Durham v. United States (1954)

Durham v. United States, 214 F.2d 862 (D.C. Cir. 1954),[1] is a criminal case articulating what became known as the Durham rule for juries to find a defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity: "an accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or mental defect."[2][3]:

Durham v. United States
CourtUnited States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Full case nameMonte Durham v. United States
ArguedMarch 19, 1954
DecidedJuly 1, 1954
Citation(s)214 F.2d 862; 94 U.S. App. D.C. 228; 45 A.L.R. 2d 1430
Case history
Subsequent action(s)Petition for rehearing en banc denied, September 10, 1954
Court membership
Judge(s) sittingHenry White Edgerton, David L. Bazelon, George Thomas Washington
Case opinions
MajorityBazelon, joined by a unanimous court
Keywords

It was to enable psychiatrists to "inform the jury of the character of [the defendant's mental disease" so that a jury could be "guided by wider horizons of knowledge concerning mental life"[4] so that juries could make determinations based on expert testimony about the disease.[5] It was patterned on State v. Pike.[6][5] It was adopted by only two states, for a short time but is still influential on debate over legal insanity.[5] The decision was criticized for leaving a jury with no standard to judge impairment of reason or control, for not defining mental disease, and for leaving the jury dependent on expert testimony.[5]

References
  1. Durham v. United States, 214 F.2d 862 (D.C. Cir. 1954).
  2. Durham, 214 F.2d at 874-75.
  3. Criminal Law - Cases and Materials, 7th ed. 2012, Wolters Kluwer Law & Business; John Kaplan, Robert Weisberg, Guyora Binder, ISBN 978-1-4548-0698-1,
  4. Durham, 214 F.2d at 876.
  5. Insanity, Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice, 1983; Abraham Goldstein; pp736-40
  6. State v. Pike, 49 N.H. 399 (1869).
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