psychology_Sons_(2003)

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Early Attempts to Apply Psychological or Psychiatric Knowledge to the Legal System 393

of his grotesque injury, and the fact that all of the witnesses’
testimony supported the notion of insanity, both sides agreed
to stop the trial and invite the jury to find Hadfield not guilty
due to insanity. The jury did so, and Hadfield was committed
to an institution. This case overturned the “wild breast” stan-
dard by finding that one did not have to be totallydevoid of
reason to be found not guilty due to insanity. It showed that a
person whose behavior is controlled by a delusion, even if he
knows the difference between right and wrong, may be found
insane. The principles established in the Hadfield case were
used in the United States in 1835 in the Washington, DC, trial
of a man who had shot at President Andrew Jackson (Rieber
& Green, 1981).
In 1843, Daniel McNaughten (or M’Naghten), a wood-
turner and shopkeeper from Glasgow, Scotland, attempted to
assassinate British prime minister Robert Peel. Instead, he
mistakenly shot and killed the prime minister’s secretary,
Edward Drummond. In his only public statement about his
motives, McNaughten said, “The Tories in my native city
have compelled me to do this. They follow, persecute me
wherever I go and have entirely destroyed my peace of mind.
They followed me to France, into Scotland, and all over
England. In fact they follow me wherever I go. I cannot sleep
nor get no rest from them. I shall never be the man I was.
I used to have good health and strength, but I have not now”
(quoted in Moran, 1981, p. 10). McNaughten’s statement
formed the basis for an insanity defense at his trial.
When arrested, McNaughten had in his pocket a deposit
slip for 750 pounds, a huge sum for a man in his position.
These funds were used to hire what might be called the first
legal defense “Dream Team,” 150 years before the O. J.
Simpson murder trial. McNaughten was defended by four
barristers; they called nine medical experts who testified that
he was insane or “partially insane.” The prosecution did not
attempt to counter the defense’s medical testimony, and the
prosecutor withdrew the Crown’s case against McNaughten
after the medical testimony had been given. Not surprisingly,
the jury quickly came to a verdict (in less than 2 minutes!) of
not guilty by reason of insanity (Finkel, 1988).
Queen Victoria, who had herself been shot at by an assas-
sin three years earlier, was not amused, and neither was the
House of Lords, which discussed the issue further. The even-
tual result was the “McNaughten rule” as established by the
House of Lords, which specified that, “To establish a defense
on the ground of insanity it must be clearly proved that, at
the time of committing the act, the party accused was labor-
ing 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” (Finkel, 1988, p. 21). This “McNaughten rule”


remains the standard for defining insanity in about half of the
U.S. states.
A fascinating sidelight to this case concerns the chaotic
political situation of the day and the mysterious 750 pounds.
Where did a lowly shopkeeper get such a huge sum of money?
Apparently, neither the defense nor the prosecution was
overly curious at the time. Much later, Moran (1981, p. 4)
suggested that the verdict was mainly the result of political
considerations rather than McNaughten’s mental state, con-
trary to the court’s stated basis for the decision. McNaughten
wasnotinsane, Moran asserted. Given the great political tur-
moil of the times in McNaughten’s home area (riots, general
unrest and political intrigue, Tory spies and agents throughout
England and Scotland), and McNaughten’s known status as
an orator and antigovernment sympathizer, his statement may
have had the ring of truth to it. Finkel (1988, p. 18) suggested,
“Perhaps he was striking back, defending himself against a se-
ries of escalating harassments that might, if unstopped, lead to
his own murder? Was it an act of self-defense? A much-
provoked reaction? Or was the unexplained 750 pound note a
payment for a political assassination that simply did in the
wrong man?” How ironic if this landmark insanity verdict
was based upon a false premise!
Shortly before this incident, Isaac Ray (1838/1983) had
writtenA Treatise on Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity,
which was regarded in England and the United States as the
most influential book in this area at the time (Rieber & Green,
1981). Often described as the “father of forensic psychiatry,”
Ray wrote that no act done by a person in a state of insanity
can be punished as an offense. This approach asserted that it
was not necessary to show that the insanity causedthe act or
that the act was the product of an “irresistible impulse.” This
perspective was later incorporated in the definition of insan-
ity introduced in the case of Durham v. United States(1954).
However, this approach is now used in only one U.S. state,
New Hampshire (Wrightsman, 2000).
The McNaughten rule had been adopted by the federal
courts and most U.S. state courts by 1851 (Simon, 1983).
While the McNaughten rule focused oncognitivefactors
(knowing, understanding), another approach recognized a
volitionalfactor: whether or not the person, due to a mental
disorder that produced an “irresistible impulse,” was unable
to prevent himself from committing an act. The irresistible
impulse test was used in the United States just one year after
the McNaughten case in England and was endorsed by
the U.S. Supreme Court in 1897 inDavis v. United States
(Garrison, 1998).
With respect to psychology’s role in such proceedings, it
was not until the mid-twentieth century, a half century after
the establishment of psychology as a scientific discipline, that
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