The Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984 (IDRA) was signed into law by President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

on October 12, 1984, amending the United States federal laws governing defendants with mental diseases or defects 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 a psychiatric disease at the time of the criminal act ...

Act

The act removed the volitional component, that a defendant lacked capacity to conform their conduct to the law, from the ALI test.''Criminal Law - Cases and Materials'', 7th ed. 2012,

Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer N.V. is a Dutch information services company. The company serves legal, business, tax, accounting, finance, audit, risk, compliance, and healthcare markets. Wolters Kluwer in its current form was founded in 1987 with a merger bet ...

; John Kaplan,

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

, 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,

hey were Hey, HEY, or Hey! may refer to: Music * Hey (band), a Polish rock band Albums * ''Hey'' (Andreas Bourani album) or the title song (see below), 2014 * ''Hey!'' (Julio Iglesias album) or the title song, 1980 * ''Hey!'' (Jullie album) or the ...

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. Offi ...

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 as he left the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., on March 30, 1981, two months after Reagan's first inauguration. Using ...

'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 has 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. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (in case citations, 11th Cir.) is a federal appellate court over the following U.S. district courts: * Middle District of Alabama * Northern District of Alabama * Southern District ...

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 GovTrack.us is a website developed by then-student Joshua Tauberer. It is based in Washington, D.C., and was launched as a hobby. It enables its users to track the bills and members of the United States Congress. Users can add trackers to certain ...

Mental health law in the United States United States federal disability legislation United States federal criminal legislation 1984 in American law