Talk:M'Naghten rules

McNaughton Rules
I had a little trouble locating this article because of the name difference. In class, it was spelled "McNaughton" instead of "M'Naghten". This may keep some from finding the article easily. All of the legal websites that I have seen spelled it "McNaughton". Maybe this could be listed under both titles for easy access.

--J. Harbin 02:36, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Well there are quite a few differing spellings for M'Naghten: McNaughtan, MacNaughten (Queen Victoria's spelling), McNaughton, MacNaghten, just to name a few. These spellings aren't mere typos, as they've been recorded in official correspondences, in court documents and historical texts, all under different spellings.  M'Naghten is the spelling used in this wikipedia article probably because that was the spelling used as the official title of the case, Queen v. M'Naghten, in 1843.  But to create a redirect under a different spelling, as you suggested, would conflict with existing articles with spelling.  A cursory search revealed a Andrew McNaughton, John McNaughton and a Kevin McNaughton.  Which "McNaughton" redirect trumps?  It would likewise be difficult to make a disambiguation page for that spelling, because then we'd have to make it for all the many different spellings.   I do understand your concern that somebody who is looking for information on Daniel M'Naghten and the M'Naghten rules may have difficulty finding it without the correct spelling, but perhaps another wikipedian could suggest a feasible solution, I can't think of any good ideas.   Taco325i 04:32, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think Jharbin meant McNaughton rules, which is a redirect that didn't exist until I created it. BTW, I have made use of Category:Redirects from misspellings.  Should I correct this to Category:Redirects from alternate spellings? Robert A.West (Talk) 04:40, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * In the case of just McNaughton, there could be a dab page for the last name, and both the bio/case and the rules could be entries. Robert A.West (Talk) 04:46, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Done. Robert A.West (Talk) 05:00, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The rendering of Scottish surnames prefixed "Mc" or "Mac" as M'Leod or M'Kay or M'Donald was a bit fashionable in print in the mid-1900's.  It isn't fashionable now.  They are the same names, just printed differently.Eregli bob (talk) 06:14, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Citation please? Groomtech (talk) 07:44, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Non Compos Mentis
not sure where to add this, but the latin term for this is "Non Compos Mentis" 63.226.28.130 18:54, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * You should consider adding it to the page on insanity as the general non-technical Latin tag for the condition. It has no relevance on this page. David91 19:06, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to merge
I can see a case for merging M'Naghten with Daniel M'Naghten. Both are non-technical descriptions of an old case and its historical context. However, there are two objections to merging that material into M'Naghten Rules. Wiki has an on-going, albeit low level, policy of creating a database of case law. The idea is to create a body of significant cases that can be referred to from multiple pages, thereby reducing the redundancy of continually reproducing case notes and references. The M'Naghten case is sufficiently important in all common law jurisdictions that the case report more than justifies its own page. Secondly, the M'Naghten Rules page is a technical law page and it would disrupt the flow of legal content to interpolate historical and other material irrelevant to the the law. David91 04:30, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep it granular - separate articles. Some people will be interested in the technical legal stuff, some in Robert Peel. Admitedly there is little known about the man but the legal article could be quite long and detailed. Seperate articles also makes it easier for categorisation. You either finish up with M'Naghten Rules under Category:1865 deaths or Daniel M'Naghten under Category:Criminal defenses. (you know what I mean). Obviously, take detailed legal stuff out of biographical article and vice versa Wikipedia is not paper so there is no cost in extra articles. Cutler 10:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Consensus seems to be that we need two articles: Daniel M'Naghten and The M'Naghten rules. (see Talk:M'Naughten sic.  i.e. a bio/case type article and a law article.  It's on my to-do list. Avraham 18:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * There is already a Daniel M'Naughten article, and I will make sure it links appropriately to here. This article is the "project legal" page but if you see below, it needs to fit against insanity (defense). This, I will get to. --Rodhullandemu 01:24, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

M'Naghten rules?
I've always heard this referred to as the M'Naghten test. Should that be the name instaed of rules? Avraham 18:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Well,, that makes me the polar opposite because I have never heard the Rules described as a "test". In which country did you study your law? David91 18:12, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

