neck.
Each jurisdiction may have its own
standards of the insanity defence. More
than one standard can be applied to any
case based on multiple jurisdictions.

The M'Naghten Rules

The House of Lords delivered the

following exposition of the Rules:

the jurors ought to be told in

all cases that every man is to
be presumed to be sane, and
to possess a sufficient degree
of reason to be responsible for
his crimes, until the contrary
be proved to their
satisfaction; and that to
establish a defence on the
ground of insanity, it must be
clearly proved that, at 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
 he was doing what was
wrong.[7]

The central issue of this definition may be

stated as "did the defendant know what he
was doing, or, if so, that it was wrong?",
and the issues raised have been analysed
in subsequent appellate decisions:

Presumption of sanity and burden of

proof

Sanity is a rebuttable presumption and the

burden of proof is on the party denying it;
the standard of proof is on a balance of
probabilities, that is to say that mental
incapacity is more likely than not. If this
burden is successfully discharged, the
party relying upon it is entitled to succeed.
In Lord Denning's judgement in Bratty v
Attorney-General for Northern Ireland 1963
AC 386, whenever the defendant makes an
issue of his state of mind, the prosecution
can adduce evidence of insanity. However,
this will normally only arise to negate the
defence case when automatism or
diminished responsibility is in issue. In
practical terms, the defence will be more
likely to raise the issue of mental
incapacity to negate or minimise criminal
liability. In R v Clarke 1972 1 All E R 219 a
defendant charged with a shoplifting
claimed she had no mens rea because she
had absent-mindedly walked out of the
shop without paying because she suffered
from depression. When the prosecution
attempted to adduce evidence that this
constituted insanity within the Rules, she
changed her plea to guilty, but on appeal
the Court ruled that she had been merely
denying mens rea rather than raising a
defence under the Rules and her conviction
was quashed. The general rule was stated
that the Rules apply only to cases in which
the defect of reason is substantial.
Disease of the mind

Whether a particular condition amounts to

a disease of the mind within the Rules is
not a medical but a legal question to be
decided in accordance with the ordinary
rules of interpretation. It seems that any
disease which produces a malfunctioning
of the mind is a disease of the mind and
need not be a disease of the brain itself.
The term has been held to cover numerous
conditions:

In R v Kemp [1957] 1 QB 399

arteriosclerosis or a hardening of the
arteries caused loss of control during
which the defendant attacked his wife
with a hammer. This was an internal
condition and a disease of the mind.
In R v Sullivan [1984] AC 156 during an
epileptic episode, the defendant caused
grievous bodily harm: epilepsy was an
internal condition and a disease of the
mind, and the fact that the state was
transitory was irrelevant.
In R v Quick; R v Paddison [1973] QB
910[10] the defendant committed an
assault while in a state of
hypoglycaemia caused by the insulin he
had taken, the alcohol he had consumed
and not eating properly. It was ruled that
the judge should have left the defence
of automatism open to him, so his
conviction was quashed (he had
pleaded guilty rather than not guilty by
reason of insanity). This was where the
internal/external divide doctrine was
first expressed, probably due to judicial
reluctance to hospitalise someone for a
condition that could be cured by a sugar
lump. It is doubtful that a jury would
have accepted a defence of
automatism, but nonetheless the issue
should have been left to them.
In R v Hennessy [1989] 1 WLR 287[11] a
diabetic stole a car and drove it while
suffering from a mild attack of
hyperglycaemia caused by stress and a
failure to take his insulin. Lane LCJ said
at 294
In our judgment, stress,
anxiety and depression can
no doubt be the result of the
operation of external
factors, but they are not, it
seems to us, in themselves
separately or together
external factors of the kind
capable in law of causing or
contributing to a state of
automatism. They constitute
a state of mind which is
prone to recur. They lack
the feature of novelty or
accident, which is the basis
of the distinction drawn by
Lord Diplock in R v Sullivan
1984 AC 156, 172. It is
contrary to the observations
of Devlin J., to which we
have just referred in Hill v
Baxter (1958) 1 QB 277, 285.
It does not, in our judgment,
come within the scope of the
 exception of some external
physical factor such as a
blow on the head or the
administration of an
anaesthetic.
In Bratty v Attorney-General for Northern
Ireland [1963] AC 386[12] Lord Denning
observed obiter that a crime committed
while sleepwalking would appear to him
to be one committed as an automaton.
However, the ruling in R v Sullivan that
diseases of the mind need have no
permanence led many academics to
suggest that sleepwalkers might well be
found to be suffering from a disease of
 the mind with internal causes unless
there was clear evidence of an external
causal factor.
In R v Burgess [1991] 2 QB 92 the Court
of Appeal ruled that the defendant, who
wounded a woman by hitting her with a
video recorder while sleepwalking, was
insane under the M'Naghten Rules. Lord
Lane said, "We accept that sleep is a
normal condition, but the evidence in the
instant case indicates that sleepwalking,
and particularly violence in sleep, is not
normal."

