Editing Insanity defense (section)

===Netherlands===

Section 39 of the Dutch criminal code stipulates: "Not culpable is he who performs an act that he cannot be imputed with due to the deficient development or pathological disorder of his mental faculties". Obviously critical are the definitions of "deficient development" and/or "pathological [mental] disorder". These are to be verified by somatomedical and/or psychiatric specialists. An inculpability defense needs to conform to the following criteria:

#The defendant suffered from deficient development or pathological disorder of his mental faculties at the time at which the crime took place;
#There is a probable causal relationship between deficient development or pathological (mental) disorder and the crime [i.e. not every disorder or developmental deficit excuses every crime]; and
#Based on the criteria above, there is a reasonable assumption the deficient development or pathological disorder of his mental faculties excuses culpability of the crime.

If the inculpability defense succeeds, the defendant cannot be ordered to incarceration proper. If the defendant is deemed to be criminally insane (i.e. deemed to pose a risk to himself or others), the court instead may order involuntary admission to a mental institution for further evaluation and/or treatment. The court can opt for a ''definite period of time'' (when complete or at least sufficient recovery of mental faculties on a relatively short time scale is probable) or an ''indefinite'' period of time (when the defendant's ailment is deemed to be difficult or impossible to treat, or can be supposed to be refractory to treatment).

If the inculpability defense succeeds ''only partly'' ([i.e. if the crime cannot be ''completely'' excused because of a ''minor'' degree of deficient development or pathological (mental) disorder), there may still be a legal basis for a ''diminished culpability'' of the defendant; in such case, a diminished prison sentence should be ordered. This can also be combined with the aforementioned involuntary admission to a mental institution, although in these cases the two 'sentences' often run/are served in parallel.