biography
| name: |
McNaghten or M'Naghten, Daniel
|
pronunciation:
[muhknawtn]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (fl.19th-c)
|
| biography:
| British murderer. He was tried in 1843 for the murder of Edward Drummond, private secretary to Sir Robert Peel. The question of his sanity arose, and whether he knew the nature of his act. As a result the McNaghten Rules, on the criminal responsibility of the insane, state in English law that: (a) every person is presumed sane until the contrary is proved, and (b) it must be clearly proved that at the time of committing the act, the accused was labouring under such a defect of reason as not to know the nature of the act, or that he or she was doing wrong. |
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