Beheading guy not guilty...

[mcrit]

But that is not the system we have and I think that's to a large extent why many people are unsatisfied with the decision.

You are right. I was suggesting that we change the system. I was not suggesting that the current system, or this situation, are acceptable.

[767]

This is unbelivable. As an athiest myself, this obviuosly makes me very angry.

[Invertago]

This is unbelivable. As an athiest myself, this obviuosly makes me very angry.

What does being an athiest have to do with this making you more angry then a christian/muslim/budist/jedi over this? People throw around the phrase "god told me to do it" or the "the devil made me do it" etc with out being religious. Saying ____ told me to do something is no excuse for ones own actions. As an athiest you ought to assume insanity as acepting that voices in the head are from a being of some sort. Maybe there was no god stopping him from doing it therefor blame athiesiem? When bad things happen, people blame god, when good things happen they forget him. Now they simply say he told them to do it. I think most people view god as an scape goat for their own failings.

Religions blame each other while athiests blame religions, maybe humanity is just imperfect. Maybe I should go kill a few people and claim that as an athiest, no god told me killing is wrong.

[North Shore]

Theist/Atheist.

[767]

What does being an athiest have to do with this making you more angry then a christian/muslim/budist/jedi over this?

Nothing at all. The point was, i would be surprised to see an athiest who will think that this was not a bad thing.

[Invertago]

I'd be superised at anyone who doesn't think a beheading is a bad thing.

[Jastapilot]

Posted by Charles Adler:
Yes, it's been a bit of a rough week. Not nearly as rough for me, as for the family of Tim McLean. But one of the reasons I sounded a bit rough yesterday, was because I was trying as hard as possible to be restrained, out of respect for the event that was fresh and raw. The event being a judge rendering a verdict of not guilty of criminal responsibility, in the case of the beheading of a young Canadian named Tim McLean. To me, it felt like he had just laid down a guilty verdict on all of us.

The Canadian people found guilty of allowing an elite group of experts, who do business in the legal system, telling us what is right and what is wrong.

The Canadian people found guilty for allowing themselves to believe that confining a mentally ill person for life is the equivalent of condemning all people suffering from any kind of mental illness.

The Canadian people found guilty for supporting a public school system where REASON is not taught and so vile arguments are presented in courts of law, and courts of public opinion go unchallenged by many members of the public who should know better, but have never been given the tools by an education system because it’s more about indoctrination than education.

The Canadian people have been found guilty for allowing their country to be stolen from them by the jackals of political correctness and moral equivalence and baffle gab.

Folks, I want to ask you a question. In the so-called trial held in a Canadian court room, a trial to determine whether the defendant was guilty or not guilty of murdering Tim McLean, do you know how many witnesses were called? Two. Both of them psychiatrists, who both agreed that the defendant was not criminally responsible because he was ill. None of the testimony was challenged by the Prosecution because the Prosecution agreed with the Defense on everything of substance and there was no point in challenging testimony they agreed with. So who was representing the victim’s family and the family known as the Canadian people? Were there eyewitnesses to the crime? Dozens of them. The passengers and the bus driver. Why weren't any of them called? The so-called witnesses who were called, weren't witnesses of anything. They were two doctors who talked to the accused, who under medication told a story of God and voices. We have no evidence that he is telling the truth, but we are told that he is a sick man, obviously a sick man. Jefferey Dahmer was a sick man. Charles Manson was a sick man. Paul Bernardo was a sick man. Because the man who killed Tim McLean and presumably ate his victim's eyeballs - because he was sick and is sick - the rest of us are forced to be sickened by the notion that he is saved from a permanent incarceration by his sickness, which the witnesses say can be medicated away.

And so the family of Tim McLean will have to deal with a yearly review, a yearly report on their son's killer. They will spend the rest of their lives praying that psychiatrists keep on giving Vincent Li's mind a failing grade. But the system this week was all about feeling good, instead of doing good. It helped the “feel good” to not call any eyewitnesses to the crime. Eyewitness testimony of that July night, on that bus, would have left nobody feeling good. The truth of what happened does not contain a speck of “feel good” and the public would have gotten very, very angry. Instead we got two shrinks. Feel good practitioners telling us that Vincent was a good guy, had always been a good guy, had a bad night and doesn't really know what he did that night. All he knows is that he heard the voice of God telling him to kill the passenger next to him. He knew enough to buy a knife, and carry it on a bus. He knew enough to butcher a relatively small man, a vulnerable man. He doesn't really know what he did, but he knows what he was instructed to do by the voices. No need to challenge this testimony???? No, this is really as solid as the rock of Gibraltar. No one would think of challenging a doctor who deals with mental illness and has done hours and hours of interviews with a person who has murdered and cannibalized. Why isn't that the same thing as challenging every challenged person in Canada? Isn't that stigmatizing all people facing mental challenges? Do we really need to do that?

