The Definition and Determination of Insanity in Colorado
| Publication year | 1992 |
| Pages | 693 |
| Citation | Vol. 21 No. 4 Pg. 693 |
1992, April, Pg. 693. The Definition and Determination of Insanity in Colorado
On a London street in early 1843, a young Scotsman named Daniel M'Naghten shot Edward Drummond, the personal secretary of British Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel. The shot, fired in broad daylight and within the view and hearing of a constable, proved fatal. M'Naghten, who thought that he was shooting the Prime Minister himself, was laboring under a delusional belief that the Prime Minister was a devil in human form who was tormenting him and seeking his life.
M'Naghten was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was committed to an insane asylum, where he spent the rest of his unhappy days. Queen Victoria, displeased by this verdict, asked the common law judges of England to examine the defense of insanity. The results of their deliberations came to be known as the M'Naghten test.(fn1)
The M'Naghten test is the starting point for any consideration of the insanity defense. This article reviews the current Colorado test and procedures used to define and determine insanity.
The current test for insanity in Colorado, at CRS § 16-8-101(1), reads as follows:
A person who is so diseased or defective in mind at the time of the commission of the act as to be incapable of distinguishing right from wrong with respect to that act is not accountable. But care should be taken not to confuse such mental disease or defect with moral obliquity, mental depravity, or passion growing out of anger, revenge, hatred or other motives, and kindred evil conditions, for when the act is induced by any of these causes the person is accountable to the law.
The Colorado definition has been narrowed significantly over the last decade. Ten years ago, the definition of insanity in Colorado included an "irresistible impulse" component. Under the irresistible impulse test at CRS § 16-8-101, a person also was considered insane if---even though able to distinguish right from wrong---he or she was incapable, due to a mental disease or defect, of choosing the right and refraining from doing the wrong. The irresistible impulse portion of the definition was deleted in 1983.(fn2)
The Colorado Supreme Court recently reviewed the definition of insanity in People v. Serravo.(fn3) This decision affirmed a Court of Appeals decision,(fn4) although on different grounds from those the lower court employed. A jury found the defendant not guilty by reason of insanity in connection with the stabbing of his wife. The defendant was delusional about having a mission from God to establish a sports complex in Denver. He believed that this "deific decree" required him to sever his relationship with his wife, who opposed his efforts to establish this sports complex. He severed the relationship by stabbing her in the back. The prosecution appealed the acquittal on a question of law,(fn5) arguing that the trial court improperly instructed the jury on the definition of insanity. At issue was the meaning of the phrase "right from wrong."
Five psychiatrists and one psychologist testified about the defendant's sanity. These experts disagreed on the precise diagnosis. Nevertheless, they all agreed that the defendant believed his actions were morally justified---that he was morally "right." There was disagreement as to whether he knew his actions were illegal and were seen as "wrong" by society.
The court had to determine from whose viewpoint "right" and "wrong" would be considered: that of the individual, of society generally or of society as expressed by positive law. The defendant argued that right and wrong should be defined by his own personal understanding of those terms. The prosecution argued that they should be defined by reference to legal right and wrong. The court rejected both approaches and held that
the phrase ... refers to a cognitive inability to distinguish right from
wrong under existing societal standards of morality rather than ... under a purely subjective and personal standard of morality.(fn6)
The court noted that use of the prosecution's proposed definition---knowledge that the act was illegal, rather than knowledge that it was immoral---would result in the acquittal of a person who knew that his or her actions were profoundly immoral but did not know that they were prohibited by law. In the court's view, this person should be considered sane and liable for criminal acts. Conversely, the court noted that the prosecution's proposed definition would result in the conviction of a person who knew that his or her actions were prohibited by law but did not have any comprehension of the profoundly immoral nature of the acts. This person, the court said, should not be held accountable under the criminal law.
Under the test established by the court,
However, the court stated, it is unclear how frequently this distinction actually will make a difference becausea person may be considered legally sane as long as the person commits an act contrary to law and knows the act is morally wrong without regard to the person's actual knowledge of its legality under positive law.(fn7)
knowledge that an act is forbidden by law will in most cases permit the inference of knowledge that, according to the accepted standards of mankind, it is also condemned as an offense against good morals.(fn8)
The trial court instructed the jury that the definition of insanity encompasses someone "who appreciates that his conduct is criminal, but, because of a mental disease or defect, believes it to be morally right."(fn9) The Court of Appeals held that this instruction did not substitute a subjective standard of morality into the right-wrong test.(fn10) The Supreme Court disagreed with this conclusion and held that the jury should receive a clarifying instruction stating that right and wrong should be measured by a societal standard of morality.(fn11) Despite the fact that the trial court improperly instructed the Serravo jury, the Supreme Court held that principles of double jeopardy barred a retrial of the defendant on the issue of sanity.
The Supreme Court also held that the "deific decree" delusion---the belief that God was ordering the commission of the act---is not an exception to the right-wrong test for legal insanity. However, it is evidence that a defendant's
cognitive ability to distinguish right from wrong with respect to an act...
To continue reading
Request your trial