US. Though a Google search gives about 10,000 results for "M'Naghten rule", about 500 something for M'Naghten test, and about 732 for "M'Naghten rules." So I think I stand throroughly corrected on the popularity of test over rules, it makes me wonder if you shouldn't rename the page to M'Naughten rule. Avraham 18:18, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I suppose that the Rules are a test of insanity which is why there may be some confusion, but I can give you an absolute assurance that the title of this page is correct. David91 18:29, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I just noticed this article for the first time. Having this as the primary article is simply erroneous.  The correct usage is singular M'Naghten Rule or McNaughten Rule (the latter being the predominant US usage). Rather than redirect here, the various spellings should redirect to the singular, such as M'Naghten rule. ... Kenosis 23:23, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, historically they are referred to as "Rules" because they arose from a set of questions posed to the judges of the House of Lords. There is no one rule as such. I see there's already a redirect from M'Naghten rule to M'Naghten rules so I don't think anything is gained by changing the name of the topic. I'd have thought that anyone looking for this topic might already be aware of the options anyway. --Rodhullandemu 19:58, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. -- Mattisse  01:29, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

US Section
The wording--especially the part with the bolded letters--is extremely confusing. I'm not a legal scholar, so I don't know how to fix it without introducing errors, but somebody really should work on it. Samer 20:36, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * This section should really move to Insanity defense with a reference back here. I'll do it when I get time and have bookmarked it. --Rodhullandemu 19:54, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite
I've undertaken a major rewrite of this article to (a) put the Rules in a historical legal context, (b) address their weaknesses, (c) rationalise the major principles of the Rules & illustrate with case law, and (d) remove duplicated & unnecessary verbiage. The Daniel M'Naghten article itself should have a link here to explain the result of his actions; the sections here on US law & Sentencing should move to the Insanity defense article. In this way (a) the Rules sit within their own historical context together with explanatory caselaw (b) specific jurisdictional differences can properly be dealt with in Insanity defense, and (c) Daniel M'Naghten retains his historical perspective without being bogged down by legal technicalities. Hope everyone's happy with that. Late here, will finish tomorrow. --Rodhullandemu 01:20, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I am. -- Mattisse 01:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Legal Language
This article is very well written but in legal language which may be hard for some to understand. For instance:


 * "Sanity is a rebuttable presumption and the burden of proof is on the party relying upon it; the standard of proof is on a balance of probabilities, that is to say that mental incapacity is more likely than unlikely. If this burden is successfully discharged, the party relying upon it is entitled to succeed."

Which could be worded:


 * "Sanity is a rebuttable presumption [since this is linked it is ok] and if either the prosecution or the defence raise it as question, then it is up to them to prove a mental incapacity on the balance of probabilities, that is to say that mental incapacity is more likely than unlikely. If they satisfy this proof then mental incapacity should be considered in the outcome of the case."

Not being a lawyer, this may not be a correct statement so I have not made these changes. However the idea is to reword some of the more obscure words or terms in the artilcle that lawyers may immediately understand but which the public may not.

Also, why is there no link to this article or mention of the subject in the mens rea entry and if it is inserted then where and how?

--CloudSurfer (talk) 00:33, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Burden of proof
I deleted the criticism saying that the insanity defence shifts the burden of proof to the defence, and thereby could contradict the rule that the burden of proof should lie on the prosecution, because it's wrong. "Shifting the burden of proof onto the defence" means that the prosecution has to prove nothing - the defendant will be found guilty unless they can disprove that they committed an offence.

That is not what the insanity defence does. The prosecution still holds the burden of proof because they have to prove (beyond reasonable doubt) that the offence took place. If, and only if, they successfully do that, then the insanity defence becomes relevant.

I'll give an example. A man is charged with homocide - he claims to the police that (a) he was having a schizophrenic episode at the time; and (b) it was self-defence. He goes to court. The prosecution has the burden of proof, because they have to prove that the defendant actually killed someone. The defendant can both attack the prosuection case (by, for example, showing that he didn't kill someone) AND raise his two "defences", of (a) insanity; and (b) self-defence. But the defendant has to prove his defences, not the prosecution.