The Canadian people have been found guilty of allowing their society to be hijacked by MORAL CHARLATANS ladies and gentlemen, who ride on the back of the vulnerable. And I know that from the emails I have received in the past twenty four hours from some parents dealing with their challenged children, who think that because I wanted Vincent Li locked up for life, that I want their children locked up for life, even though their children have committed no crimes at all. And it doesn't matter how often I say that, I do want to live in a country where people are judged by what they do, not by who they are. It doesn't matter. The psychiatrists and their allies in media, willing and unwilling dupes of this culture of moral equivalence, have convinced many families in this country dealing with mental illness that the best thing they can do to support their families is to support the idea that Vincent Li will be fit to live among us some day.

The Canadian people, it would appear, after having been found guilty of allowing their society to slip through the cracks, are now condemned to listen to the B.S. and the baffle gab of a legal system that has redefined the meaning of justice. Justice used to be about making the guilty accountable. Today's justice makes the families of the victims feel guilty. They are told that their idea of justice is simply animal vengeance fed by blood lust. They are being told that they are in worse shape than the cannibal. See the cannibal is getting treatment in a relatively confined setting. But the families of victims and their friends aren't getting the same psychiatric medications that would alter their personalities, and so they spend much of their free time staying angry with a system that is merciful and compassionate. However, these families are condemned for never being able to appreciate that.

And I know you're talking back to the radio right now, saying ., who will stop the madness? Who will rescue the country from these moral lepers posing as healers and agents of ethical virtue? My answer is, ONLY YOU. Only you can take back your own country. I would encourage you to use a Ballot Box. All other means would only be surrendering to the political correct clucks who want to see you as mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, trigger-happy philistines.

I know that when you hear what happened in a Canadian court room this week, you ask yourself whether it would have gone down this way in the USA? And you know the answer whether you like it or not. It’s been a rough week for those who want to believe we are morally superior to those Americans, knowing that no U.S. Swat Team commander would have resisted pulling the trigger on a man, alone on a bus, who was starting to defile the man he killed. An American Swat Team commander who ordered his men to hold fire under such circumstances would have to face the glare of U.S. Media and would very soon be turning in his badge. In the United States, if such a crime was committed and the defendant put on trial, if the prosecutor dared to allow the defense witness to go unchallenged by a withering cross examination, and if that same American prosecutor resisted calling eyewitnesses to the crime who would testify with great detail on the brutality of the crime, that prosecutor would also be forced to turn in his keys. Should we also note for the record that such a trial in the U.S. would be a JURY trial. What an archaic concept that is? Those barbaric Americans. We, in this country, wrapped up this week. No muss, No fuss. And No Vengeance. We turned a trial about cannibalism into an Oprah Winfrey seminar, on how to be kind to a psycho who just happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time, hearing the wrong voices, while armed with a butcher's knife.

Our country was found guilty again this week of losing its moorings. We can only hope we are not condemned to a fate where some day none of us has the courage to see what we see and to say what we truly believe.

That is the only thing I fall back on, on rough days and rough weeks like this one. We still have for the most part, the right to say what we truly believe in our hearts, for now.

And what I am feeling at the moment, is that many of us will look at this week as one in which the Canadian People were found guilty of Gullibility in the First degree.

I'm Charles Adler on the Corus Radio Network.

http://www.cjob.com/StationShared/AdlerOnline.aspx

[Jastapilot]

For comparison, I'd like to point out that Li had to be tasered 2 times to bring him down. Robert Diekanski was tasered only once to bring him down, then an additional 4 more taserings once he was on the ground.

[Lurch]

For comparison, I'd like to point out that Li had to be tasered 2 times to bring him down. Robert Diekanski was tasered only once to bring him down, then an additional 4 more taserings once he was on the ground.

All this proves is not all cops are bad, way to go.


