Penal Law § 40.15 · Article 40. Other Defenses Involving Lack of Culpability
Mental disease or defect
Verbatim from the official edition
Text — Law content up to date as of October 23, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
§ 40.15 Mental disease or defect.
In any prosecution for an offense, it is an affirmative defense that when the defendant engaged in the proscribed conduct, he lacked criminal responsibility by reason of mental disease or defect. Such lack of criminal responsibility means that at the time of such conduct, as a result of mental disease or defect, he lacked substantial capacity to know or appreciate either:
1. The nature and consequences of such conduct; or
2. That such conduct was wrong.
Source of truth
- Edition
- Law content up to date as of October 23, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
- Official file
- https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/laws/PEN40.15
- Text hash
- sha256 bee9d46a6920bc4726a633634297cc688fc60412c007d58122bf9aef51a0c6e8
- Composed by
- gen_ny_statutes.py 2026-11-10: the Senate's Open Legislation law tree (GET /api/3/laws/<ID>?full=true) read in document order; the Senate's PDF of the whole law (GET /pdf/laws/<ID>?full=true), read with PDFium, prints the same words in the same order
Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.