Flanagan v. . People of the State of N.Y.

The judge, among other things, charged the jury that, "to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proven that, at the time of committing the act (the subject of the indictment), the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason from disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; and, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing wrong;" and to this part of the charge the prisoner, by his counsel, excepted.

The part of the charge excepted to was in the language employed by TINDAL, C.J., in McNaughton's Case (10…