Courts and Criminals

by Arthur Cheney Train

After a comparatively short period of deliberation the jury acquitted the prisoner "on the ground of insanity," which may have meant either one of two things: (a) that they had a reasonable doubt in their own minds that Thew knew that he was doing wrong when he committed the murder—something hard for the layman to believe, or (b) that, realizing that he was undoubtedly the victim of mental disease, they refused to follow the strict legal test.

Nearly two years had elapsed since the homicide; over a hundred thousand dollars had been spent upon the case; every corner of the community had been deluged with detailed accounts of unspeakable filth and depravity; the moral tone of society had been depressed; and the only element which had profited by this whole lamentable and unnecessary proceeding had been the sensational press. Yet the sole reason for it all was that the law of the land in respect to insane persons accused of crime was hopelessly out of date.

The question of how far persons who are victims of diseased mind shall be held criminally responsible for their acts has vexed judges, jurors, doctors, and lawyers for the last hundred years. During that time, in spite of the fact that the law has lagged far behind science in the march of progress, we have blundered along expecting our juries to reach substantial justice by dealing with each individual accused as most appeals to their enlightened common sense.

And the fact that they have obeyed their common sense rather than the law is the only reason why our present antiquated and unsatisfactory test of who shall be and who shall not be held "responsible" in the eyes of the law remains untouched upon the statute-books. Because its inadequacy is so apparent, and because no experienced person seriously expects juries to apply it consistently, it fairly deserves first place in any discussion of present problems.

Thanks to human sympathy, the law governing insanity has had comparatively few victims, but the fact remains that more than one irresponsible insane man has swung miserably from the scaffold. But "hard cases" do more than "make bad law," they make lawlessness. A statute systematically violated is worse than no statute at all, and exactly in so far as we secure a sort of justice by evading the law as it stands, we make a laughing-stock of our procedure.

The law is, simply, that any person is to be held criminally responsible for a deed unless he was at the time laboring under such a defect of reason as not to know the nature and quality of his act and that it was wrong.

This doctrine first took concrete form in 1843, when, after a person named McNaughten, who had shot and killed a certain Mr. Drummond under an insane delusion that the latter was Sir Robert Peel, had been acquitted, there was such popular uneasiness over the question of what constituted criminal responsibility that the House of Lords submitted four questions to the fifteen judges of England asking for an opinion on the law governing responsibility for offences committed by persons afflicted with certain forms of insanity. It is unnecessary to set forth at length these questions, but it is enough to say that the judges formulated the foregoing rule as containing the issue which should be submitted to the jury in such cases.*

* The questions propounded to the judges and their answers are here
given:

Question 1.—"What is the law respecting alleged crimes committed by persons afflicted with insane delusion in respect of one or more particular subjects or persons, as, for instance, where, at the time of the commission of the alleged crime, the accused knew he was acting contrary to law, but did the act complained of with a view, under the influence of insane delusion, of redressing or revenging some supposed grievance or injury, or of producing some supposed public benefit?

Answer 1.-"Assuming that your lordships' inquiries are confined to those persons who labor under such partial delusions only, and are not in other respects insane, we are of opinion that, notwithstanding the accused did the act complained of with a view, under the influence of insane delusion, of redressing or revenging some supposed grievance or injury, or of producing some public benefit, he is, nevertheless, punishable, according to the nature of the crime committed, if he knew at the time of committing such crime that he was acting contrary to law, by which expression we understand your lordships to mean the law of the land.