Insanity Defense (not guilty by reason of insanity) not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder.
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Insanity defense is primarily used in criminal prosecutions. It is based on the assumption that at the time of the crime, the defendant was suffering from severe mental illness and therefore, was incapable of appreciating the nature of the crime and differentiating right from wrong behavior, hence making them not legally accountable for crime. Insanity defense is a legal concept, not a clinical one.
This means that just suffering from a mental disorder is not sufficient to prove insanity. The defendant has the burden of proving the defense of insanity by a “preponderance of the evidence” which is similar to a civil case. It is hard to determine legal insanity, and even harder to successfully defend it in court.
Insanity defense has been in existence since many centuries; however, it took a legal position only since the last three centuries. There were various tests used to declare a person legally insane such as Wild Beast test, The Insane Delusion test, and “test of capacity to distinguish between right and wrong.” These three tests laid the foundation for the landmark Mc Naughten rule.
In 1843, Daniel Mc Naughten, a wood-turner from Glasgow, shot and killed Edward Drummond mistaking him for Sir Robert Peel. Mc Naughten believed that he was persecuted by the Tories, and evidence was brought to show that he had been totally deluded on this subject for some time.[11,12] His state of mind was apparent from the outset when he had to be coaxed, and finally tricked, into pleading “not guilty.” After hearing seven medical witnesses testify that he was completely insane, the judge stopped the trial, the jury brought in the special verdict without summing up and without retiring, and Mc Naughten was forcibly committed to the Bethlem Hospital.
Section 84 of IPC deals with the “act of a person of unsound mind. “Nothing is an offence 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 he is doing what is either wrong or contrary to law.”
Psychiatrists may be asked to assist the court in determining whether certain mental disorders affected a person's ability to form the intent necessary to make that person legally culpable. The medical discipline describes the patient's mental status on a continuum that ranges from extremely ill to completely healthy. However, the legal language is clearly categorical in nature, either criminally responsible or not responsible. While a psychiatrist is concerned with medical treatment of individual patients, courts are concerned with the protection of the society from the possible dangerousness from these patients. Psychiatrist needs to understand that it is not only the fact that the person is suffering from mental illness but it is the totality of the circumstances seen in the light of the evidence on record to prove that the person was also unable to appreciate the nature of the act or wrongdoing or that it was contrary to the law is appreciated in the court of law for insanity defense