Madness and Revolution: The Impact of Radicalism on the Treason Trial of James Hadfield

Abstract

The insanity defense is a doctrine in the criminal law which excuses from punishment defendants who
commit crimes as the result of serious mental illness. However, the sorts of mental illness that qualify
for the defense, as well as the causal connection required between the illness and the act, have varied
widely across Anglo-American legal history. This thesis argues that historians have not sufficiently
considered the role that radicalism and social unrest have played in shaping the defense, and explores
the 1800 treason trial of James Hadfield for the attempted assassination of King George III, where
government fears of the French Revolution and associated English radicals helped to reshape the
insanity defense.