The courts have clearly drawn a distinction

between internal and external factors
affecting a defendant's mental condition.
This is partly based on risk of recurrence,
whereby the High Court of Australia has
expressed that the defence of automatism
is unable to be considered when the
mental disorder has been proved transient
and as such not likely to recur.[13] However,
the distinction between insanity and
automatism is difficult because the
distinction between internal and external
divide is difficult. Many diseases consist
of a predisposition, considered an internal
cause, combined with a precipitant, which
would be considered an external cause.
Actions committed while sleepwalking
would normally be considered as "non-
insane automatism", but often alcohol and
stress trigger bouts of sleepwalking and
make them more likely to be violent. The
diabetic who takes insulin but does not eat
properly – is that an internal or external
cause?

Nature and quality of the act

This phrase refers to the physical nature

and quality of the act, rather than the
moral quality. It covers the situation where
the defendant does not know what he is
physically doing. Two common examples
used are:
 The defendant cuts a woman's throat
under the delusion that he is cutting a
loaf of bread,
The defendant chops off a sleeping
man's head because he has the deluded
idea that it would be great fun to see the
man looking for it when he wakes up.

The judges were specifically asked if a

person could be excused if he committed
an offence in consequence of an insane
delusion. They replied that if he labours
under such partial delusion only, and is not
in other respects insane, "he must be
considered in the same situation as to
responsibility as if the facts with respect
to which the delusion exists were real".
This rule requires the court to take the
facts as the accused believed them to be
and follows Hadfield's Trial, above. If the
delusions do not prevent the defendant
from having mens rea there will be no
defence. In R v Bell 1984 Crim. LR 685 the
defendant smashed a van through the
entrance gates of a holiday camp because
"It was like a secret society in there, I
wanted to do my bit against it" as
instructed by God. It was held that, as the
defendant had been aware of his actions,
he could neither have been in a state of
automatism nor insane, and the fact that
he believed that God had told him to do
this merely provided an explanation of his
motive and did not prevent him from
knowing that what he was doing was
wrong in the legal sense.

Knowledge that the act was wrong

The interpretation of this clause is a

subject of controversy among legal
authorities, and different standards may
apply in different jurisdictions.

"Wrong" was interpreted to mean legally

wrong, rather than morally wrong, in the
case of Windle 1952 2QB 826; 1952 2 All
ER 1 246, where the defendant killed his
wife with an overdose of aspirin; he
telephoned the police and said, "I suppose
they will hang me for this." It was held that
this was sufficient to show that although
the defendant was suffering from a mental
illness, he was aware that his act was
wrong, and the defence was not allowed.
Under this interpretation, there may be
cases where the mentally ill know that
their conduct is legally prohibited, but it is
arguable that their mental condition
prevents them making the connection
between an act being legally prohibited
and the societal requirement to conform
their conduct to the requirements of the
criminal law.
As an example of a contrasting
interpretation in which defendant lacking
knowledge that the act was morally wrong
meets the M'Naghten standards, there are
the instructions the judge is required to
provide to the jury in cases in New York
State when the defendant has raised an
insanity plea as a defence:

... with respect to the term

"wrong", a person lacks
substantial capacity to know or
appreciate that conduct is
wrong if that person, as a result
of mental disease or defect,
 lacked substantial capacity to
know or appreciate either that
the conduct was against the law
or that it was against commonly
held moral principles, or
both.[14][15]

There is other support in the authorities for

this interpretation of the standards
enunciated in the findings presented to the
House of Lords regarding M'Naghten's
case:

If it be accepted, as can hardly

be denied, that the answers of
the judges to the questions
asked by the House of Lords in
1843 are to be read in the light
of the then existing case-law and
not as novel pronouncements of
a legislative character, then the
[Australian] High Court's
analysis in Stapleton's Case is
compelling. Their exhaustive
examination of the extensive
case-law concerning the defence
of insanity prior to and at the
time of the trial of M'Naughten
establishes convincingly that it
was morality and not legality
 which lay as a concept behind
the judges' use of "wrong" in the
M'Naghten rules.[16]

Offences of strict liability

In DPP v Harper (1997) it was held that

insanity is not generally a defence to strict
liability offences. In this instance, the
accused was driving with excess alcohol.
By definition, the accused is sufficiently
aware of the nature of the activity to
commit the actus reus of driving and
presumably knows that driving while drunk
is legally wrong. Any other feature of the
accused's knowledge is irrelevant.
The function of the jury

Section 1 of the United Kingdoms' Criminal

Procedure (Insanity and Unfitness to
Plead) Act 1991 (https://www.legislation.g
ov.uk/ukpga/1991/25/section/1) [17]

provides that a jury shall not return a

special verdict that "the accused is not
guilty by reason of insanity" except on the
written or oral evidence of two or more
registered medical practitioners of whom
at least one has special experience in the
field of mental disorder. This may require
the jury to decide between conflicting
medical evidence which they are not
necessarily equipped to do, but the law
goes further and allows them to disagree
with the experts if there are facts or
surrounding circumstances which, in the
opinion of the court, justify the jury in
coming to that conclusion.

