summarizing the history of the defense of insanity in this Commonwealth
How later courts described this case
- summarizing the history of the defense of insanity in this Commonwealth
- noting, in dicta, that the foundation of a prior Supreme Court case involving the burden of proof for an insanity defense is “purely evidentiary”
- noting that the burden is on the defendant because otherwise sanity would become an implied element of the offense
- “[i]n assessing sanity, a court is not concerned with whether the defendant committed the act . . . or . . . formed the prescribed mental state . . . [but with] whether [he] should be held criminally responsible for his act”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
McDERMOTT, Justice,
concurring.
I join in the majority opinion insofar as as I understand the ruling to be that it is NOT the duty of the Commonwealth to prove as an essential element of a crime that the accused was sane when the act was done. If one says they were insane it is their burden to offer evidence to satisfy that contention before the triers of fact.
Nor should definitions of insanity beyond the statute, 1 however ingenious or supported by the most bizarre conduct, ever be grounds to shift that burden. The credibility of the proponent of a fact, however learned or experienced, remains the central issue on who is sane or otherwise. The triers of fact remain the final arbiters under the presumption that all are sane, until who says otherwise is believed. We have familiar experience that sane men can inflict injury equal in enormity to the statutorily demented.
. 18 Pa.C.S. § 315.