“Not guilty by reason of insanity”

January 4, 2026

By now, we should be accustomed to 2025 being made up of mostly terrible weeks. The last three weeks unfortunately, may qualify as the most terrible of all.

The tragedy that is the awful story of the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle Singer allegedly by the hand of their troubled son, will not easily be forgotten. There haas been much written about this horrible event in recent weeks and I will not add to that. Rob Reiner created a wealth of exceptional motion pictures, many of which I watch again and again. 

Rob Reiner and Michelle Singer Reiner

In so many ways, this crime was chillingly reminiscent of the bleakest of Greek tragedies. Those poor parents, blessed with so much talent, acclaim and wealth and yet tortured by the desire to try to help a seriously troubled son. And poor Nick, the son. If his mental facilities are at all intact and if he is proven to be the one responsible for this catastrophe, he may be spending the rest of his life in prison forever haunted by the memory of his role in the deaths of his loving parents.

The response from the White House, from the man inexplicably elected to lead the country, was completely devoid of compassion and, of course, dignity. It was un-American.

For many of us the next week’s events compounded the pervasive sense of pain

Kennedy Center being debased

and despair. When I saw videos of workmen fastening the name of the faux president above that of John F. Kennedy on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. I had a sense of deep heartache and was instantly and vividly reminded of the words of Joseph Welch in 1954. Serving as chief counsel for the Army,

Welch was defending Fred Fisher, a junior lawyer in Welch’s office who had been accused of being a communist by Joseph McCarthy, the junior Senator from Wisconsin. As usual, McCarthy’s claim was based on the flimsiest of associations. Welch said to McCarthy (whose stupidity and cruelty pales in the shadow of what we now endure from the oval office), “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

Joseph N. Welch

Watching the December 19, 2025 video and seeing that awful name installed, defacing a national institution,  I felt like going outside and screaming, in the direction of our nation’s capitol and the oval office, “Have you no decency, sir, at long last.”

Of course, the answer is a resounding “No!” He has no sense of decency or any other fine quality our nation has valued for 250 years. He is the greatest in only one way: the greatest embarrassment in the history of the United States of America.

We were living in Washington, D.C. when President Kennedy was assassinated. The night before the funeral was bitter cold and we went to the Capitol where the President was lying in state to mourn and pay our respects. The line, at about 9 PM, was more than two miles long. We had left our 5-month-old, David, in the care of neighbors and, at about 11 PM, feeling guilty at leaving him, and nearly frozen while still more than a mile away, we went home.

The next day, along with all of America and much of the world, we watched the funeral on television. As the procession started toward Arlington National Cemetery, the only sound coming from the TV was the click-clack, click-clack, click-clack, click-clack of the horses’ hooves. For some reason I can’t recall, I decided to turn the volume completely down and open the window. It was a beautiful, sunny, chilly day and we felt the cold immediately. And then, even with the television sound turned off, we heard the click-clack, click-clack, click-clack, click-clack. There was no other sound in the city of Washington. A tsunami of sadness swept over us. We lived more than 2.5 miles from the procession and yet we could clearly hear the solemnity of the moment as the hooves hit the pavement.

It was one of eeriest moments I have ever experienced and it came rushing back inside my head as we saw the Kennedy Center being debased.

At this stage, I have no idea of who will become president in 2028. It can’t come too soon for me. One of my hopes is that the nation will find someone with the sense of history, the intelligence, and, yes, the decency, to make sure the original name of the Kennedy Center is restored on his or her first day in office.

As if this were not enough, in this same half-month, Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of President John F. Kennedy, died at the age of 35. That statement from the faux President was without a trace of humanity. On this most tragic occasion, he chose to mock the Kennedy family. We need a Joseph Welch to again ask that question: “Have you no decency, sir, at long last.”

Of course, all the other things we are accustomed to, and numb to, also happened: shootings, outrageous efforts to destroy the environment, bellicose excuses for diplomacy, deliberate disregard of national and international law. And more. It is difficult to keep up.

We don’t yet know what Nick Reiner’s attorney will do to defend him. Many people are suggesting that a plea of insanity will be entered.