Anybody who doesn't believe that Li was insane also needs help, nobody in the right mind would have committed this crime.

Li needs help, putting him in with other criminals won't get him the help he needs

Lurch

[Jastapilot]

Ok, fine, the poor guy isn't responsible. But what about everyone around him that for years knew he was having problems? Criminal negligence causing death? Same for the so-called medical professionals who let him escape?

How the mental health system failed Vince Li
Article Comments (28)
PATRICK WHITE
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
March 6, 2009 at 10:39 PM EST
WINNIPEG — Vince Li jumped from the bus window likely thinking he would be greeted as a hero.

In his mind, he and his trusty buck knife had just slain a demon. With blood smeared across his face and three of the demon's body parts stuffed in his pocket, he couldn't understand why police surrounded him as soon as he landed, or why they “put cuffs on my hand and then they took me to the police station and treated me like a murderer,” he later told a psychiatrist.

It took weeks of treatment before Mr. Li realized the extent of his actions the night of July 30, 2008: that a major psychotic disorder had compelled him to stab, dismember and disembowel a 22-year-old stranger aboard a Greyhound bus bound for Winnipeg.

The story of Mr. Li's descent into murderous psychosis is not just the tale of one man's tragic flaws – but of multiple flaws in the way Canada deals with its mentally ill, of a patchwork mental health system that failed Mr. Li, the public and, under the most dreadful circumstances possible, Tim McLean.

Family, friends and doctors all noted abnormal behaviour at various stages along his five-year plunge into depths of schizophrenia and failed to act. What broke down in the case of Vince Weiguang Li, who was found not criminally responsible this week due to a major psychotic disorder? And will it happen again?

The voices first beckoned Mr. Li five years ago. He'd always been a reclusive man, even before he moved from China to a new country and a new language with his wife Ana in 2001. But these voices added a worrisome dimension to his personality. In the summer of 2004, Ana noticed him “acting weird” after several days of irregular eating and insomnia. “He cried a lot and told me he saw God. I thought he was just tired so I bought him sleeping pills from Shoppers Drug Mart, but that didn't work too well.”

Friends advised Ana to take her husband to a doctor. She refused, citing language and cultural barriers as well as Mr. Li's inevitable opposition to any plan that might label him as mentally ill.

Therein lies the most powerful reason Mr. Li was never treated. “The stigma around the illness is so severe,” said Mary Alberti, executive director of the Schizophrenic Society of Ontario, “that people are afraid to talk about it, afraid to come forward because they are afraid of how they will be treated by society.”

Ana obviously cared deeply for her husband. She took days off work to help him. When Mr. Li briefly returned to China in 2005, she implored his parents to get him medical treatment. Even after the couple divorced in 2005, she gave him money and let him stay with her while he was unemployed.

In March, 2005, Mr. Li abruptly left their Winnipeg home for Thompson, Man., apparently commanded by the voice to buy land there, even though he had no money. Six months later, again compelled by the voice, he hopped a plane to Toronto. “Then God's voice told me to go back to Winnipeg … so I started walking on the highway; I threw out my luggage after God told me to do that,” he told a psychiatrist.

He was picked up by police and taken to William Osler Health Centre in Etobicoke. “He was vague, seemed to be hallucinating, staring into space,” a doctor there noted. “He has not slept or eaten for three days.”

He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and given medications that he refused to take.

Believing Mr. Li was at risk of harming himself or others, doctors placed him on two involuntary admission certificates and could have legally detained him for 14 days. For reasons still unclear, he walked away from the hospital after just 10 days. The hospital said it cannot comment on Mr. Li's case for “privacy and confidentiality” reasons. Mr. Li says he escaped. What's certain is that he left against medical advice.

Of the 60,000 people who are admitted involuntarily to Canadian hospitals every, it's unclear how many escape.

“In most hospitals, this will happen more than once a year,” said Richard O'Reilly, professor of psychiatry at the University of Western Ontario. “Unless we lock all the doors to all the hospitals, people will be able to get out.”

When patients do escape, doctors are generally obliged to alert the authorities.

“In theory the police should always be called because the patient was still on certificate and therefore must have still been a threat to himself or others,” said Phil Klassen, deputy clinical director for the Law and Mental Health Program and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. “In practice, that does not always happen.”