This is how nearly all defences, not just the insanity defence, works. It's not possible for the prosecution to disprove every available defence under the criminal law every time someone is charged with an offence.

202.59.243.30 (talk) 22:34, 4 May 2011 (UTC)iiago
 * Well, up a point. I can only speak for UK law here, because that's what I know, but more to the point is that "shifting the burden of proof" as a criticism, is unsourced, and it should be cited if writers have criticised on that basis. Naturally, the prosecution always bear the burden of proof of the actus reus, and normally the mens rea. Where I am, self-defence, provocation, duress, necessity, automatism or intoxication depend on the defence raising some evidence to support those contentions; however, in the cases of insanity (as is the case here) or diminished responsibility, the burden is not just evidential, but legal, as the defence must show on the balance of probabilities that their defence is made out. You may be correct in your own jurisdiction, and it is a fine point, but I think distinctions should be made, because there is ample case law in any common-law jurisdiction, as far as I am aware. Hengist Pod (talk) 23:06, 4 May 2011 (UTC)


 * True, I was referring to my own jurisdiction (Queensland, Australia) regarding how the defence operates. In Queensland we'd refer to something as an "excuse" if the defence bears the evidentiary onus only, and a "defence" if the Defendant bears both the evidentiary and legal onus (although I really should get my crim law textbooks out to confirm that language is still used).  My point wasn't really to educate about how defences operate, but just to demonstrate that they don't shift the "burden of proof".  And, to be honest, I wasn't expecting lawyers to be reading this page.  202.59.243.30 (talk) 02:53, 5 May 2011 (UTC)iiago


 * I'm not a lawyer, as such. I just teach it part-time at my local FE college, to A-level. By profession, I was a criminologist until I retired a few years ago. Hengist Pod (talk) 23:05, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Ah. I am, although my field is industrial relations, not criminal law.  Still, there are some criminal offences under the industrial relations legislation (at least in my jurisdiction).  Pretty much all the "defences" that I deal with are "defences" in the true sense of the word - the person relying on it bears both the evidentiary and the legal onus.  202.59.243.30 (talk) 04:04, 10 May 2011 (UTC)iiago

With reference to the section titled, Knowledge That The Act Was Wrong
The avoidance of the criterion of morality ("legal wrong as opposed to moral wrong") puts the defendant in the position of being obliged to anticipate the judgment of the highest court in the land as to whether an act, in all its particular circumstances, turns out to have been (retrospectively) legally prohibited. Such a tautology, that an act is wrong if the highest legal authority subsequently finds it to have been wrong, also afflicts any other criminal defendant. Then, given such an impossible anticipation (for the highest court may, then again, change its opinion or have it changed for it by legislation), the further burden to restrict one's acts to what is not legally prohibited is a recourse to morality: the moral obligation to obey the civil law. There cannot be a civil law, as opposed to a moral law, requiring people to obey the civil law, for it would involve a perpetual regress: the need for another civil law to enforce this law, making it illegal to not obey the law requiring one to obey the law, with attendant procedures and punishment, and so forth. The alternative, of basing civic responsibility on morality, only resolves this paradox if morality is understood as akin to cognition, so that grasping a fact is akin to grasping its moral significance, its value. Thus the conditions by which a person manages or fails to grasp a fact come under review. The first question placed upon these conditions is whether a fact exists to be found. This is not a perpetual regress, instead resolving itself at the last moment into the consideration that, whatever is happening, something seems to be happening. The seeming is an irrefutable fact. In some cases, the seeming proves incorrect: one has made a mistake. In other cases, the seeming proves true and the hypothesis confirmed by subsequent experience, as the record reveals. Each fact, including the record, is subject to absolute challenge. It then becomes obligatory to regard one's (seeming) fellow person in a similar light, and to demand of that person to similarly regard a third person. The law, as the process of persons challenging each other's facts absolutely but granting in so doing, as the condition sine qua non for such challenges, the right of the challenged to levy such challenges in turn--hence the primary right binding society into a legal order--, allows this confrontation to reach general public satisfaction, given albeit the huge expense in a given case of bringing a welter of challenges to a state of mutual satisfaction (so that most questions cannot come to law).