The insanity defense is often referred to as the M’Naughten defense, citing the case of Daniel M’Naghten (pronounced and usually spelled McNaughten), in 1843, as the first example of the successful use of that defense.

But it wasn’t the first.

Plato

Plato of Athens, the founder of the Western philosophical tradition, argued that individuals not in control of their mental facilities should not be punished in the same ways as fully rational people. He established the principle that culpability should be determined in a special way for those with mental illness.

The Romans followed suit, embedding in their law the concept of non compos mentis (not of sound mind). Those deemed to suffer from mental illness were theoretically excluded from facing harsh legal penalties, including execution, reflecting a basic understanding of moral responsibility.

In the period before the Normans conquered England (1066), there was no distinct criminal code and a murderer, or his/her family, could pay compensation to the victim’s family in lieu of imprisonment or execution. In Norman times (1066-1300), insanity was not seen as a valid defense but allowed for a special instance that permitted the jury to deliver a guilty verdict and refer the accused to the King for a pardon.

The criterion for insanity was expressed in 1724 as “whether the accused is totally deprived of his understanding and memory and knew what he was doing ‘no more than a wild beast or brute, or an infant’.”

Dorothy Talbye
In medieval Europe, mental illness was often considered evidence of possession by the devil. Unfortunately, particularly in communities with particularly harsh religious practices, this did not prevent the harshest forms of retribution. This was seen centuries later, during the late 1600s. in the Salem witch trials. As one example, Dorothy Talbye was a well-regarded member of the church in the Massachusetts Bay Company who claimed that God told her to kill her three-year-old daughter. She was uncooperative at her trial and refused to speak until Governor John Winthrop, who proclaimed her to be possessed by Satan, threatened to pile stones on her chest, prompting her to plead guilty. She was then hung by the neck until death.

Edward Arnold
A little more than a century before M’Naghten, Edward Arnold, “an English Commoner,” said he had “devils and imps” that “invaded his body and bosom” keeping him from sleep. He was charged with attempting to murder Lord Baron Onslow. At that time, just attempting to murder someone was considered a capital offense. This case established one of the earliest legal tests for insanity, the “wild beast” test, whereby a defendant was excused if he or she lacked understanding more than a “wild beast or brute.” Arnold was found guilty because it was determined he knew what he was doing was wrong> He was sentenced to hang but, at the request of Lord Onslow, who survived the attempt on his life, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

James Hadfield

Four decades before M’Naghten, James Hadfield attempted to assassinate King George III. He was acquitted of hightreason by “reason of insanity.” The Hadfield case led to the Criminal Lunatics Act of 1800. This law established the practice of indefinite detention for those acquitted because of insanity.

Edward Oxford

The Criminal Lunatics Act played a part three years before the M’Naghten case when Edward Oxford was tried for attempting to shoot Queen Victoria. She was out for an afternoon carriage ride with Prince Albert from Buckingham Palace to the Belgravia neighborhood of London, where the Queen’s mother lived.

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Edward Oxford shooting at Queen Victoria

Thomas Hodgkin, the great physician and humanitarian, was one of those called to testify in Oxford’s defense. Hodgkin, probably the first to devote all his professional time to what we now call the ‘practice of Pathology,’ had long had an interest in mental illness. Hodgkin was an outspoken opponent of capital punishment and joined two other physicians who agreed to help in the defense, without remuneration. Hodgkin was the first of the three called to the stand. The medical men concluded that Oxford was “morally unsane,” incapable of understanding the significance of his actions, and could not be held responsible for his actions. Another factor in the trial was the failure to find any bullets despite Oxford’s discharging two pistols in the direction of the Queen. The jury stated Oxford was “Guilty, he being at the time insane.”

The judge found this, and a similar previous decision, unacceptable and rephrased the verdict as “Not guilty on grounds of insanity.” Hodgkin, concerned that the case might well be considered ambiguous, wrote a brief essay to prove the existence of moral insanity as opposed to the more recognizable forms of insanity. Previously, Hodgkin helped in trying to develop a new, more humane institution for the care and treatment of the mentally ill. The Southern Retreat, as the proposed asylum was called, eventually failed to develop when a suitable location could not be found.