Sentencing

Under section 5 of the United Kingdoms'

Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964 (htt
ps://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1964/8
4/section/5) (as amended):[18]

1. Where the sentence for the offence to

which the finding relates is fixed by
law (e.g. murder), the court must
 make a hospital order (see section 37
Mental Health Act 1983) with a
restriction order limiting discharge
and other rights (see section 41
Mental Health Act 1983).
2. In any other case the court may
make:
a hospital order (with or without
a restriction order);
a supervision order; or
an order for absolute discharge.

Criticisms

There have been four major criticisms of

the law as it currently stands:
Medical irrelevance – The legal
definition of insanity has not advanced
significantly since 1843; in 1953
evidence was given to the Royal
Commission on Capital Punishment that
doctors even then regarded the legal
definition to be obsolete and misleading.
This distinction has led to absurdities
such as
even though a legal definition
suffices, mandatory hospitalisation
can be ordered in cases of murder;
if the defendant is not medically
insane, there is little point in
requiring medical treatment.
diabetes has been held to facilitate
a defence of insanity when it
causes hyperglycemia, but not when
it causes hypoglycemia.
Article 5 of the European
Convention on Human Rights,
imported into English law by the
Human Rights Act 1998, provides
that a person of unsound mind may
be detained only where proper
account of objective medical
expertise has been taken. As yet, no
cases have occurred in which this
point has been argued.
Ineffectiveness – The rules currently do
not distinguish between defendants who
represent a public danger and those who
do not. Illnesses such as diabetes and
epilepsy can be controlled by
medication such that sufferers are less
likely to have temporary aberrations of
mental capacity, but the law does not
recognise this.
Sentencing for murder – A finding of
insanity may well result in indefinite
confinement in a hospital, whereas a
conviction for murder may well result in
a determinate sentence of between ten
and 15 years; faced with this choice, it
may be that defendants would prefer the
certainty of the latter option. The
defence of diminished responsibility in
section 2(1) of the Homicide Act would
reduce the conviction to voluntary
manslaughter with more discretion on
the part of the judge in regards to
sentencing.
Scope – A practical issue is whether the
fact that an accused is labouring under
a "mental disability" should be a
necessary but not sufficient condition
for negating responsibility i.e. whether
the test should also require an
incapacity to understand what is being
done, to know that what one is doing is
wrong, or to control an impulse to do
something and so demonstrate a causal
link between the disability and the
potentially criminal acts and omissions.
For example, the Irish insanity defence
comprises the M'Naghten Rules and a
control test that asks whether the
accused was debarred from refraining
from committing the act because of a
defect of reason due to mental illness
(see Doyle v Wicklow County Council
1974) 55 IR 71. The Butler Committee
recommended that proof of severe
mental disorder should be sufficient to
negate responsibility, in effect creating
 an irrebuttable presumption of
irresponsibility arising from proof of a
severe mental disorder. This has been
criticised as it assumes a lack of
criminal responsibility simply because
there is evidence of some sort of mental
dysfunction, rather than establishing a
standard of criminal responsibility.
According to this view, the law should be
geared to culpability not mere
psychiatric diagnosis.

Alternative rules

The insanity defence article has a number

of alternative tests that have been used at
different times and places. As one
example, the ALI test replaced the
M'Naughten rule in many parts of the
United States for many years until the
1980s; when in the aftermath of John
Hinckley shooting President Ronald
Reagan many ALI states returned to a
variation of M'Naughten.[3]: 615

Case law

People v. Drew

In fiction

The M'Naghten rules are at the focus of

John Grisham's legal thriller A Time to Kill.
The M'Naghten rules apply in the US State
of Mississippi, where the plot is set, and
using them is the only way for the lawyer
protagonist to save his client.

Notes and references

1. Law Commission (July 2013). Criminal

Liability: Insanity and Automatism (https://c
loud-platform-e218f50a4812967ba1215ea
ecede923f.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sit
es/30/2015/06/insanity_discussion.pdf)
(PDF) (Discussion Paper).