Several factors can influence whether doctors notify police. The patient may have been responding to treatment or nearing the expiry of a certificate. Or the hospital simply did not have the resources. Since mental health facilities began a massive deinstitutionalization trend 40 years ago, much of the burden of caring for the mentally ill has been placed on general hospitals.

“Most hospitals have enough other people to look after,” said Simon Verdun-Jones, an expert in mental health law at Simon Fraser University. “As a result, these people who refuse treatment are often placed at the back of the line when in fact they are the illest of the ill and should be placed at the very front.”

Ontario's mental health laws could have hindered attempts to detain Mr. Li as well. Other provinces have broad laws that allow them to scoop up anybody thought to pose a harm to themselves or others. Ontario specifies that patients must show potential for physical harm, which is much more difficult to prove, according to John Gray, author of Canadian Mental Health Law and Policy.

“Ontario has a fairly narrow criteria compared to other provinces,” said Dr. Gray, who added that the broader measures used in B.C. and Manitoba might have prevented Mr. Li's release. “We need laws that help people, even when illness doesn't allow them to realize they are ill.”

After fleeing the William Osler Health Centre, Mr. Li headed straight for Manitoba, exposing yet another defect in the country's mental-health system. Health is a provincial jurisdiction. As soon as Mr. Li crossed the provincial boundary, his Form 3 certificate would have lost authority.

“There are no good interprovincial links when it comes to these laws,” Dr. Gray said. “It's not like the Criminal Code where if you are charged in one province it holds in the next.”

After escaping the William Osler centre, Mr. Li returned to Ana looking “like a homeless person,” she said. But he continued to evade treatment. On a visit to China, a doctor there gave him a clean bill of health. In 2007, the couple moved back in together, but he continued to reject treatment.

In late July, 2008, he left their Toronto home and a puzzling note for Ana: “Don't look for me, I wish you were happy.”

Bizarre, but not out of the ordinary. She didn't discover his whereabouts until the RCMP called her late on July 30, as her beloved ex-husband was dismembering Mr. McLean's body.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... ional/home

[bmc]

Posted by Charles Adler:

The Canadian people found guilty of allowing an elite group of experts, who do business in the legal system, telling us what is right and what is wrong.

I'm Charles Adler on the Corus Radio Network.

This guy is a critical thinker.

[Topspin]

All this proves is not all cops are bad, way to go.


Anybody who doesn't believe that Li was insane also needs help, nobody in the right mind would have committed this crime.

Li needs help, putting him in with other criminals won't get him the help he needs

Lurch

You believe this man can again be a regular member of society?

[Wilbur]

It isn't a matter of whether or not Li will ever be capable of re-joining society. It's a matter of how we chose to treat people who are sick. Last time I checked, seriously sick people needing medical treatment go to hospitals, not prisons. Anyone who thinks he will be given some drugs and counselling and then be turned loose in a few years has no understanding of how the system works.

If he had been convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life, he would have been eligable for parole 10 years following his date of arrest. He would recieve basic psychiatric treatment while in prison and the meds he would be given would likely control is illness. He would go infront of a parole board of laymen with little or no knowledge or understanding of his illness. As long as drugs had controlled his illness and he participated in prison programs, he would almost certainly be released.

Being found insane, he will confined in a forensic psychiatric hospital at the pleasure of the Lieutenant Governor. Any decision on eventually releasing him will be very carefully considered by a team of medical professionals who have been working with him for the years he has been in their care. They are far more accountable for their decisions and recommendations than the parole board will ever be because they are placing their careers on the line. If they ever do release Li from the institution, it will be into a mental health system that will continue to monitor him to ensure he is following his treatment. He will never just be set free and left to his own devices.

People found not guilty due to insanity spend a lot longer in custody than those convicted of crimes. In all liklihood, the most freedom Li will ever experience again will be escorted day trips that won't happen for many years. Has anyone ever heard of one of these guys being released and re-offending? There may be an example or two, but I don't know of any. But I sure do know of murders who were paroled to commit more murders.

