Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-10-2021
Abstract
This chapter first considers the direction of the affirmative defense of legal insanity in the United States before John Hinckley was acquitted by reason of insanity in 1982 for attempting to assassinate President Reagan and others and the immediate aftermath of that acquittal. Since the middle of the 20th Century, the tale is one of the rise and fall of the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code test for legal insanity. Then it turns to the constitutional decisions of the United States Supreme Court concerning the status of legal insanity. Finally, it addresses the substantive and procedural changes that have occurred in the insanity defense since the wave of legal changes following the Hinckley decision.
Keywords
Criminal law & procedure, psychology, legal history, mens rea, insanity defense, mental disorder, Model Penal Code, MPC, M’Naghten test, production & persuasion burden, cognitive & control tests, Supreme Court of the United States, SCOTUS, civil commitment
Repository Citation
Morse, Stephen J., "Before and After Hinckley: Legal Insanity in the United States" (2021). Faculty Scholarship at Penn Law. 2252.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/2252
Included in
Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons, Jurisprudence Commons, Law and Psychology Commons, Law and Society Commons, Legal History Commons, Legal Theory Commons, Other Psychology Commons, Public Law and Legal Theory Commons, Supreme Court of the United States Commons
Publication Citation
In The Insanity Defence: International and Comparative Perspectives (Ronnie Mackay & Warren Brookbanks eds., Oxford, forthcoming 2022)