DISCUSS THE DEFENCES OF THE OFFENSE OF INSANITY AS EMBEDDED IN THE

CASE OF DANIEL M'NAGHTEN v. ROBERT PEEL.

INSTRUCTIONS: ELABORATE USING THE CRIMINAL AND PENAL CODE

PUL203: CRIMINOLOGY ASSIGNMENT

BY

POLYCARP STEPHANIE MIRANDA

MATRIC NO: FLW/LAW/21/71483

200 LEVEL, 2023/2024 SESSION

DEPARTMENT OF JURISPRUDENCE AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

FACULTY OF LAW

AMBROSE ALI UNIVERSITY

EKPOMA-NIGERIA

24TH JANUARY, 2024

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Discuss the defences of the offense of insanity as embedded in the case of Daniel
M'Naghten v. Robert Peel

Instructions: Elaborate using the criminal and penal code

POLYCARP, Stephanie Miranda

Department of Jurisprudence and International law

Abstract

This current study is an authentic legal literary work analysing insanity and the
defences recognized to be effective in cases of insanity.
Keywords: Insanity, defences, Penal Code, Criminal Code.
1.1 Introduction

When insanity is mentioned, the first thing which comes to mind is that it is a
state of madness. A state in which a person is delusional, hallucinates or exhibits
an unusual behavior which before the normal person is abnormal

1.2.1 The Criminal Code provisions on Insanity

According to the provisions of section 27 of the Criminal Code on Insanity, it lays

emphasis that:

every person is presumed to be of sound mind and to

have been of sound mind at anytime which comes in
question until the contrary is proved.

This is simply said that a person is considered to be sane and normal until it is
proven to be otherwise. Section 28(i) further provides that;
"A person is not criminally responsible for an action or
omission if at the time of doing the act or making the
omission he is in such a state of mental disease
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Criminal Code s.27 & 28(i & ii)
 or natural mental infirmity as to deprive him of capacity
to understand what he is doing, or of capacity to control
his actions, or of capacity to know that he ought not to
do the act or make the omission.....

Section 28 (ii) also states that:

A person whose mind at the time of his doing the act or
making the omission to do an act is affected by delusions
on some specific matters but who is not otherwise
entitled to the benefit of the foregoing provisions of this
section, is criminally responsible for the act or omission
to the same extent as if the state of things had been such
as he was induced by delusion to believe or exit
For a clear emphasis, the above subsections of the criminal code seeks to lay the
defense that an insane person cannot be held responsible for a crime. In other
words, on no account can a person who was delusional or insane in the process of
committing a crime be held responsible for such crime committed as the offender
was not in a sound mind at that time.

1.2.2 The Penal Code provisions on Insanity

The provisions of section 51 under the penal code also makes the following
provisions:
" Nothing is an offense which is done by a person who at
the time of doing it by reason of unsoundness of mind is
incapable of knowing the nature of the act or that what he
is doing is either wrong or contrary to law".2

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From the provisions of the Criminal Code and the Penal Code, it can be duly
affirmed that for a defence of insanity to ensue in regards to such a case as it may

2
Criminal Code, Penal Code
arise, the offender is assumed to have been in a delusional state or a state of
unsoundness of mind as at the time of the crime.

2.1 The Case of Daniel M'Naghten v. Robert Peel

To further support the aforementioned, a proof is a "LOCUS CLASSICUS" case. The

case of Daniel M'Naghten v Robert Peel is a Locus Classicus on the defences of
insanity. In the case, the Defendant was charged with the murder of Edward
Drummond, secretary to the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel. Defendant mistook
Drummond for Peel and shot Drummond by mistake. At the time of his arrest, he
told police that he came to London to murder the Prime Minister because “the
tories in my city follow and persecute me wherever I go, and have destroyed my
peace of mind. They do everything in their power to harass and persecute me; in
fact they wish to murder me.” Defense counsel introduced expert and lay
witnesses who testified about Defendant’s obsession with delusions and that he
suffered from acute insanity. The judge gave the jury an instruction regarding his
lack of understanding upon commission of the act in question. The jury reached a
verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. Following the trial, there was a meeting
at the House of Lords attended by fifteen judges in order to determine the
standards for the insanity defense.

This is simply to say that the defendant, M’Naghten was charged with the murder
of Edward Drummond, secretary to the Prime Minister and used the insanity
defense at trial. At the time of his arrest, he told the police that he came to
London to murder the Prime Minister because he was told to do so. The jury
reached a verdict of not guilty and a meeting at the House of Lords ensued in
order to determine what the standards for the insanity defense would be.
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2.2 The defences of insanity
From the above discussions and findings, this leads to further research as to what
is referred to as necessary for the defence of insanity. In the case, the conclusion

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Daniel M'Naghten v. Robert Peel (1848) 10 C.L. 200
was reached that should a crime have been committed due to a stroke of insanity,
the following were the defences:
1. That everyone is presumed sane until the contrary is
proved.
2. That it is a defence for the accused to show that he
was labouring under such a defect of reason, due to to
the disease of the mind as either:
(A) Not to know the nature and quality of his act or
(B) If he did know this, he did not know that he was
doing wrong.
3. That if a man commits a criminal act under insane
delusion, he is under the same degree of responsibility
as he would have been on the facts as he imagined
them to be.
A simple translation of the above defences or a synopsis of the rule of law is that
in order to establish an insanity defense, it must be clearly proven that at the time
of the act, the accused was under such a defect of reason from disease of the
mind that he did not know the nature and quality of the act he was committing or
if he did know, he did not know what he was doing was wrong.