2. Wex Definitions Team (June 2020).

"M'naghten rule" (https://www.law.cornell.e
du/wex/m%27naghten_rule) . Wex. Legal
Information Institute.
3. Criminal Law – Cases and Materials, 7th
ed. 2012, Wolters Kluwer Law & Business;
John Kaplan, Robert Weisberg, Guyora
Binder, ISBN 978-1-4548-0698-1, [1] (http
s://law.stanford.edu/publications/criminal-l
aw-cases-and-materials-7th-edition/)

4. M’Naghten's Case [1843] All ER Rep 229

5. Carl Elliott, The rules of insanity: moral
responsibility and the mentally ill offender,
SUNY Press, 1996, ISBN 0-7914-2951-2,
p.10

6. Michael T. Molan, Mike Molan, Duncan Bloy,

Denis Lanser, Modern criminal law (5 ed),
Routledge Cavendish, 2003, ISBN 1-85941-
807-4, p.352
 7. United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions.
"DANIEL M'NAGHTEN'S CASE. May 26,
June 19, 1843" (http://www.bailii.org/uk/ca
ses/UKHL/1843/J16.html) . British and
Irish Legal Information Institute. Retrieved
1 June 2012.

8. Walker, N. (1968). Crime and Insanity in

England:The Historical Perspective. vol.1,
Edinburgh University Press; Stephen,
History of Criminal Law, 151; 2 Pollock &
Maitland, History of English Law, 480

9. Bracton, On the Laws and Customs of

England II.424.24–27 (1210) (https://archiv
e.today/20120710153335/http://hlsl5.law.
harvard.edu/bracton/)

10. BAILII (http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EW

CA/Crim/1973/1.html)
11. BAILII (http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EW
CA/Crim/1989/1.html)

12. BAILII (http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKH

L/1961/3.html)

13. R v Falconer (1990) 171 CLR 30 at 30

AUSTLII (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/case
s/cth/HCA/1990/49.html)

14. "CJI2d[NY] INSTRUCTIONS OF GENERAL

APPLICABILITY" (http://www.nycourts.gov/
judges/cji/1-General/cjigc.shtml) . New
York State Unified Court System. Retrieved
21 January 2018.
15. "Jury Instructions for trying plea of
"INSANITY (LACK OF CRIMINAL
RESPONSIBILITY BY REASON OF MENTAL
DISEASE OR DEFECT) Penal Law S.40.15" "
(http://www.nycourts.gov/judges/cji/1-Gen
eral/Defenses/CJI2d.Insanity.pdf) (PDF).
New York State Unified Court System.
Retrieved 5 August 2012.

16. Morris, Norval (October 1953). " "wrong" in

the M'naughten Rules" (https://doi.org/10.1
111%2Fj.1468-2230.1953.tb02133.x) . The
Modern Law Review. 16 (4): 435–440.
doi:10.1111/j.1468-2230.1953.tb02133.x
(https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1468-2230.19
53.tb02133.x) .
17. "Criminal Procedure (Insanity and Unfitness
to Plead) Act 1991" (https://www.legislatio
n.gov.uk/ukpga/1991/25/section/1) .

18. "Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964" (ht

tps://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1964/8
4/section/5) .

Bibliography

Boland, F. (1996). "Insanity, the Irish

Constitution and the European
Convention on Human Rights". 47
Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 260.

Bucknill, J. C. (1881). "The Late Lord

Chief Justice of England on Lunacy" (htt
ps://zenodo.org/record/1431652) .
Brain. 4: 1–26. doi:10.1093/brain/4.1.1
(https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fbrain%2F4.
1.1) .
Butler Committee. (1975). The Butler
Committee on Mentally Abnormal
Offenders, London: HMSO, Cmnd 6244

Dalby, J.T. (2006). "The Case of Daniel

McNaughton: Let's get the story
straight". American Journal of Forensic
Psychiatry. 27: 17–32.

Ellis, J. W. (1986). "The Consequences

of the Insanity Defense: Proposals to
reform post-acquittal commitment
laws". Catholic University Law Review.
35: 961.
Gostin, L. (1982). "Human Rights,
Judicial Review and the Mentally
Disordered Offender". (1982) Crim. LR
779.
The Law Reform Commission of
Western Australia. The Criminal Process
and Persons Suffering from Mental
Disorder, Project No. 69, August 1991.
[2] (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/
walrc/69/P69-R.pdf)
Elliott, Catherine; Quinn, Frances (2000).
Criminal Law (Third ed.). Harlow, Essex:
Pearson Education Ltd. pp. 241–248.
ISBN 978-0-582-42352-7.
See also

Insanity defence
Policeman at the elbow

External links

M'Naghten Rule – FindLaw (https://ww

w.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-proced
ure/the-m-naghten-rule.html)
John and Lorena Bobbitt#Arrest and
trial

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