Brown suffered from the delusion that he was a special agent of God. He frequently experienced hallucinations in the form of hearing divine commands. Brown believed God told him several times that the local Roman Catholic bishop was corrupting the diocese into heresy, and that the bishop should be "done away with." Brown, a devout Catholic, conceived of himself as a religious martyr. He knew that shooting bishops for heresy is against the criminal law. He nevertheless carefully planned how he might kill the bishop. One evening Brown shot the bishop, who was then taken to the hospital where he died two weeks later. Brown told the police he assumed the institutions of society would support the ecclesiastical hierarchy and he expected to be persecuted for his God-inspired actions. Psychiatrist Stevens examined Brown and found that Brown suffered from schizophrenic psychosis, that in the absence of this psychosis, he would not have shot the bishop, and that because of the psychosis, Brown found it extremely difficult to determine whether he should obey the specific command that he do away with the bishop or the general commandment "Thou shalt not kill." Brown was charged with murder. If Brown interposes an insanity defense and the jurisdiction in which he is tried has adopted only the M'Naghten test of insanity, then the strongest argument for the defense under that test is that
Brown did not know the nature of the act he was performing. Brown did not know that his act was morally wrong Brown did not know the quality of the act he was performing. Brown's acts were the product of a mental disease.