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2.3 The discussion on the defences

With the defences of the Daniel M'Naghten v Robert Peel case aforementioned ,
we shall now discuss extensively on it.
1. That every person is presumed sane until proven guilty:

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Daniel M'Naghten v. Robert Peel (1848) 10 C.L. 200
 This is one of the the defences which arose in the case of Daniel M'Naghten
v Robert Peel. Though not discussed previously, but looking into the details of the
case, Daniel M'Naghten was presumed to be sane when he first appeared in the
presence of the court before it was later proved that he was insane.
This alone insinuates the stand that for every offender who claims to not be
of sound mind at the time of the crime should prove that he was indeed not of
sound mind at that time because the court will presume him sane until proven
otherwise.
2.That he was indeed labouring under such a defect of reason, due to to the
disease of the mind as either:
(A) Not to know the nature and quality of his act or
(B) If he did know this, he did not know that he was doing wrong.
This is another defence on Insanity which was also established in the Daniel
M'Naghten v. Robert Peel case. This defence sought to establish and did infact
establish that the offender was indeed labouring under such defect of reason and
that at the time of the crime, he did not know the nature or quality of his act. This
is to say that when committing the crime, he did not know the gravity of the crime
he committed and if he did know, he did not know whether or not what he did or
was doing was wrong

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This defence simpliciter implies that one committed a crime due to

unsoundness of the mind and was unaware of the gravity of the crime and even
more so unaware if what he did was right or wrong.
3. That if a man commits a criminal act under insane delusion, he is under the
same degree of responsibility as he would have been on the facts as he
imagined them to be:
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Daniel M'Naghten v. Robert Peel (1848) 10 C.L. 200
 This is the last defence of the case of Daniel M'Naghten v Robert Peel
however, it is not the least important.
In this defence, to further strengthen the previous propositions, it was
established that should the circumstance arise that a person commits a crime
under delusion or the influence of insanity, he would shoulder the same degree of
responsibility as he would have been on the facts as he imagined them to be.
This simpliciter posists that if a person commits a crime under the influence
of insanity, he would have to bear the same level of responsibility of the crime he
committed if he happened to exhibit guilty conscience at the time he committed
the crime and he believed what he did was wrong despite being insane at that
time.
The defenses incites the curiosity whether or not crimes relating to mental
infirmity or disorder also leans towards psychiatry.
Psychiatry is a branch of medicine which studies mental disorders of
lunatics or insane person.
It is therefore highly agreeable that insanity is the primary focus of
psychiatry as it deals extensively with mentally disorder or delusional persons.
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It should be emphasized that McNaughton's rules stressed on “understandability

of right and wrong” and “intellectual” rather than a moral or affective definition
dominated in its formulation. Lack of control and irresistible drives or impulses
were neglected. In essence, it was the “test of knowing” or “test of right and
wrong". That an insane person is punishable “if he knows” at the time of crime.
The spellings for his name vary in many instances, but hospital records and court
documents support the spelling “McNaughton”.
In summary, there are three basic elements in the Rules. The first is a statement
of the type of mental state ('defect of reason from disease of the mind') that must

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Daniel M'Naghten v. Robert Peel (1848) 10 C.L. 200
Queen, Victoria., M'Naghten Rules. Retrieved from https://en.m.wekipedia.org>wiki.(2024). Accessed 23 January, 2024
have been present at the time the crime was committed for the defence to be a
possibility. The second and third elements are statements about the
consequences that must flow from this state of mind to qualify the person for the
defence .
The defenses in relation to the case of Daniel M'Naghten v. Robert Peel has truly
broadened our horizons and knowledgeability though there are quite a number of
cases in relation to this area. However, we shall only extend our views to this
extent.

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Conclusion
This study has thoroughly assessed with in-depth focus, the defenses for the
insane committing crimes through the provisions of the respective Acts and the
M'Naghten case.
From the previous assessments and discussions, it is finally submitted that for an
offender to apply the rules of the defenses of insanity, it must actually be proven
that at the time of the crime, the offender was indeed not of sound mind.

7
Shea, P (1999) Defining Madness, Hawkins Press, Sydney.
Shea, P ( 1996) Psychiatry in Court, Hawkins Press, Sydney.
Asokan, T.V, Daniel M'Naughton (1813-1865) PMC_NCBI. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov>pmc (2007).
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REFERENCES
¹The Criminal Code
²The Penal Code
³Daniel M'Naghten v. Robert Peel (1848) 10 C.L. 200
⁶Queen, Victoria., M'Naghten Rules. Retrieved from
https://en.m.wekipedia.org>wiki.(2024). Accessed 23 January, 2024
⁷Shea, P (1999) Defining Madness, Hawkins Press, Sydney.
⁷Shea, P ( 1996) Psychiatry in Court, Hawkins Press, Sydney.
⁷Asokan, T.V, Daniel M'Naughton (1813-1865) PMC_NCBI. Retrieved from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov>pmc (2007).
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