The case of the insanity defense then reduces itself to that person with whom nobody else can find means to absolutely challenge facts. The possibility that such inability stems from prejudice cannot be excluded while prejudice receieves any authoritative sponsorship which would attaint the forensic process (such as anti-feminism, anti-Islamism, etc.). At that ideal time where all prejudice has been rooted out, and necessarily assuming that a criminal defendant has no organic pathology of either the sort which impedes all purposeful actions (so as to commit a crime in any sense in the first place so as to raise the need for a defense), or the sort which divides a continuing ability to act purposefully from a perfect inability to engage others in fact-challenging (a situation which I'd like to see), the proper rule would continue to be Hadfield's Rule as affirmed by the M'Naghten panel in its reference to "such partial delusion only": the act would be punishable as it would have been if the defendant's premise of fact had been true. The act of the man crashing a vehicle into the gate of a children's camp would thus be punishable because, even if a camp is the base of a secret society, a private citizen has no right to independently punish a secret society. Indeed, M'Naghten acted out of feelings of "intolerable" irritation at being followed by supposed government agents: not a reasonable premise for shooting someone. The fallacy of the contemporary approach is that it assumes some standpoint from which someone in particular at the present time can be designated (a priori) to adjudge facts and law absolutely--beyond challenge (such as the fact that a given act is prohibited). To judge facts a priori is the starkest contradiction in terms, and to judge a legal requirement in advance even more so (beyond the self-evident obligation to do good and avoid evil). This assumption of such a standpoint is the doctrine that the sovereign, no matter how chosen, may make no error. Those who are not consulted as to the establishment of the facts and law have no reason to endorse their establishment, and society continues to be ruled autocratically: "self-power". But in effect there is no power: only anarchy: because a populace divided by being partly excluded from the establishment of fact and law cannot act purposefully as a unit. If society, or some representative section of it, can discourse informally within itself as to a satisfactory understanding of terms such as "wrong" and "know" within the crisis of a case of human brutality (as may seem to be the assumption behind use of such terms in judicial opinions), then it has no need of law or government. If it needs such law and government, these must provide something it cannot provide to itself. The only requisite element a person does not have within her own make-up is another person who challenges her judgments. Government as the system of reversion of all questions to absolute fact-challenging is thus a system of monstrous size and power and therefore a system to be deployed in its full power, i.e., in the judicial process, only in the direst extremity and with a very restricted prospect, e.g., whether the defendant believed the victim had a Martian invader nesting within her body and controlling her actions when attacking her with a grape-fruit knife at the breakfast table. Or was this statement from the defendant a metaphor? To judge of the defendant's ability to know in general, especially to know right and wrong, exceeds human grasp by this very generality. Putting such expectation upon any sovereign impels that sovereign to overreach. Placing it upon a voting public inspires that public to hand back its authority to an autocrat in fact as well as in law. A fruitful meditation on this point might be had from the term "terrorism".Chrisrushlau (talk) 18:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)Chrisrushlau (talk) 18:50, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Moved to M'Naghten rules Mike Cline (talk) 01:16, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

M& → M'Naghten rules –

WP doesn't generally upcase rules, theories, theorems, laws. We already have Orgel's rule, I see, and Fleming's left-hand rule for motors. ANd Hume-Rothery rules.

