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Mental State and Crime

This piece explores the intricate relationship between mental state and criminal responsibility. It discusses key legal concepts such as actus reus (the act) and mens rea (the mental state), and highlights defenses like self-defense and insanity. The M’Naghten test, the irresistible impulse test, and the Durham rule are key frameworks that define how mental health issues can influence legal outcomes. By examining these principles, the article provides insights into how the law navigates the complexities of human behavior and mental illness in the context of crime.

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Mental State and Crime

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  1. Mental State and Crime “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.” Katherine Hepburn to Humphrey Bogart, The African Queen

  2. Offenders by Age and Sex (Britain)

  3. Crime involves: 1. legally proscribed conduct (actusreus) 2. that causes harm 3. coincides with blameworthy frame of mind (mensrea) 4. and carries with it punishment

  4. Self-Defense Use of force to repel an imminent, unprovoked attack, in which defendant reasonably believes that s/he or others might be seriously injured and where there is no alternative May include defense of property when it is the home

  5. M’Naghten test 1843 British Case – attempt on life of Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel Defendant must be “laboring 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 what he was doing was wrong.”

  6. Irresistible impulse Defendant must show that: Mental diseases has deprived the accused of willpower to resist the insane impulse Rather than focus on impaired mensrea, focuses on impaired actusreus

  7. Durham rule Durham v. U.S. (1954) Defendant must show that unlawful acts were the product of a mental disease or defect Makes standard more medical in nature, less about moral responsibility

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