HB 2795 - (according to author) - "seeks to modernize the Texas insanity defense to better reflect medical science, and provide a more useful tool for the Texas criminal justice system. H.B. 2795 further allows attorneys to inform the jury as to the consequences of their verdict on the defendant. Finally, this bill would make the provisions adopted last session applicable to persons acquitted of an offense committed before, on, or after the effective date of this act."

Action: Accepted in committee (6-0) with substitutions, bill sent to Calendars

The new language of 8.01 would read: "(a) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution that, at the time of the conduct charged, the actor, as a result of severe mental disease or defect, did not appreciate [know] that the actor's [his] conduct was legally or morally wrong."

Question: Would this change the Bigby standard, i.e. that whether the act is morally wrong by the actor's standard is not the issue, but whether he/she is aware of the larger community's standard?

[This message was edited by Floyd L. Jennings on 05-15-07 at .]

How about legislation that will allow attorneys to further inform jurys about how much time a defendant will actually serve!

The bill would have liberalized the insanity defense, making it far easier for a defendant to escape criminal responsibility. It would have introduced a far more ambiguous standard than the one used currently. More criminals would have used it to justify behavior they knew was wrong but just didn't "appreciate."

The bill died on the House floor last week when it was not reached by the House imposed deadline.

So it did die -- that was not clear from the legislature's website... And yes, it would have vastly changed the standard, broadening it. Thanks, John.

I have a problem with "appreciate", but I have a real problem with including "morally wrong" in the definition. Whose morals do we use as the standard of what's moral? Some people believe it's moral and right to blow up a building, shoot an abortion doctor, or shoot at the FBI. Those people believe that they're acting according to a moral code. Just like the mother who thinks it's moral under her paradigm of morality, no matter how objectively skewed it is, to drown her kids to save their souls from hell.

As long as the defendant must also show that he did not know it was legally wrong as well, I don't really care about the morally wrong part. Most criminals morals are such that they don't see much wrong with what they do. If their consciences were much of a guide, they wouldn't be criminal after all. But even the "God told me to do it" crazies generally realize that what they are doing is legally wrong. So as long as a defendant must show that he was unaware of both the moral and legal prohibition against his conduct, then we should be OK.

Jane, as I understand the Bigby standard - and correct me if I misinterpet-- the issue in any 8.01 determination is not the personal moral code of the defendant (for Mr. Bigby thought that his acts were morally correct), but whether the defendant understood that the larger social community would regard his acts as wrong (or as the courts have said, "the sort of thing he ought not to do") -- whether legally or morally. Note that by that standard, Ms. Yates was unequivocally culpable (having disclosed such to her expert, Dr. Resnick), notwithstanding the jury's verdict. And, indeed, Mr. Bigby was also guilty.

But in this instance it looks like the issue will go no further in this session.