If, at the time of the alleged offense, it can be shown that the accused was laboring under such a defect of reason from disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of his act, or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing wrong, he was so insane that he could not commit a crime.6

Where insanity is the defense, the inquiry is always to be reduced to the single question of the capacity of the accused to discriminate between right and wrong at the time of the act.7

The true test of legal responsibility is not only good and evil, or right and wrong, but the power to choose the one and refrain from the other.8

Insanity, to be a complete defense, must be of such a degree as to create an uncontrollable impulse to do the act, by overriding the reason and judgment and obliterating the sense of right as to the particular act done, and depriving the accused of the power of choosing between right and wrong.9

5 Briggs vs. People, 219 Ill., 330- 343. 6 Mackin vs. State, 59 N. J., 495.

7 State vs. Harrison, 36 W. Va., 729.

8 Parsons vs. State, 81 Ala., 577.