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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 House of Lords delivered the following exposition of the rules: . the jurors ought to be told in all cases that every man is to be presumed to be sane, and to possess a sufficient degree of reason to be responsible for his crimes, until the contrary be proved to their satisfaction; and that to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the ...
The insanity defense is also contrasted with a finding that a defendant cannot stand trial in a criminal case because a mental disease prevents them from effectively assisting counsel, from a civil finding in trusts and estates where a will is nullified because it was made when a mental disorder prevented a testator from recognizing the natural ...
Insanity R v Sullivan [1984] AC 156 is a British House of Lords case in criminal law , and a leading modern authority on the common law defence of insanity . Facts
The consensus among law officials of the time was that madness had to be "obvious and overwhelming" [3] before a plea of insanity would be accepted as a defence. If it could be successfully argued that a lunatic committed a crime during a brief moment of sanity, then it was considered acceptable to convict the defendant, allowing the ...
The Trial of Lunatics Act 1883 (46 & 47 Vict. c. 38) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, allowing the jury to return a verdict that the defendant was guilty, but insane at the time, and should be kept in custody as a "criminal lunatic". [1]
People found not guilty in criminal proceedings by reason of a successful insanity defense. Does not include people who were found "guilty but mentally ill" or "guilty but insane". For people who avoided a verdict because they were insane during the court process, see Category:People declared mentally unfit for court
A Durham rule, product test, or product defect rule is a rule in a criminal case by which a jury may determine a defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity because a criminal act was the product of a mental disease. Examples in which such rules were articulated in common law include State v. Pike (1870) and Durham v