The Durham Rule - Irresistible Impulse

The M'Naghten Rule - Not knowing Right From Wrong

Monte Durham was a 23-year-old who had been in and out of prison and mental institutions since he was 17. He was convicted for housebreaking in 1953, and his attorney appealed. Although the district court judge had ruled that Durham's attorneys had failed to prove he didn't know the difference between right and wrong, the federal appellate judge chose to use the case to reform the McNaughton rule. Citing leading psychiatrists and jurists of the day, the appellate judge stated that the McNaughton rule was based on "an entirely obsolete and misleading conception of the nature of insanity." He overturned Durham's conviction and established a new rule. The Durham rule states "that an accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or mental defect." The Durham rule was eventually rejected by the federal courts, because it cast too broad a net. Alcoholics, compulsive gamblers, and drug addicts had successfully used the defense to defeat a wide variety of crimes.