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'Daniel M'Naghten' (pronounced, and sometimes spelled, 'McNaughton') (1813 – 1865) was a Scottish woodturner who assassinated English civil servant Edward Drummond while suffering from paranoid delusions. Through his trial and its aftermath, he has given his name to a legal test of insanity in the UK and other common law jurisdictions (see M'Naghten Rules).^[1]

Contents

Life

Alternative theories

Significance

References

Bibliography

External links

Life

A one-time actor and medical student, M'Naghten was, by typical accounts, a textbook example of insanity. M'Naghten believed that he was the victim of an international conspiracy, involving the Pope and the British Tory government. On January 20, 1843, M'Naghten saw a man from the rear approaching Downing Street, and fired a single shot into his victim's back. The figure turned out to be Peel's secretary, Edward Drummond, who then walked to his family's banking house nearby. Despite medical attention, Drummond died five days later.
Defended by one of London's best-known barristers, Alexander Cockburn, M'Naghten was found "not guilty by reason of insanity" in a jury trial, an acquittal that caused public unrest. At the trial, Cockburn had made extensive and effective use of Isaac Ray's ''Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity''. Cockburn quoted extensively from the book which rejected traditional views of the insanity defence based on the defendant's ability to distinguish "right from wrong" in favour of a broader approach based on causation.^[2][3][4]
Although acquitted of murder, the finding of insanity meant M'Naghten was forcibly institutionalized for the remainder of his life under the Criminal Lunatics Act 1800. He was initially remanded at Bethlem Royal Hospital, where he stayed for 20 years before being transferred to the Broadmoor Institution for the Criminally Insane. He died at Broadmoor in 1865.
Historical sources vary as to the correct spelling of M'Naghten's name with original court documents and hospital records supporting "McNaughton". His signature supports a variety of hypothetical spellings, and in the manifold legal writings on the case, it is not uncommon to see McNaghten, M'Naughten, McNaughton, or some other variant.

Alternative theories

A more recent theory as to M'Naghten's motives has arisen from evidence of his political activism. M'Naghten spent the two years prior to the assassination travelling around England and France, at the same time amassing £750 in his bank account, and prominent Chartist agitator Abram Duncan worked in his workshop in 1835. Further, M'Naghten's library ticket from the Glasgow Mechanics' Institute showed that the former actor and medical student had been reading about insanity. It has been suggested that M'Naghten was financed to assassinate Peel for political reasons, feigning insanity to avoid capital punishment.

Significance

Queen Victoria requested that M'Naghten's case be retried by the House of Lords. They then called on twelve judges of the common law courts, including Lord Chief Justice Tindal, to answer a series of questions regarding the law of insanity. From that discourse, the panel concluded that for insanity to apply as a defence, the defendant must either not know the nature of his act or not know that the act is wrong.
This formulation of the insanity requirement is known as the M'Naghten Rules. The M'Naghten rules became the basic test of insanity in England and were adopted by America and many countries throughout the British Commonwealth. The M'Naghten rules were employed with almost no modification by American courts and legislatures for more than 100 years, until the mid-20th century. In 1998, 25 states plus the District of Columbia still used versions of the M'Naghten rule to test for legal insanity.

References

1. Moran (2004)
2.
3. Diamond (1956)
4. Bucknill (1881)

Bibliography

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★ Dalby, J. T. (2006) The case of Daniel McNaughton: Let's get the story straight. ''American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry'', 27, 17-32.

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★ — (2004) "McNaughtan, Daniel (1802/3–1865)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, accessed 3 Sept 2007

★ Parker, C.S. (ed.) (1891-9) ''Sir Robert Peel: From His Private Papers'', 3 vols.

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External links

★ Full text of decision from BAILII.org