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The insanity defense, also known as the mental disorder defense, is an affirmative defense by excuse in a criminal case, arguing that the defendant is not responsible for their actions due to a psychiatric disease at the time of the criminal act.
The critical distinctions are that diminished capacity is a partial, negating defense (negates an element of the state's case) with the burden on the state to show that the defendant acted with the requisite state of mind while insanity is a complete but affirmative defense—the defendant bearing the burden of proving that he was legally insane.
Per Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12.2, a defendant intending to pursue an insanity defense must timely notify an attorney for the government in writing. The government then has a right to have the court order a psychiatric or psychological examination.
A man who killed two people near Wichita Falls will not stand trial for capital murder after all, according to court documents. Instead, Daniel Eric Roof, 44, will go to a mental institution.
The defense presented testimony from toxicology and pharmaceutical experts, but only one who offered an opinion on whether Reynolds was not guilty by reason of insanity. Defense psychologist ...
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]
For example, a charge of assault on a police officer may be negated by genuine (and perhaps reasonable) mistake of fact that the person the defendant assaulted was a criminal and not an officer, thus allowing a defense of use of force to prevent a violent crime (generally part of self-defense/defense of person). [12]
R v Tandy [7] held that where a defendant could show that she was suffering from an abnormality of the mind, that it was induced by disease (namely alcoholism), and that it substantially impaired her responsibility for her actions, then the defence of diminished responsibility would be made out. In the actual case, the craving for alcohol did ...