Also known as: appreciates the criminality · appreciated the criminality · appreciating the criminality · appreciation of criminality · appreciate wrongfulness · know criminality · M'Naghten appreciation
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A cognitive component of the insanity defense. A defendant lacks substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of conduct when mental disease or defect prevents recognition that the act is wrongful under law.
Marcus drove his city bus into a crowded plaza after months of auditory hallucinations commanding him to act. Experts testified that his psychotic disorder left him unable to recognize the act as wrongful or to stop himself. The jury credited the testimony and found Marcus not responsible under the substantial-capacity test.
Ross was convicted of capital murder after shooting a candidate during a town meeting while under fixed delusions. At the penalty phase his psychiatrist testified that the delusional disorder severely impaired Ross's ability to recognize the wrongfulness of the shooting. The court admitted the testimony as relevant to whether a sentence of imprisonment should be imposed instead of death.
Carlos entered chambers carrying a handgun and threatened the judge while convinced the judge was an impostor erasing his identity. Unrebutted expert testimony established that his schizoaffective disorder left him without substantial capacity to recognize the threat as wrongful. The jury found him not criminally responsible.
In the early hours of June 21, 2000, Officer Jeffrey Moritz of the Flagstaff Police responded in uniform to complaints that a pickup truck with loud music blaring was circling a residential block. When he located the truck, the officer turned on the emergency lights and siren of his marked patrol car. This prompted petitioner Eric Clark, the truck’s driver (then 17), to pull over. Officer Moritz got out of the patrol car and told Clark to stay where he was. Less than a minute later, Clark shot the officer. The officer died soon after but not before calling the police dispatcher for help. Clark ran away on foot but was arrested later that day with gunpowder residue on his hands. The gun that killed the officer was found nearby, stuffed into a knit cap. Clark was charged with first-degree murder under Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §13–1105(A)(3) for intentionally or knowingly killing a law enforcement officer in the line of duty. In March 2001, Clark was found incompetent to stand trial and was committed to a state hospital for treatment. Two years later the same trial court found his competence restored and ordered him to be tried. Clark waived his right to a jury, and the case was heard by the court. At trial, Clark did not contest that he shot the officer or that the officer died. He relied on his own undisputed paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the incident to deny that he had the specific intent to shoot an officer or knowledge that he was doing so. The prosecutor offered circumstantial evidence that Clark knew the victim was a police officer. The prosecutor also offered testimony indicating that Clark had previously stated he wanted to shoot police and had lured the victim to the scene to kill him. In presenting the defense case, Clark claimed mental illness. He sought to introduce it for two purposes. First, he raised the affirmative defense of insanity. This put the burden on himself to prove by clear and convincing evidence that at the time of the crime he was afflicted with a mental disease or defect of such severity that he did not know the criminal act was wrong. Second, he aimed to rebut the prosecution’s evidence of the requisite mens rea. Ruling that Clark could not rely on evidence bearing on insanity to dispute the mens rea, the trial court cited the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Mott. That decision refused to allow psychiatric testimony to negate specific intent. It held that Arizona does not allow evidence of a mental disorder short of insanity to negate the mens rea element of a crime. As to his insanity, Clark presented lay testimony describing his increasingly bizarre behavior over the year before the shooting. This included testimony that Clark thought Flagstaff was populated with aliens trying to kill him and that bullets were the only way to stop them. A psychiatrist testified that Clark was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia with delusions about aliens when he killed the officer. The psychiatrist concluded that Clark was incapable of luring the officer or understanding right from wrong and was thus insane at the time of the killing. In rebuttal, the State’s psychiatrist gave his opinion that Clark’s paranoid schizophrenia did not keep him from appreciating the wrongfulness of his conduct before and after the shooting. The judge then issued a first-degree murder verdict. The judge found that Clark had not established that his schizophrenia distorted his perception of reality so severely that he did not know his actions were wrong. Clark moved to vacate the judgment and life sentence. He argued that Arizona’s insanity test and its Mott rule each violate due process. The trial court denied the motion. Affirming, the Arizona Court of Appeals held that the State’s insanity scheme was consistent with due process. The court read Mott as barring the trial court’s consideration of evidence of Clark’s mental illness and capacity directly on the element of mens rea. The Supreme Court of Arizona denied further review. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseA defendant convicted of murder offered evidence at sentencing that mental disease had impaired his recognition of the wrongfulness of the killing. The sentencer considered the impairment when deciding between death and imprisonment.
