State v. Johnson

Statev.Johnson

The product test asked expert witnesses to use their judgment in determining whether criminal actions were "'the product' of a mental disease or defect." It is the jury's job to decide whether a defendant's actions were the product of his mental disease or defect. The expert witness' job is to determine whether the defendant possesses a mental disease or defect. Further, often conflicting 'expert witnesses' were put on the witness stand by the prosecution and defense to draw the opposite conclusions regarding the cause of an individual's actions.

Rule of law

Model Penal Code test

Facts

(1) A defendant is not responsible for criminal conduct if at time of such conduct, as result of mental disease or defect, his capacity either to appreciate wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to requirements of law is so substantially impaired that he cannot justly be held responsible, and (2) the terms “mental disease or defect” do not include an abnormality manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise antisocial conduct.

Responding to the criticism of the M'Naghten and irresistible impulse rules, the American Law Institute incorporated a new test of criminal responsibility into its Model Penal Code.

Issue:

Should this court abandon the M'Naghten test in favor of a new standard for determining the criminal responsibility of those who claim they are blameless by reason of mental illness?

In Defendant's first trial, the M'Nghten test was applied.

The Supreme Court of Rhode Island discussed the history of tests for insanity, including the M’Naghten Rule, the Irresistible Impulse Test, the Durham or “Product” Test, and the Model Penal Code Test.

Holding

YES

Reasoning

M’Naghten Rule

Irresistible impulse test

(1) Model Penal Code standard acknowledges that volitional as well as cognitive impairments must be considered by the jury in its resolution of the responsibility issue.

(2) Additionally, the test employs vocabulary sufficiently in the common ken that its use at trial will permit a reasonable three-way dialogue between the law-trained judges and lawyers, the medical-trained experts, and the jury.

The M’Naghten Rule states that if the defendant wanted to establish a defense on the ground of insanity, he must proved that

he didn’t know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or

if he did know it, that he didn’t know that what he was doing was wrong at the time of committing the act.

Durham rule

Responding to criticism of M’Naghten as a narrow and harsh rule, several courts supplemented it with the Irresistible impulse test.

“Irresistible impulse” test inquire into both the cognitive and volitional components of the defendant’s behavior.

It is considered in terms of a complete destruction of the governing power of the mind.

The notion that a crime impulsively committed must have been perpetrated in a sudden and explosive fit.

Thus, the irresistible impulse test excludes those far more numerous instances of crimes committed after excessive brooding and melancholy by one who is unable to resist sustained psychic compulsion or to make any real attempt to control his conduct.

A Durham rule, product test, product defect rule, or 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 (1869) and Durham v. United States (1954).In Pike, the court wrote, "An accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or mental defect.

(3) The greatest strength of our test is that it clearly delegates the issue of criminal responsibility to the jury, thus precluding possible usurpation of the ultimate decision by the expert witnesses.

(4) Because of our overriding concern that the jury's function remain inviolate, we today adopt the following formulation of the Model Penal Code test.

In respond to the criticism that the M’Naghten Rule

refuses to recognize volitional or emotional impairments, viewing the cognitive element as the singular cause of conduct;

has been directed at its all-or-nothing approach, requiring total incapacity of cognition, so by focusing on total cognitive incapacity, it restricts expert’s flow of testimony on the responsibility issue, as a result, some states supplemented it with the Irresistible Impulse Test.

GROUP 4

The Durham rule was abandoned in the case United States v. Brawner, (1972).After the 1970s, U.S. jurisdictions have tended to not recognize this argument as it places emphasis on "mental disease or defect" and thus on testimony by psychiatrists and is argued to be somewhat ambiguous. The problem with the "product test" was that it gave psychiatric and psychological experts too much influence in a decision of insanity and not enough to jurors. Although an expert witness may testify as to his or her opinion in a trial, judges are reluctant to allow it when the opinion goes to the ultimate issue of a case, i.e. when the opinion alone could decide the outcome of a case.

QUESTIONS

GROUP 1

Here is a patient of Multiple Personality Disorder, he(A) didn’t know his other personality(B) existed and someday B killed a victim.

When A is awaked from his body, he found him sit in the court surprisingly. He can neither testified that what B does was a product of mental disease, and nor he can prove the kill was B done because he did not know he is a patient of MPD. Could you please try to analyze this case under the majority rule of insanity?

What do you think about M'Naghten test? Why should it be abandoned?

Reversed and remanded.

Judgment

GROUP 5

GROUP 2

How to determine the substantial capacity in model penal code?

In the Model Penal Code test (3), why expert witness can affect the final result and then let jury make the decision?

THANK YOU！