Thomas Hodgkin

Edward Oxford, 1857, Melbourne

Oxford was “detained indefinitely at Her Majesty’s pleasure” at two of the types of hospitals Hodgkin decried. First, at Behtlem Royal Hospital and then at Broadmoor Hospital. In 1867,  Oxford was offered release if he relocated to a British colony. Changing his name to “John Freeman,” he moved to Melbourne, Australia, where he worked as a decorator, married and became a highly respected member of his church. Eventually, he wrote a book about Melbourne. 

Daniel M’Naghten

Daniel M’Naghten

Daniel M’Naghten (commonly spelled M’Naughten or McNaughten) was a Scottish woodcutter who tried to assassinate British Prime Minister Robert Pell but, instead, mistakenly murdered Edward Drummond, Peel’s secretary. M’Naghten suffered from paranoid delusions and believed he was being persecuted by the government. He was acquitted by a jury who found him “not guilty by reason of insanity.” The requirement for the judgement was that the defendant did not understand the nature of the act and did understand that it was wrong. That standard remains today. During the trial, he was initially placed in Newgate Prison under the 1800 Act for the Safe Custody of Insane Persons charged with Offenses. He was then transferred to the State Lunatic Asylum at Bethlem Hospital. In 1864, he was transferred to the newly opened Broadmoor Asylum where he developed diabetes and heart problems. He died a year later.

Broadmoor

Bethlem

William Freeman

The first major case in the United States to use the M’Naghten standard in a murder case was People v. Freeman in 1847, four years after the M’Naghten trial.

When he was sixteen, William Freeman, a young man of Native American and African descent, was wrongly convicted of stealing a horse and sentenced to five years of hard labor at Auburn Prison in upstate New York. Because he repeatedly protested his innocence and balked at working, he was often severely punished, including being repeatedly hit on the head with a wood plank. After that, he was partially deaf and confused. After serving his term and being released, he repeatedly told his brother-in-law that “someone had to pay.” On March 12, 1846, he fatally stabbed a wealthy farmer, John Van Nest, his wife and infant son. A guest in the Van Nest home managed to push the assailant from the house. Freeman then stole a horse from the family stable and fled the scene. The following day, forty miles from the scene of the murders, William Freeman was captured.

William Seward, who would later become Governor of New York and then Lincoln’s Secretary of State, volunteered to defend Freeman. The prosecuting attorney was the New York Attorney General, John Van Buren, son of former President Martin Van Buren. First, Freeman was found sufficiently sane to stand trial, although the trial court judge excluded expert testimony regarded Freeman’s mental state. Freeman was then found guilty and sentenced to death. An appeals court reversed the decision and ordered a new trial. Before that could take place, Freeman died in his cell of tuberculosis. An autopsy disclosed that he had severe brain injuries.

As an aside, William Seward was at Lincoln’s bedside when he died. Among Seward’s many accomplishments was overseeing the purchase of Alaska from Russia. An under-appreciated diplomatic success at the time, it was often referred to as “Seward’s folly.”

Daniel Sickles

Daniel Sickles

Twelve years later, Congressman Daniel Sickles was acquitted of murdering his wife’s lover, U.S. Attorney Phillip Barton Key II, who was the son of Francis Scott Key,

Barton Key

composer of our national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner. Key’s attorneys, including Edwin Stanton who would later become Secretary of War, used the “temporary insanity” plea.

Sickles was an interesting and complex character. While serving in London, as major in New York’s 12th Regiment of the New York Militia he caused a minor diplomatic scandal by snubbing Queen Victoria at an Independence Day celebration. A Major General during the Civil War, his service was marked by two notable events. The only corps commander without a West Point military education at the Battle of Gettysburg, he defied Joseph Hooker’s direction and committed what George Meade, then Commander of the Union Army, called a major error, almost losing the battle. For years after, Sickles waged a vicious campaign against Meade’s character. The other Gettysburg event was that Sickles was hit by a cannonball to his right leg, necessitating amputation. He insisted that the smashed tibia andfibula be sent to the newly formed United States Museum of Health and Medicine, where the bones are still displayed.