On November 21, 1973, Troy Gregg and Floyd Allen were hitchhiking north in Florida when they were picked up by Fred Simmons and Bob Moore in their car. Their car broke down. Simmons purchased another vehicle with some of the cash he was carrying. While still in Florida, the group picked up Dennis Weaver, who rode with them to Atlanta, where he was let out about 11 p.m. A short time later the four men stopped for a rest along the highway in Gwinnett County, Georgia. The next morning the bodies of Simmons and Moore were discovered in a nearby ditch. On November 23, after reading about the shootings in an Atlanta newspaper, Weaver communicated with the Gwinnett County police and related information concerning the journey with the victims, including a description of the car. The next afternoon, Gregg and Allen, while in Simmons' car, were arrested in Asheville, North Carolina. In the search incident to the arrest a .25-caliber pistol, later shown to be that used to kill Simmons and Moore, was found in Gregg's pocket. After receiving Miranda warnings and signing a written waiver, Gregg signed a statement admitting he shot Simmons and Moore but claiming self-defense. At the guilt stage of the bifurcated trial, a medical examiner testified that Simmons died from a bullet wound in the eye and that Moore died from bullet wounds in the cheek and in the back of the head. The examiner further testified that both men had several bruises and abrasions about the face and head. Gregg testified claiming self-defense after Simmons and Moore allegedly attacked with a pipe and knife, but the jury convicted him of two counts of armed robbery and two counts of murder. At the penalty stage before the same jury, neither side presented additional evidence. The trial judge instructed the jury that it could recommend either a death sentence or a life prison sentence on each count. The judge further charged the jury that in determining the sentence it was free to consider mitigating or aggravating circumstances. The judge instructed that death could not be imposed unless the jury found beyond a reasonable doubt one of the aggravating circumstances. The jury found the first and second aggravating circumstances and returned verdicts of death on each count. The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the convictions and the death sentences for murder after reviewing the record and comparing the sentences to similar cases, but it vacated the death sentences for armed robbery. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari limited to the challenge to the death sentences under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
View caseTerry withheld life-saving medication from a patient while believing the drugs were poisoned by a conspiracy. Years of competent practice and coherent post-incident statements showed she retained substantial capacity to recognize the wrongfulness of denying treatment. The court held her criminally responsible.
Atkins was convicted of capital murder. A psychologist testified that his mild mental retardation produced an impaired capacity to recognize the criminality of the conduct. The evidence was considered at sentencing as a mitigating factor.
Daryl Renard Atkins and William Jones abducted Eric Nesbitt at gunpoint from a convenience store parking lot in August 1996. They robbed him of cash on his person, drove him to an ATM in his pickup truck where cameras recorded additional withdrawals, and then took him to a deserted area where they shot him eight times despite his pleas for his life. Jones and Atkins both testified during the guilt phase of Atkins’s trial in Virginia state court. Each confirmed most details of the incident but blamed the other for firing the fatal shots; the jury found Jones’s more coherent and credible testimony sufficient to convict Atkins of abduction, armed robbery, and capital murder. At the penalty phase, the defense presented forensic psychologist Dr. Christine S. H. Hammond, who had evaluated Atkins through interviews with people who knew him, a review of school and court records, and administration of a standard intelligence test yielding a full-scale IQ of 59, and who concluded that Atkins was mildly mentally retarded. The prosecution presented a psychiatrist who evaluated Atkins and concluded he was not mentally retarded but instead possessed average intelligence and suffered from antisocial personality disorder; the jury sentenced Atkins to death. The Virginia Supreme Court ordered a second sentencing hearing because the trial court had used a misleading verdict form. At resentencing the same expert testimony was presented, the jury again imposed death, and the Virginia Supreme Court affirmed, finding the record supported the jury’s determination that Atkins was not mentally retarded.
View caseThe defendant must be unable to recognize that the act is wrongful under law because of mental disease or defect. The impairment need not be total. It is enough that the disease substantially interferes with that recognition at the time of the conduct.
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No. The modern test excuses a defendant who lacks substantial capacity rather than complete capacity. Partial awareness of illegality does not defeat the defense when the mental disease substantially impairs recognition of wrongfulness.
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The appreciation component addresses cognitive recognition of wrongfulness. The separate volitional prong addresses the ability to control conduct and conform it to law. Either prong, if substantially impaired by mental disease, satisfies the defense.
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No. When a sentencer may choose between death and imprisonment, evidence that mental disease impaired the defendant's capacity to appreciate criminality is admissible as mitigation favoring a sentence of imprisonment.
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Not necessarily. The inquiry focuses on capacity at the exact time of the conduct. Prior competent performance may show retained capacity but does not automatically negate substantial impairment caused by acute symptoms of mental disease.
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…acted under duress or under the domination of another person. "(g) At the time of the murder, the capacity of the defendant to appreciate the criminality [wrongfulness] of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was impaired as a result of mental disease or defect or intoxication. "(h) The youth of the defendant at…