Per WP:CAPS ("Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization") and WP:TITLE, this is a generic, common term, not a propriety or commercial term, so the article title should be downcased. In addition, WP:MOS says that a compound item should not be upper-cased just because it is abbreviated with caps. Lowercase will match the formatting of related article titles. Tony  (talk)  12:08, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. Indeed, the most relevant general guideline is the one cited. There is nothing remotely like necessity here. (NOTE: it is found at WP:MOSCAPS, not WP:CAPS.) See also the WP:MOSCAPS provision for scientific laws and the like, which is appealed to above also. N oetica Tea? 22:26, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose The useful project of getting rid of unnecessary capitalization appears to have hit the point of diminishing returns. This is a proper name, the name appropriate to a specific set of rules. JCScaliger (talk) 23:13, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
 * JCScaliger, why is this different from the countless other instances both on WP and in the literature where rules are rules, even if they have a name attached to anchor them in the specifics? I understand why Naghten needs a cap, since it's someone's name; but rules? Is that a name? Well, no, rules are rules (or should I say, Rules are Rules?). Tony   (talk)  07:46, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I hope you're taking your concern up with the foremost authority on the English language, JCS. Current OED's entry is "McNaghten rules, n." It lists these forms: "Forms: 18– McNaghten rules, 19– MacNaughten rules, 19– MacNaughton rules, 19– Macnaughton rules, 19– McNaughten rules, 19– McNaughton rules, 19– MʽNaghten rules." Upper-cased "Rules" occurs only once, in one of the six citations (specifically, in 1968). N oetica Tea? 00:47, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Support per MOS:CAPS; there's no reason to think that capitalization is "necessary" here. Dicklyon (talk) 14:39, 20 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Knowledge that the act was wrong" section is profoundly misleading - see WP:NPOV
This section currently begins with the bald statement:

"Wrong" means legal wrong, rather than moral wrong, as demonstrated in Windle 1952 2QB 826; 1952 2 All ER 1 246…

…so knowledge of "wrong" means simply awareness the act was illegal, rather than assessing whether in view of the state of mind of the defendant and commonly held ethical principles the act was morally wrong… and cites one case, R v Windle [1952] 2 QB 826 - and that under the auspices of a British court - to support this contention (without providing a proper Wiki citation).

Here's an example of a law review article asserting the contrary, that the judgement of "wrong" is not merely of the legal but of the moral quality of the act in question, arguing from other courts' findings on the meaning of "wrong" intended in the M'Naghten Rules:

If it be accepted, as can hardly be denied, that the answers of the judges to the questions asked by the House of Lords in 1843 are to be read in the light of the then existing case-law and not as novel pronouncements of a legislative character, then the High Court's analysis in Stapleton's Case is compelling. Their exhaustive examination of the extensive case-law concerning the defense of insanity prior to and at the time of the trial of M'Naughten establishes convincingly that it was morality and not legality which lay as a concept behind the judges' use of "wrong" in the M'Naghten rules.

And moreover, in the instructions to be provided to the jury in insanity cases tried in New York State, we find this statement:

Fifth, with respect to the term "wrong", a person lacks substantial capacity to know or appreciate that conduct is wrong if that person, as a result of mental disease or defect, lacked substantial capacity to know or appreciate either that the conduct was against the law or that it was against commonly held moral principles, or both.

I'd rather like to have someone else perform this edit, inasmuch as some might think I've got a severe challenge here with a Conflict of Interest: see "Bad Trip Records :: INSANITY"

thanks! - bonzie anne

- bonze blayk (talk) 13:48, 24 July 2012 (UTC)


 * So, I went ahead and performed the edit myself. I believe the WP:RS speak for themselves, in this case.  Thanks! - bonze blayk (talk) 19:01, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Spelling inconsistency
The first use of defence (UK spelling) in the article is in the lede paragraph dealing with a legal case heard under the laws of England. Subsequent paragraphs covering hearings in the English House of Lords continue to use defence. However a few examples of defense (US spelling) appear thereafter. The WP policy is at MOS:ARTCON.

I know that this is a sensitive topic, so I wouldn't try to put this right without a talk page post first.

--217.155.32.221 (talk) 07:40, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * British case, British spelling. EEng 13:04, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * OK no disagreement implementing.--217.155.32.221 (talk) 10:11, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Why is this article written like an essay?
It's really bad. It has rhetorical questions, summarizations from a legal point of view, not an encyclopedic. The article doesn't feel like a Wikipedia article at all but screams of design and intent of a singular person. Can we just… not do that? 98.109.137.129 (talk) 09:54, 22 January 2024 (UTC)