Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I LAYING DOWN THE LAW: 600–1500
- PART II CONFLICT OF LAWS: 1500–1766
- PART III THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LAW
- 18 The Purity of England's Air
- 19 The Menace of the Mob
- 20 The Fear of the Felon
- 21 Garrow's Law?
- 22 The Tongue of Cicero: Thomas Erskine
- 23 The Drum Major of Liberty: Henry Brougham
- 24 The Bonfire of the Inanities: Peel, Public Protection and the Police
- 25 Lunacy and the Law
- 26 Necessity Knows No Law
- 27 The Apollo of the Bar: Edward Marshall Hall
- PART IV THE RULE OF LAW: 1907–2014
- Bibliography
- Index
25 - Lunacy and the Law
from PART III - THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LAW
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2015
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I LAYING DOWN THE LAW: 600–1500
- PART II CONFLICT OF LAWS: 1500–1766
- PART III THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LAW
- 18 The Purity of England's Air
- 19 The Menace of the Mob
- 20 The Fear of the Felon
- 21 Garrow's Law?
- 22 The Tongue of Cicero: Thomas Erskine
- 23 The Drum Major of Liberty: Henry Brougham
- 24 The Bonfire of the Inanities: Peel, Public Protection and the Police
- 25 Lunacy and the Law
- 26 Necessity Knows No Law
- 27 The Apollo of the Bar: Edward Marshall Hall
- PART IV THE RULE OF LAW: 1907–2014
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Ye people of England rejoice and be glad
For ye're now at the will of the merciless mad.
So if a dog or man bite you beware being nettled
For a crime is no crime – when the mind is unsettled.
‘On a Late Acquittal’, The Times, 1843There is a rule of law still extant that can be indirectly attributed to Robert Peel. In 1843 he was enjoying a second term as Prime Minister. On Friday 20 January a young Glaswegian woodturner called Daniel M'Naghten (variously spelt McNaughton or McNaghten) shot Edward Drummond, the Prime Minister's secretary, at point-blank range in the back of the head. The wound was mortal, ensuring Drummond a lingering death. Had it not been for the intervention of one of Peel's new police constables – James Silver of A Division – M'Naghten would have fired again and finished off his victim on the spot. A clearer case of premeditated murder could hardly be found, the intended victim was no less than the Prime Minister. Yet the jury, with the active encouragement of the judge, acquitted M'Naghten on the basis that he was insane and so not guilty of the offence.
The issue of insanity as a defence to felony had always been left to the discretion of the trial judge and to the good sense of the jury. No statute had been enacted laying down the law; no considered judgment of senior members of the judiciary sitting in banc had determined it; no binding precedent had been established. The formula usually applied was that of the trial judge in Edward Arnold's Case of 1724. 2 ‘Crazy Ned’ had shot and wounded Lord Onlsow. The judge directed the jury on the test for insanity in the following terms: ‘whether the accused is totally deprived of his understanding and memory and knew that he was doing no more than a wild beast or a brute, or an infant’.
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- Law, Liberty and the ConstitutionA Brief History of the Common Law, pp. 232 - 240Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2015