[ottawa,kan]

I'm fine with him getting all the help he needs. But I completly agree with the guy who said "if he's released as cured,and commits a crime, his psych team gets punished" Too many of these mental health professionals don't believe any one is ever guilty of anything. And because of their helpful nature, and their emotional need to believe in their patients, they tend to be far too easy going about release. Let them temper their bleeding heart tendencies with the idea that they will be held legally responsible for this guys release. And don't kid yourself, schizophrenics get released all the time. The new drugs are great. Very effective. If they take them. Personally I have nothing against holding the mentally insane to the same standards as everyone else. Sick in the head?? Too bad. In my opinion there is no cure. This guy may get better, but he'll never be able to be trusted outside of "prison" or whatever you want to call his care facility. And I don't trust the psych types to be able to judge it. Maybe let the victims Mom decide if he's cured.

[habit]

The Canadian legal system is a FARCE, it is that simple, OH poor guy is sick he deserves help, fine give it too him in a mental institution for the rest of his life, our system is all about protecting the criminal's rights and not the victims, from our bullshit young offenders act to this nonsense, Did not Jefferey Dahmer try to turn his victims into sex zombies by performing his version of a lobotomy on them? Is that not just as insane as this, oh wait that was in the US where criminals are treated as such for the most part (excluding OJ of course) if you think this animal on the bus deserves help and not prison I hope one day you sit next to him on a bus MURDER IS MURDER how is it not illegal in this case, the guy was nuts, so most serial killers are also, so should we let these guys off as well.

[BibleMonkey]

China needs population control. Send him home to China!

Even after he eats two Chinese, he'd be hungry again in an hour

[bmc]

The Canadian legal system is a FARCE, it is that simple, OH poor guy is sick he deserves help, fine give it too him in a mental institution for the rest of his life, our system is all about protecting the criminal's rights and not the victims, from our bullshit young offenders act to this nonsense, Did not Jefferey Dahmer try to turn his victims into sex zombies by performing his version of a lobotomy on them? Is that not just as insane as this, oh wait that was in the US where criminals are treated as such for the most part (excluding OJ of course) if you think this animal on the bus deserves help and not prison I hope one day you sit next to him on a bus MURDER IS MURDER how is it not illegal in this case, the guy was nuts, so most serial killers are also, so should we let these guys off as well.

So, are you saying then that a charge of murder and possible release in 10 years is better than putting this guy away for good?

[habit]

Well like I said the Canadian legal sytem is a farce, about rehabilitation not punishment, this guy may be back in society before ten years if his meds work and maybe not but the possibility should not even be there, yet it is. I beleive if you take a life you forfeit your own, and not necessarily by death, though I do support capital punishment in certain cases, but with a life sentence in prison with NO PAROLE and life means life, all of it.

[bmc]

Well like I said the Canadian legal sytem is a farce, about rehabilitation not punishment, this guy may be back in society before ten years if his meds work and maybe not but the possibility should not even be there, yet it is. I beleive if you take a life you forfeit your own, and not necessarily by death, though I do support capital punishment in certain cases, but with a life sentence in prison with NO PAROLE and life means life, all of it.

I remember when I moved to the Middle East and I heard of how they treat criminals, thinking how shocking it was: no court date, no sentence. You're gone. The result of it was, you start to understand that if you screw up there are BIG unpleasant consequences. As a result, we frequently never locked our house when we went out and seldom locked the car downtown. Knowing you could very likely rot in a hell hole is a remarkable deterent.

And then I started thinking, you know what, we tolerate crime in Canada. News is spun to make us start believing that the perpetrator is the victim.

I can assure you that in the Middle East, you have read about this horrible incident and that would have been the end of it. Within weeks, the rumours will start flying about the perpetrator being taken out into the desert and shot. Finished.

I love Canada. I really do. I am Canadian, but I've been abroad for over ten years. Looking at it from a distance, I can't help but say it's a nation of boy scouts. Help bent on being polite and doing the right thing.

[tesox2]

Although I agree he was totally insane, I dont agree that this he is not responsible. There have been many atrocities acted in the name of self righteousness etc which no one would dare commit in their right mind, and I can assure you no one would say they are not responsible.

Hitler
Ahmad Harun
Omar al-Bashir
Radislav Krstic
Jean Paul Akayesu

Come on, crazy is no excuse.

[Wilbur]

Simply being mentally ill is not a defence in Canada. You have to be so ill that you did not understand the nature and consequences of what you were doing. Prisons have loads of mentally disordered people in them, including paranoid schizophrenics like Li. The difference is their illnesses are not severe enough to provide a defence. They may have little ability to control their impulses and behaviour, but they still realize what they are doing and that it is wrong. Therefore, they get convicted and sent to prison, not a psychiatric hospital.

