Also known as:product-of-mental-illness test · product test · Durham rule · product test for insanity
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A test for criminal insanity that requires acquittal when the charged offense resulted from a mental disease or defect. The offense qualifies as the product of the condition if the defendant would not have committed the crime but for the mental disease or defect.
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How its tested
Common Examples
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Ransomware Attack by Delusional Engineer
Jordan, a senior engineer at ByteForge, secretly disabled network security at Valley General Hospital and deployed ransomware. For months he had suffered psychotic delusions that the hospital servers transmitted mind-control signals targeting him. Two psychiatrists testified that Jordan suffered from a serious mental disease and that but for this disorder he would not have carried out the cyberattack. In a jurisdiction applying the product test the jury must acquit Jordan by reason of insanity.
Assault by Nurse with Postpartum Psychosis
Carla, an emergency room nurse at Riverside Hospital, suddenly attacked pharmaceutical representative Dana with trauma shears. Defense experts testified that Carla suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and that but for this psychosis she would not have attacked. In a jurisdiction applying the product test the jury must acquit Carla by reason of insanity if it credits the experts.
Clark v. Arizona548 U.S. 735, 752 n.20, 126 S.Ct. 2709, 165 L.Ed.2d 842 (2006)
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.
What is the key inquiry under the product test for insanity?
The jury asks whether the charged offense was the product of a mental disease or defect. This means the defendant would not have committed the crime but for the mental condition.
Supporting sources
Does the product test require proof that the defendant could not distinguish right from wrong?
No. The product test focuses solely on causation. Acquittal follows if the offense resulted from the mental disease even if the defendant understood the act was wrong.
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How does the product test differ from the irresistible impulse test?
The product test examines whether the offense was caused by the mental disease. The irresistible impulse test instead examines whether the defendant could control conduct or conform to the law.
Supporting sources
What evidence supports a product-test acquittal in an essay setting?
Expert testimony that the defendant would not have committed the offense but for the mental disease, together with immediate post-incident statements linking the act to delusions, supports acquittal under the but-for standard.
Supporting sources
548 U.S. 735, 126 S. Ct. 2709, 165 L. Ed. 2d 842 (2006)
…of American standards. The main variants are the cognitive incapacity, the moral incapacity, the volitional incapacity, and the product-of-mental-illness tests. The first two emanate from the alternatives stated in the M’Naghten rule. The volitional incapacity or irresistible-impulse test, which surfaced over two centuries ago (first in…