The Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984 (IDRA) was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on October 12, 1984, amending the

United States federal laws governing defendants with mental diseases or defects United States federal laws governing offenders with mental diseases or defects () provide for the evaluation and handling of defendants who are suspected of having mental diseases or defects. The laws were completely revamped by the Insanity Defens ...

to make it significantly more difficult to obtain a verdict of

not guilty only by reason of insanity The insanity defense, also known as the mental disorder defense, is an affirmative defense by excuse in a criminal case, arguing that the defendant is not responsible for their actions due to an episodic psychiatric disease at the time of the ...

Act

The act removed the

volitional Volition may refer to: * Volition (psychology), the process of making and acting on decisions ** Coherent Extrapolated Volition, hypothetical choices and the actions collectively taken with more knowledge and ability * Volition (linguistics), a di ...

component, that a defendant lacked capacity to conform their conduct to the law, from the

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.''Criminal Law - Cases and Materials'', 7th ed. 2012,

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; John Kaplan,

Robert Weisberg Robert I. Weisberg is an American lawyer. He is an Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr. Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, and an expert on criminal law and criminal procedure, as well as a leading scholar in the law and literature movement. Weisberg wa ...

, Guyora Binder,

/ref> Defendants were exculpated only if "at the time of the commission of the acts constituting the offense, ... as the result of a severe mental disease or defect,

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unable to appreciate the nature and quality or wrongfulness of

heir Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Officiall ...

acts." The law passed in the wake of public outrage after

John Hinckley Jr. John Warnock Hinckley Jr. (born May 29, 1955) is an American man who attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Washington, D.C. on March 30, 1981, two months after Reagan's first inauguration. Using a .22 caliber revolver, Hinck ...

's acquittal by reason of insanity in June 1982 for his attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. Prior to the enactment of the law, the federal standard for "insanity" was that the government had to prove a defendant's sanity beyond a reasonable doubt (assuming the insanity defense was raised). Following the Act's enactment, the defendant has the burden of proving insanity by "

clear and convincing evidence In a legal dispute, one party has the burden of proof to show that they are correct, while the other party had no such burden and is presumed to be correct. The burden of proof requires a party to produce evidence to establish the truth of facts ...

".''United States v. Freeman''
804 F. 2d 1574 ( 11th Cir. 1986). Furthermore, expert witnesses for either side are prohibited from testifying directly as to whether the defendant was legally sane or not, but can only testify as to their mental health and capacities, with the question of sanity itself to be decided by the finder-of-fact at trial. The Act was held to be constitutional (and the change in standards and burdens of proof are discussed) in ''United States v. Freeman''. The Defense Reform Act was criticized by psychologist Lawrence Z. Freedman for being ineffective: "If the attacker is rational mentally, stable emotionally, and fanatic politically, he will not be deterred. Nor will an irrational, affectively disturbed individual be deterred."

References

{{reflist

External links

IDRA - Criminal Resource Manual

IDRA
- GovTrack Mental health law in the United States United States federal criminal legislation 1984 in law