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In many jurisdictions, there is a distinction made between "sane automatism" and "insane automatism". Where the involuntariness is caused by a mental illness, or "disease of the mind", as per the M'Naghten rules, it will be regarded as "insane automatism" and will often result in a special verdict of "not guilty by reason of insanity". This can ...
Rosenhan claimed that he, along with eight other people (five men and three women), entered 12 hospitals in five states near the west coast of the US. Three of the participants were admitted for only a brief period of time, and in order to obtain sufficient documented experiences, they re-applied to additional institutions.
Thus, an insane defendant may be found guilty based on the facts just like a sane defendant, but insanity will preclude punishment. The definition of insanity is similar to the M'Naught criterion above: "the accused is insane, if during the act, due to a mental illness, profound mental retardation or a severe disruption of mental health or ...
In R v Burgess [1991] 2 QB 92 the Court of Appeal ruled that the defendant, who wounded a woman by hitting her with a video recorder while sleepwalking, was insane under the M'Naghten Rules. Lord Lane said, "We accept that sleep is a normal condition, but the evidence in the instant case indicates that sleepwalking, and particularly violence in ...
The idea of insanity in English law dates from 1324, when the Statute de Praerogativa Regis allowed the King to take the lands of "idiots and lunatics." The early law used various words, including "idiot", "fool" and "sot" to refer to those who had been insane since birth, [2] and "lunatic" for those who had later become insane, or were insane with some lucid intervals. [3]
The terms mentalism, from "mental", and sanism, from "sane", have become established in some contexts, although concepts, such as social stigma, and, in some cases, ableism may be used in similar but not identical ways. While mentalism and sanism are used interchangeably, sanism is becoming predominant in certain circles, such as academics.
The "policeman at the elbow" test is a test used by some courts to determine whether the defendant was insane when they committed a crime. It is a variant of the M'Naghten Rules that addresses the situation in which the defendant knew that what they were going to do was wrong, but had no ability to restrain themself from doing it.
The Portraits of the Insane depict patients from the Paris mental hospitals La Salpêtrière and Bicêtre. [4]: 14 [3] Art historians have described the portraits as significant for their "unprecedented objective sobriety,” [5] observing that they "have a powerful realism that is entirely unaffected by romantic sentiment or artistic dramatization.” [3]