Episode Summary
In 1843 Daniel M’naghten gunned down another man in broad daylight. But when he was taken to trial things got complicated. His defense argued that he shouldn’t be held fully responsible because he wasn’t in his right mind. However, the courts didn’t know what to do with that because there was no precedent for this kind of thing. So his defense team got to work putting in place a defense strategy that is still used, almost in the exact same way, almost 200 years later.
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Episode Info
Daniel M’Naghten in 1856.
19th-century Glasgow, Scotland.
English Prime Minister (1834-35, 1841-46) Sir Robert Peel.
10 Downing Street, London.
Chartist group poster, “Peace and Order is our Motto!”
Engraving of Bethlem Royal Hospital by Thomas Bowles.
Depiction of William Freeman stabbing a Van Nest child, circa 1846.
Broadmoor Asylum “for Criminal Lunatics.”
Episode Source Material
- Report of the Trial of Daniel M’Naghton archives
- The M’Naghten Rule
- M’Naghten Rule Definition
- 10 Uses of Insanity Defense
- M’Naghten Case
- R v. McNaughten M’Naghten Case Summary
- Timeline: British Prime Ministers
- The Old Bailey Archives: M/Naughten
- Merriam-Webster Dictionary : Insanity
- Cornel School of Law: The M’Naughten Rule
- A Case of Insanity: PBS Frontline WGCU
- California’s Insanity Defense The M’Naghten Rule
- America’s First M’Naghten Defense and the Origin of the Black Rage Syndrome
- Historical Society of the New York Courts People v. Freeman
- The Case of Daniel McNaughton: Let’s get the story straight, by John Thomas Dalby