Daniel Sickles shattered tibia and fibula

Sickles married Teresa Bagioli, daughter of a wealthy and successful Italian singing teacher, in 1852, when he was 32 and she 15 or 16. Her grandfather, Lorenzo da Ponte, was Mozart’s librettist on such great operas as The Marriage of Figaro.

Sickles was a blatant womanizer and openly neglected his marriage. Starting in Spring, 1858, two years before the start of the Civil War, Teresa began her affair with Key. Months later, Sickles received an anonymous letter telling him about the relationship.

Sickles shooting Key

Soon after, Sickles fatally shot Key, including once in his groin. At the time, Sickles was a Congressman. Initially denying the romance, Teresa eventually offered a detailed written confession . When it was ruled inadmissible at trial, Sickles had it printed in the prominent periodical Harper’s Weekly.

During the trial, newspapers proclaimed Sickles was a hero for “saving all the ladies of Washington from this rogue named Key.” After doggedly campaigning for it, and more than three decades after the war, Sickles was given the Medal of Honor for his military service. Notably, he was one of the first war time commanders to support military roles and equal pay for African Americans.

Teresa Sickles

Teresa was widely condemned and died of tuberculosis at the age of 31. She is buried in Brooklyn’s Greenwood Cemetery, the final resting place of so many famous people, including Horace Greeley, Samuel Morse, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Frank Morgan (the ‘Wizard of Oz’), Elias Howe (inventor of the sewing machine), Theodore Roosevelt’s mother and father, Leonard Bernstein and many others.

Sickles and Teresa had one child, Laura Buchanan Sickles, who was neglected by her father and had a terrible life, with excessive drinking and, perhaps, one or more periods of prostitution. In 1891, when she was 38, she died of cirrhosis. She is buried next to her mother in Brooklyn.

American Presidents have often been the object of assassination attempts and the perpetrators have notably employed the insanity defense. Some attempts (Abraham Lincoln, in 1865, James Garfield in 1881, William McKinley in 1901 and John F. Kennedy in 1963) were successful. Arguments can easily be made that Lincoln’s and Kennedy’s deaths changed the course of history. Other assassination attempts (Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Rosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Donald Trump) did not succeed.

Richard Lawrence

Richard Lawrence

A British-born unemployed house painter attempted to shoot Andrew Jackson in 1835, the first known attempt to assassinate a sitting president of the United States. Both of his pistols failed to fire. At trial, Lawrence was found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent the rest of his life in various asylums.

John Schrank
In 1912, John Flammang (originally Johann Nepomuk) Schrank, a Milwaukee tavern owner born in Germany, shot at and wounded Theodore Roosevelt (the bullet remained lodged in his chest for the rest of his life). Schrank pleaded guilty but the Judge did not accept the plea. 

Screenshot

On the recommendation of a special panel convened to evaluate his mental status, he was declared insane and committed to the Wisconsin Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane where he stayed for 31 years until his death.

John Hinckley
In 1981, John Hinckley Jr. attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan as he was leaving a Washington hotel. Reagan and some of his aides were wounded. His press secretary, James Brady, was permanently disabled after being shot in the head. A successful and influential anti-gun lobbying group bears Brady’s name.

Screenshot

Hinckley was obsessed with the actress Jodie Foster. Hinckley stalked her while she was a Yale student. He stated that he shot at Reagan to prove his love for Foster. He previously followed President Jimmy Carter and was arrested in Nashville when three unloaded guns were found in his luggage. In 1981 he began to target the newly elected Reagan, after studying details of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy almost 20 years before.

After being shown to suffer severe mental illness Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was initially confined at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., an institution for

Ezra Pound, 1913

the criminally insane. The poet Ezra Pound had been sequestered there for 12 years because of his anti-American activities including virulent antisemitism.

As a medical student, I spent a month at St. Elizabeth’s, but that’s a story for a different time. For many years now it has been permanently closed.

Other instances of the insanity defense are notable.

