2021 Georgia Code
Title 16 - Crimes and Offenses
Chapter 3 - Defenses to Criminal Prosecutions
Article 1 - Responsibility
§ 16-3-3. Delusional Compulsion

A person shall not be found guilty of a crime when, at the time of the act, omission, or negligence constituting the crime, the person, because of mental disease, injury, or congenital deficiency, acted as he did because of a delusional compulsion as to such act which overmastered his will to resist committing the crime.

(Code 1933, § 26-703, enacted by Ga. L. 1968, p. 1249, § 1.)

- Mental capacity as it relates to competency to stand trial and as it relates to culpability for criminal acts, §§ 17-7-129,17-7-130,17-7-131.

- For article discussing the theory of insanity in criminal law, see 15 Mercer L. Rev. 399 (1964). For annual survey on criminal law, see 65 Mercer L. Rev. 79 (2013). For article, "An Empirical Assessment of Georgia's Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Standard to Determine Intellectual Disability in Capital Cases," see 33 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 553 (2017). For note comparing the M'Naghten Rule and the irresistible impulse test for legal tests of insanity, see 14 Mercer L. Rev. 418 (1963). For comment, "Saving the Deific Decree Exception to the Insanity Defense in Illinois: How a Broad Interpretation of 'Religious Command' May Cure Establishment Clause Concerns," see 46 J. Marshall L. Rev. 56 (2013).

ANALYSIS

• General Consideration
• Application

OPINIONS OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

Definitions of insanity are inapplicable to instructions to physician.

- In view of fact that former Code 1933, § 27-2602 (see now O.C.G.A. § 17-10-61) specifically requires that inquiry into whether person convicted of capital felony offense has become insane be directed to alleged insanity occurring subsequent to conviction, definitions of insanity as stated in former Code 1933, §§ 26-702 and 26-703 (see now O.C.G.A. §§ 16-3-2 and16-3-3) are inapplicable and should not be given in written instructions to physicians appointed pursuant to Georgia law; since basic issue is the individual's sanity at the time subsequent to conviction, or in effect, the individual's present sanity, the appropriate test should be that as employed upon a special plea of insanity. 1976 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 76-123.

RESEARCH REFERENCES

Am. Jur. 2d.

- 21 Am. Jur. 2d, Criminal Law, § 47 et seq.

- Remedy of one convicted of crime while insane, 10 A.L.R. 213; 121 A.L.R. 267.

Irresistible impulse as an excuse for crime, 70 A.L.R. 659; 173 A.L.R. 391.

Effect of voluntary drug intoxication upon criminal responsibility, 73 A.L.R.2d 12.

Modern status of rules as to burden and sufficiency of proof of mental irresponsibility in criminal case, 17 A.L.R.3d 146.

Amnesia as affecting capacity to commit crime or stand trial, 46 A.L.R.3d 544.

Drug addiction or related mental state as defense to criminal charge, 73 A.L.R.3d 16.

Admissibility and prejudicial effect of evidence, in criminal prosecution, of defendant's involvement with witchcraft, satanism, or the like, 18 A.L.R.5th 804.

Qualification of nonmedical psychologist to testify as to mental condition or competency, 72 A.L.R.5th 529.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as defense to murder, assault, or other violent crime, 4 A.L.R.7th 5.