Editing Insanity defense (section)

=====''M'Naghten test''=====
The guidelines for the ''[[M'Naghten Rules]]'', state, among other things, and evaluating the criminal responsibility for defendants claiming to be insane were settled in the British courts in the case of Daniel M'Naghten in 1843.<ref name="M'Naghten's case"/> M'Naghten was a Scottish woodcutter who killed the secretary to the prime minister, [[Edward Drummond]], in a botched attempt to assassinate the prime minister himself. M'Naghten apparently believed that the prime minister was the architect of the myriad of personal and financial misfortunes that had befallen him.<ref name="hottop">{{cite book|last1=Starer|first1=Daniel|title=Hot Topics: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Fifty Major Controversies|date=1995|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=0671887084|page=[https://archive.org/details/hottopicseveryth0000star/page/50 50]|url=https://archive.org/details/hottopicseveryth0000star|url-access=registration|access-date=20 October 2017}}</ref> During his trial, nine witnesses testified to the fact that he was insane, and the jury acquitted him, finding him "not guilty by reason of insanity".<ref name="hottop"/>

The [[House of Lords]] asked the judges of the common law courts to answer five questions on insanity as a criminal defence,<ref>Carl Elliott, ''The rules of insanity: moral responsibility and the mentally ill offender'', SUNY Press, 1996, {{ISBN|0-7914-2951-2}}, p.10</ref><ref>Michael T. Molan, Mike Molan, Duncan Bloy, Denis Lanser, ''Modern criminal law'' (5 ed), Routledge Cavendish, 2003, {{ISBN|1-85941-807-4}}, p.352</ref> and the formulation that emerged from their review—that a defendant should not be held responsible for their actions only if, as a result of their mental disease or defect, they (i) did not know that their act would be wrong; or (ii) did not understand the nature and quality of their actions—became the basis of the law governing legal responsibility in cases of insanity in England. Under the rules, loss of control because of mental illness was no defense{{Citation needed|date=December 2011}}.

The M'Naghten rule was embraced with almost no modification by American courts and legislatures for more than 100 years, until the mid-20th century.<ref name="M'Naghten's case"/> It was first used as a defense in the United States in the case of ''People v. Freeman'' in 1847, where an Afro-Native man from Auburn, New York was tried for a quadruple murder. [[William H. Seward]] represented William Freeman and argued that Freeman was mentally insane after being committed to the [[Auburn State Prison]] for a crime Freeman insisted he did not commit.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bernstein |first=Robin |date=2024 |title=Freeman's Challenge: The Murder That Shook America's Original Prison for Profit |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |page=135}}</ref> This was a novel defense at the time, and produced much controversy in the town of Auburn, New York, and throughout the United States at large.