Steven Steinberg 
Temporary insanity was the plea successfully argued when Steven Steinberg stabbed his wife to death in Phoenix in 1982. Steinberg’s wife, Elena, called a “Jewish American princess,” portrayed in trial as the villain, was stabbed 26 times by her husband who claimed he was sleepwalking, provoked by her excessive spending.

David Berkowitz

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In 1993, the “son of Sam,” David Berkowitz, claimed a demonic presence led to the multiple shooting murders he committed. His insanity defense failed and he was imprisoned. Despite numerous parole requests, he is still in prison.

Lorena Bobbittt
Also in 1993, Lorena Bobbitt was acquitted on the basis of temporary insanity after she cut off her husband, John’s, penis while he was sleeping. The organ was successfully replaced surgically within hours of the incident. She claimed he repeatedly beat and raped her. She cited his repeated infidelities and emotional abuse and also stated he forced her to have an abortion. The defense emphasized she had acted out of self-defense and temporary insanity. John was later acquitted of marital sexual assault but proceeded to have multiple interactions with the law. Lorena, four years later, was charged with assault for punching her mother, for which she was acquitted.

There have been many other instances where the insanity defense was employed, including the case of the serial killer Kenneth Bianchi in 1979, where it was not successful, and, both in 2002, Lee Boyd Malvo, the Washington, D.C. sniper, and Andrea Yates, who had severe postpartum depression and schizophrenia leading to her drowning her five children in their bathtub, where it was successful.

What to expect in the Reiner case

There have been countless other instances which have mirrored the M’Naghten defense. Alan Jackson, a highly regarded defense attorney, has not yet signaled his approach to defending Nick Reiner of the crimes of murdering his parents but it is inconceivable that this young man did not suffer from “… severe mental disease or defect …” which impaired his cognitive ability to form and execute a goal. In our era of hypercommunications, we will likely hear more about Reiner’s trial than we want.

This essay was originally devoted to understanding more about when the insanity plea was conceived and how it has been used over the years. The Reiner tragedy—and it is a tragedy for Rob Reiner, Michelle Reiner and Nick Reiner, as well as the other Reiner children and countless, devoted friends of the Reiner family—may not add that much to our understanding of why people murder. Some students of crime contend that being able to murder another human being requires a degree of mental derangement, sometimes temporary.

One of the peripheral lessons of writing this, for me, has been being reminded again how fascinating history can be. Although I knew I would encounter the name of Thomas Hodgkin (For more about Thomas Hodgkin, please read my previous blog: Humani nihil a se alienum putabit (nothing human was foreign to him) – Thomas Hodgkin – Permalink: https://stephenageller.com/2026/01/04/not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity/ ) I would never have guessed that this essay would include such diverse figures as Plato, the Romans and the Normans, Mozart, William Seward, Francis Scott Key and Ezra Pound.

This past year, even without the Reiner murders and the desecration of the Kennedy Center, has been like watching a pinball machine, with one unpredictable event after the other. Dismantling the machinery of government. Health decrees made by stupid, ignorant people. The shrinking of America’s role in the world concomitant with canceling international commitments for health and education. The ongoing catastrophe of Ukraine. Of the Middle East. Unlawful military action in the oceans. Reversal of obviously important and effective climate changes. Corruption to a degree never before seen. Attacks on the arts, science, education, the rule of law. The “gang that can’t shoot straight” is going to administer Venezuela when they can’t manage the United States?

And don’t forget the unnending lies.

The world has periods of chaos but there is no defense for the indecency, borderline competency, dishonorable and dishonest behavior that has replaced the heritage of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

There have been encouraging events, however. The gradual, but unequivocal decline in the popularity of the most incompetent White House resident ever helps improve the spirit, despite the dread I feel each day when first reading the morning newspaper or watching a news broadcast. The No Kings gatherings, in which I have participated, have been reasons to celebrate America and to again look forward to the future, including another, and likely more impressive No Kings celebration in the coming months. I keep a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator for the day when the Kennedy Center is once again the Kennedy Center, and we are no longer ruled by a tyrant. 

(Please note: As with all of my posts to this blog page, Jennifer Geller contributed by providing exceptional proofreading and, more importantly, excellent editorial suggestions)