Alaska Insanity Test

In Alaska the insanity test that is used is the M'Naghten test or M'Naghten rule. This test was to limit the insanity defense to cognitive insanity, a basic inability to distinguish right from wrong. "The M'Naghten rule, first formulated in England in 1843, defines a person as insane if at the time she committed the act she stands accused of, she was laboring under such a defect of reason, arising from a disease of the mind, that she could not tell or know the nature and quality of the act or, if she did not know it, that she did not know what she was doing was wrong. In other words, she could not tell "right from wrong" The M'Naghten rule is used in the majority of the states." LW

Siegal, Larry J. Introduction to Criminal Justice. 12 ed. Belmont, CA : Wadsworth,Cengage Learning, 2010. Print.