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Abstract

This article traces and critically analyzes the various tests and indicia of insanity employed from earliest times to the present. It seems that the more people have tinkered with the insanity defense since the under- “appreciated” McNaghten rule, the more esoteric, obscure, and unwieldy it has become. The widely adopted substantial capacity test leaves ample room for introducing volitional failure and irresistible impulse evidence as grounds for a not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity acquittal, a serious flaw that the Insanity Defense Act of 1984 does not adequately address. The author prefers a single-standard, revised McNaghten rule that is exclusively, succinctly, and unobtrusively anchored in the commonsense notion of being unable to discern right from wrong.

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The Evolution of the Insanity Defense

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