Cite as: 504 U. S. 71 (1992)
Kennedy, J., dissenting
As provided by Louisiana law, and consistent with both federal criminal law and the law of a majority of the States, petitioner was found not guilty by reason of insanity under the traditional M'Naghten test. See La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 14:14 (West 1986); 18 U. S. C. § 17; M'Naghten's Case, 10 Cl. & Fin. 200, 8 Eng. Rep. 718 (1843); 1 LaFave & Scott § 4.2, at 436. Louisiana law provides a traditional statement of this test: "If the circumstances indicate that because of a mental disease or mental defect the offender was incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong with reference to the conduct in question, the offender shall be exempt from criminal responsibility." La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 14:14 (West 1986).
Because the M'Naghten test for insanity turns on a finding of criminal irresponsibility at the time of the offense, it is quite wrong to place reliance on the fact, as the majority does, that Louisiana does not contend that petitioner is now insane. See ante, at 78. This circumstance should come as no surprise, since petitioner was competent at the time of his plea, 563 So. 2d, at 1139, and indeed could not have entered a plea otherwise, see Drope v. Missouri, 420 U. S. 162, 171 (1975). Present sanity would have relevance if petitioner had been committed as a consequence of civil proceedings, in which dangerous conduct in the past was used to predict similar conduct in the future. It has no relevance here, however. Petitioner has not been confined based on predictions about future behavior but rather for past criminal conduct. Unlike civil commitment proceedings, which attempt to divine the future from the past, in a criminal trial whose outcome turns on M'Naghten, findings of past insanity and past criminal conduct possess intrinsic and ultimate significance.
The system here described is not employed in all jurisdictions. Some have supplemented the traditional M'Naghten test with the so-called "irresistible impulse" test, see 1 La-Fave & Scott § 4.1, at 427-428; others have adopted a test proposed as part of the Model Penal Code, see ibid.; and still
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