Daniel M’Naghten was an Englishman who suffered from paranoid delusions and thought the Tories were going to kill him. He murdered Edward Drummond, the British prime minister’s secretary, and was acquitted under an insanity defense later codified in the House of Lords in 1843. This insanity defense became common law and is known as the M’Naghten Rule: a two-prong test with the first prong determining whether the defendant knew what they were doing, and the second prong determining whether the defendant knew what they were doing was wrong.
Kansas adopted the M’Naghten Rule in 1884. There was an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981. John Hinckley Jr. was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982. Kansas legislators abolished the M’Naghten Rule in 1996.
Public opinion abolished the M’Naghten Rule, as noted in a series of pre-Hinckley surveys summed up by lawyer Brian Hauptman: Large majorities of law enforcement, mental health professionals and the community at large agreed with the statement: “Too many people escape responsibility for crimes by pleading insanity.” Hinckley’s acquittal buttressed that sentiment.
Hinckley was cleared by the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code, which has an “Irresistible Impulse Test,” and is broader than the M’Naghten Rule, which was used in only 33 in recorded court cases before its demise, according to our Kansas Supreme Court Library.
Kansas lawmakers wrote a narrow “mens rea” or criminal intent approach to determine the guilty mind: Statute 21-5209: Defense of lack of mental state. It shall be a defense to a prosecution under any statute that the defendant, as a result of mental disease or defect, lacked the culpable mental state required as an element of the crime charged. Mental disease or defect is not otherwise a defense. Statute 21-5202: Culpable mental state; definition of intentionally, knowingly, recklessly. (a) Except as otherwise provided, a culpable mental state is an essential element of every crime defined by this code. A culpable mental state may be established by proof that the conduct of the accused person was committed “intentionally,” “knowingly” or “recklessly.”
For example, in State v. Mclinn, a 2018 case where defendant Sarah Gonzales-McLinn submitted a dissociative identity disorder diagnosis, the prosecution presented her force of knife cuts to Harold Sasko’s neck as relevant to her intention (mens rea) of killing him. As mental disease or defect is not otherwise a defense, Gonzales-McLinn was unable to enter evidence about her diagnosis, and was found guilty and sentenced to a “hard 50” sentence. It was later found that she could have used a battered woman’s defense, and her sentence was reduced to 25 years.
According to the Kansas Department of Corrections’ 2023 annual report, 46% of our adult inmate population suffers from mental illness, with 9% of the cases classified as severe and persistent. But public perception of individuals with mental illness in our justice system is evolving.
Stepping Up is a national effort aimed at reducing the number of incarcerated people with mental illness and was founded by the Council of State Governments Justice Center, the National Association of Counties and the American Psychiatric Association Foundation. Already, 20 Kansas counties are participating, including Sedgwick, Johnson and Wyandotte.
From his dissent in Kahler v. Kansas, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer wrote: “Few doctrines are as deeply rooted in our common-law heritage as the insanity defense. Although English and early American sources differ in their linguistic formulations of the legal test for insanity, with striking consistency, they all express the same underlying idea: A defendant who, due to mental illness, lacks sufficient mental capacity to be held morally responsible for his actions cannot be found guilty of a crime.”
For my peers with mental illness going through criminal court proceedings, it’s time to give them a voice. It’s time to let them use their diagnosis in their defense. It’s time to restore the M’Naghten Rule in Kansas.