[sky's the limit]

The Canadian legal system is a FARCE, it is that simple, OH poor guy is sick he deserves help, fine give it too him in a mental institution for the rest of his life, our system is all about protecting the criminal's rights and not the victims, from our bullshit young offenders act to this nonsense, Did not Jefferey Dahmer try to turn his victims into sex zombies by performing his version of a lobotomy on them? Is that not just as insane as this, oh wait that was in the US where criminals are treated as such for the most part (excluding OJ of course) if you think this animal on the bus deserves help and not prison I hope one day you sit next to him on a bus MURDER IS MURDER how is it not illegal in this case, the guy was nuts, so most serial killers are also, so should we let these guys off as well.

Habit,

You have once again demonstrated your innate inability to understand issues which are in the least bit complex. Good grief.


stl

[ottawa,kan]

I don't think its necessarily a misunderstanding of the issues, just because he doen't agree with your (dare I say it "liberal" ) position STL. I think its perfectly possible to have a well thought out and defensible position that the agressors ability to understand right and wrong is irelevant. The victim is just as dead. What does it matter if the guy thought he was doing "good things for god"??? I can see the insanity defense, but I think its perfectly reasonable to reject it as a basis for a legal system and say you will hold everyone to the same standard regardless of their motive or their understanding of right and wrong. Seems like a fine system to me. And Canada does have a pretty weak system when it comes to punishment. Not that ours is better, but it is different. Now don't go all postal on me, reasonable people can disagree.

[sky's the limit]

I don't think its necessarily a misunderstanding of the issues, just because he doen't agree with your (dare I say it "liberal" ) position STL.

Anyone holding up the US legal system as an example either has no understanding of it, or no experience of it, or both. It is appalling in its failings.

Anyone categorically proclaiming that mentally ill people should be treated as the masses are, either has no understanding of mental illness, or no experience with it. Schizophrenics, of which I have one in my family, are extremely complex people who in reality are nothing like the general perception of them. What forms of justification it takes ("God" or otherwise) is here nor there.

As to be being "Liberal," I think you'll find my views aren't that easily categorized. But I guess "left" and "right" are nice simple packages people can understand without having to look too deeply into the issues. This, evidently is another of the issues where people would like to make simple proclamations to "fix" simple problems. Neither are the issues or the solutions "simple," and issues such as this are directly related to many other pertinent and relevant issues we deal with - yet clinging to the traditional lines of thought is far easier for most than actually thinking about something.

stl

[Nark]

Anyone holding up the US legal system as an example either has no understanding of it, or no experience of it, or both. It is appalling in its failings.

We have a great CRIMINAL JUSTICE system here in the US. When used properly, it protects the people. I highly suggest to all those interested look up any appellate case. Read why the convicted is appealing, on what grounds, and why the appellate court chose their decision (usually based on other similar cases).

The Canadian and US system are based on English Common Law. We have adapted and changed it to fit our needs. Having being a scholar on "the Legal System" I would argue the US system is better than the current British system.
Example: In Canada and the US, we the citizens (illegals too) are protected from unlawful search and seizures. Not so in Great Britain.


Stinson:

...but I think its perfectly reasonable to reject it as a basis for a legal system and say you will hold everyone to the same standard regardless of their motive or their understanding of right and wrong.

The first thing I learned in school was that their needs to be two things to commit a crime: action (Actus reus) and intent (mens rae). Otherwise it is not a crime.

Having gone into much greater detail in subsequent classes, death doesn't always equal murder, nor does the insanity defense give the accused a cop-out.
The insanity defense is used in less than 2% of cases, of which, roughly a quarter of those are found to be "insane" (a legal term, not a medical one).


In honor of Paul Harvey's memory I will give Avcanada a quick lesson on insanity defenses.

First used in Great Brittan in 1843, when a Scotsmen, Daniel McNaughten, tried to assassinate the PM at the time, Robert Peel. He killed his secretary and another fellow instead. The McNaughten Rule as it became known asks whether a person knows what they were doing or whether what they knew that what they were doing was wrong.
Along came Durham in 1954 in the US. The court of appeals for DC ruled that a person was not criminal responsible if their unlawful act was a product of mental disease or defect.

A few years later, the Substantial Capacity test states that a person is not criminally responsible if because of a mental disease or defect they lack the substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his/her conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law.