What is the current state of the law on the insanity defense?

Essentially, both proposals quote statements made by this Court in Wade v. United States, supra, 426 F.2d at 71-72 and in McGraw v. United States, supra, 515 F.2d at 759-60. The trial court refused to issue either of the above instructions on grounds that there was no evidence presented upon which to submit the factual issue to the jury that the defendant had suffered from a delusion that his activities were morally justified.

In Wade v. United States, supra, we held that, for purposes of the insanity defense, "wrongfulness" means moral wrongfulness rather than criminal wrongfulness. As we interpreted this rule in United States v. McGraw, supra, "a defendant lacks substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct if he knows his act to be criminal but commits it because of a delusion that it is morally justified." 515 F.2d at 760 (emphasis supplied). Apparently, the court mistook our use of the word "delusion" as an attempt to restrict the types of mental illnesses which will support the issuance of a clarifying instruction as to the Wade definition of "wrongfulness." We seize this opportunity to disclaim any talismanic focus on the word "delusion." The word adds no additional element to those which must be established before an individual is entitled to any instruction on legal insanity; it is a word of clarification, not of limitation. ¹

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