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Insanity in English law is a defence to criminal charges based on the idea that the defendant was unable to understand what he was doing, or, that he was unable to understand that what he was doing was wrong. The defence comes in two forms; where the defendant claims he was insane at the time of the crime, and where the defendant asserts he is insane at the time of trial. In the first situation, the defendant must show that he was either suffering from a disease which damaged the functioning of the mind and led to a defect of reason that prevented him from understanding what he was doing, or that he could not tell that what he was doing was wrong. In the second situation, the test is whether or not the defendant can differentiate between "guilty" and "not guilty" verdicts, instruct counsel and recognise the charges he is facing. If successful, he is likely to be detained under the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964, although judges have a wide discretion as to what to do. Use of insanity as a concept dates from 1324, and its criminal application was used until the late 16th century in an almost identical way. The defence, if successful, either allowed the defendant to return home or led to him being incarcerated until he was granted a royal pardon; after 1542, a defendant who became insane prior to the trial could not be tried for any crime, up to and including high treason. During the 18th century the test to determine insanity became extremely narrow, with defendants required to prove that they could not distinguish between good and evil and that they suffered from a mental disease which made them incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions. The current wording comes from the M'Naghten Rules, based on the trial of Daniel M'Naghten in 1843. The defence of insanity has been subject to intense criticism, particularly from the Butler Committee, which noted that the rules were "based on too limited a concept of the nature of mental disorder", highlighting "the outmoded language of the M'Naghten Rules which gives rise to problems of interpretation" and that the rules were "based on the now obsolete belief in the pre-eminent role of reason in controlling social behaviour... (rules ) are not therefore a satisfactory test of criminal responsibility".〔 The Committee proposed reform of the law in 1975, followed by a draft bill from the Law Commission in 1989; so far, these have both been ignored by successive governments. ==History== 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,〔Crotty (1924) p.107〕 and "lunatic" for those who had later become insane, or were insane with some lucid intervals.〔Crotty (1924) p.109〕 In the criminal law, insanity was used as a defence in a roughly identical way from this point until the late 16th century; if an insane person commits a crime, he was not punished in the same way that a sane felon who committed the same crime would be. This was for several reasons; firstly, the cruel punishment usually meted out to felons to set an example would not have the same effect on the insane. Secondly, as felonies required a ''mens rea'', an insane person could not be guilty because they did not have the capacity to hold a ''mens rea''. Thirdly, the phrase ''furiosus solo fitrere punitur'' was used; "a lunatic was punished by his madness alone".〔Crotty (1924) p.110〕 In many cases, the insane defendant was released and allowed to go home; in some, he was held in prison until the King decided to grant him a pardon. A lunatic who became insane prior to the trial could not be executed, nor, after 1542, trialled for felonies up to and including high treason.〔Crotty (1924) p.111〕 It was then established that somebody found not guilty due to insanity should be immediately released; up until the beginning of the 19th century, this was almost all that could be done, although the Vagrancy Act 1714 allowed two Justices of the Peace to confine a dangerous lunatic. The test of insanity was extremely narrow; defendants had to prove that they were incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, and, following the trial of John Firth in 1790, that they suffered from a mental disease which made them incapable of "forming a judgment upon the consequences of () actions".〔Moran (1985) p.32〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Insanity in English law」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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