MAD CRIMINALS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4654, 28 January 1924, Page 3

MAD CRIMINALS.

NEW VERDICT SUGGESTED.

•NOT GUILTY BECAUSE INSANE I .'

After the reprieve of Ronald True, who on May last year was convicted of . the murder of Gertrude Yates and was sentenced to death, Lord Birkenhead, then Lord Chancellor, appointed a committee, under Lord Justice Atkin, to consider, whether any changes are desirable in criminal trials in which the plea of insanity as a defence is raised. The committee recommend that: . • It should be recognised that a person charged criminally with an offence is irresponsible for his act when the act is committed under an impulse which the prisoner was by mental-disease in substance deprived of any power to resist. It may requ’re legislation to bring this rule into effect’.’

The apparent extension of the validity of insanity as a defence can besi be appreciated from a summary of ‘ McNaghten’s Case.”

In 1843 McNaghten murdered Mr Drummond, private .secretary to Sir Robert Peel. His acquittal on. the ground of partial insanity led to an animated debate in the House of Lords, which body then submitted to the judges, headed by Chief Justice Tindal, an inquiry ns to. the grounds on which insanity was held a bar to conviction for crime. Their reply was that the matter to be tested was the -accused man’s knowledge .of the native and quality of the particular criminal act ajt the time it was committed.

The committee’s report goes on to .state :—

1 Where a person is found to oe irresponsible on the ground of insanity, the verdict should be that accused did the act (or made the omission) charged, but is not guilty on the grounds that he was insane, so as not to be responsible, according to law. for his actions at the time. ' Until such amendment, the verdict should always be taken and entered as guilty of the act charged, but insane, so as not to be responisble, according to law, for his actions at the time.

“ Accused persons should not be found on arraignment unfit to plead except on the evidence of two doctors, save in very clear cases.” Both the British Medical Association and the Medico-Psychological Association submitted reports and gave evidence.