Insanity

Insanity

1. What is Insanity?

   • This is a general defence - it applies to any offence.
   • Holds a special verdict of 'Not guilty by reason of insanity', which negatively impacts on D's life.
   • Often D doesn't raise def but places the state of his mind at issue by raising another def, eg. automatism.
     • Automatism
     • The question of whether this amounts to insanity is a question of law for the judge to determine.
   • The jury must then decide based on the evidence whether the D was insane at the time of the offence.
     • They can't return the special verdict except on the writen evidence of 2 or more registered medical practitioners.
   • Where a D is found NG, the judge has discretion to:
     • Commit D to a mental institution
       • Treatment or supervision
         • Guardianship Order
           • Absolute Discharge
     • Where the charge is murder, a hospital order will be given.

2. Rules on Insanity

   • Established in the 'M'Naghten Case'.
     • Rebuttable Presumption - D is presumed to be sane unless proven otherwise.
     • At the time of the offence, D must be suffering from a defect of reason caused by a disease of the mind, so as to not know the nature and quality or his acts, or if he did, he did not know that what he was doing was wrong in law.
   • Defect of Reason
     • This means being deprived of the power of reason, not simply failing to use it,
     • Temporary absentmindedness, depression or forgetfulness will not amount to a DOR (Clarke).
   • Disease of the Mind
     • In 'Bratty', Lord Denning said a DOM was 'any mental disorder which has manifested itself in violence and is prone to recur'.
     • Internal factor.
     • Mind does not simply mean brain and covers the mental faculties of reason, memory and understanding.
       • Can be physical such as arterial sclerosis (Kemp); or functional such as schizophrenia. Often a physical disease will affect the functioning of the mind.
     • The condition need not be permanent or incurable. (Kemp)
   • D must not know the nature and quality of his acts.
     • This means that he does not know what he is doing (Sullivan; Codere).
   • D must now know what he was doing was wrong in law.
     • This means legally rather than morally (WIndle).

3. M'Naghten

   • Suffering from insane delusions, D shot and killed PM's secretary.
   • HOL formulated rules which apply in determining whether a person should escape criminal liability due to being insane.

4. Clarke

   • Suffering from depression and diabetes, D shoplifted having forgotten she put the items in her bag.
   • Short periods of absentmindedness fell far short of amounting to a def. D failed to use powers of reasoning.

5. Kemp

   • Attack on wife, charged with GBH. Arterial sclerosis caused temporary unconsciousness.
     • Pleaded automatism saying that it was physical not mental.
   • 'Mind' did not mean brain and covers the mental faculties of RUM.
     • Devlin - 'It does not matter for the purposes of the law whether the DOR is due to a physical or mental disorder'.

6. Sullivan

   • Suffering from 3rd stage epileptic fit, D killed a man. TJ raised insanity.
   • Diplock - 'It is irrelevant whether the source of DOR was organic as in epilepsy or permanent or transient or intermittent'.

7. Burgess

   • Sleepwalker who smashed wine and video recorder over GF's head.
     • Appeal dismissed. There was an abnormality or disorder, albeit transitory, due to an internal factor, which had manifested itself in violence and which might recur'.
   • Lane - 'We accept that sleep is a normal condition... sleepwalking... and violence in slepp is not normal'.

8. Hennessy

   • Diabetes
     • Hyperglycaemia - no insulin causing high blood sugar. Internal due to diabetes = DOM
     • Hypoglycaemia - too much insulin, low blood sugar. External = automatism.
   • Stole car with no recollection, following 3 day period of not taking insulin twice a day.
     • Appeal dismissed; hyper. state was caused by the disease of diabetes, not by outside factor of injection.
       • LJ Lawton - 'common sense is afronted when all you have to do is put a lump of sugar in a diabetic's mouth'.

9. Codere

   • Mistakenly cut wife's throat thinking they were cutting bread.
     • Unable to rely on insanity, as he knew it was unlawful.
   • Lord Reading - 'If the accused does know either that his act is morally wrong according to the ordinary standards adopted by the RM or that it is legally wrong then it cannot be said that he does not know that what he was doing was wrong'.

10. Windle

    • Communicated insanity (folie a deux), wife with suicidal tendencies was administered an overdose by husband. D demonstrated that he knew it was unlawful - 'I suppose they'll hang me for this'.
    • Appeal dismissed. 'Wrong' meant 'unlawful'. It did not matter that he thought his actions were not morally wrong.