Reports of Trials for Murder by Poisoning; / by Prussic Acid, Strychnia, Antimony, Arsenic, and Aconita. Including the trials of Tawell, W. Palmer, Dove, Madeline Smith, Dr. Pritchard, Smethurst, and Dr. Lamson, with chemical introduction and notes on the poisons used

by G. Lathom Browne; active 19th century C. G. Stewart

On re-examination, he said:—

“There are dangerous wards in some asylums, but I should not expect to find the greatest number of impulsive cases in that ward. Sometimes impulsive lunatics are dangerous. The keepers have an influence over them—a mental influence. They formerly worked on their fears, and thus kept patients under control. There is a madness which consists in a propensity to kill. If a stranger was left with such a one in a room alone, I should expect him to exercise his propensity and kill him; and yet, probably, that patient would yield his keeper obedience. Probably the fear of some chastisement would induce fear of his keeper.”

THE JUDGE’S CHARGE.

The greater portion of Baron Bramwell’s charge was necessarily occupied by reading over and commenting on the evidence produced by the prosecution—that the death of the wife had been due to the administration of strychnia, and that the prisoner had opportunities of administering it. The evidence on these points has been already so fully reported that it is needless to give this portion of his exhaustive summing-up. His remarks on the rule of law on the plea of insanity, and on the nature of the insanity suggested by the medical witnesses, are too valuable to be omitted.

“The rules of law,” said the learned Baron, “are that it must be clearly proved that, at the time of committing the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing wrong. If the accused was conscious of the act he did, he is punishable; and what you have to consider is, had he sufficient degree of sanity to know he was doing wrong? With respect to delusions the law is the same. According to the law, as I lay it down to you on the highest authority, to exempt a man from the penal consequence of his act, the act being contrary to the law, you must be of opinion that at the time he did the act he was not conscious that it was one he ought not to do; for if he was conscious that it was contrary to law, he is punishable. You must be satisfied that he had not a sufficient degree of reason to know that he was doing an act that was wrong—of course that means an act prohibited by law: because a man might imagine that the thing was a right thing to do, and it might not be contrary to law. He might think it right to take from the rich and give to the poor. But if he did it, not knowing it was wrong, he must not know that the thing which he did was what the law would punish him for. It is not necessary for me to justify the law, or for you to approve it. We have only to administer it. Don’t, however, suppose for a moment that I doubt the reasonableness of it.

“Let me put a case to you. A man labours under a delusion. He thinks I have done him wrong—have traduced his character. He waylays and murders me. Why should he be acquitted? Suppose he was wronged, that would not justify his taking away my life. Suppose, again, a person imagined some part of his person to be made of glass, or had swallowed something, or got something wrong in his inside. Imagine that man deliberately waylaying a person, knowing that he possessed property, to take it from him, and afterwards to conceal what he had done, and to act in every other respect as a rational man. Why should he be held irresponsible for this because he was irrational in other respects?

“Why should punishment be administered at all? It was not inflicted on a man who had committed a crime because he had inflicted that upon others, but in order to hold out an example to deter other people. If you punish an insane man, you hold out no example, because you are punishing a man who thinks he is doing right. But take the case of a man who is labouring under a delusion—under an evil propensity. If you punish him when he does wrong, or any other person with a similar propensity to commit that offence, and he knows, that when he indulged in it, or that when somebody else did, he was punished for it, that will deter him from repeating or from doing that act. Take the case of a man who has a strong propensity to thieve—a strong desire on him to do it; his intellect not very strong, and he knows that he is punished if he does such an act: do not you think, if he is punished, it will deter him from doing it again? There cannot be a doubt that it is so; and if you were to announce to all the world, that a man who has a strong propensity to an evil, that a person in his condition, shall not be punished, you take away from such persons the only thing that would deter them from committing the evil. Take a man of a weak mind and strong animal propensities, and it will not deter him from committing such an act.”

Again, after going carefully through the evidence in the case, and pointing out the application of the different classes of proofs, the learned Baron said that “he thought none of the instances of strange conduct adduced when the prisoner was a boy evidence of insanity more than might be found in the conduct of a perverse, ill-conducted boy;” and contrasted the opinions of the witnesses as to his being almost an idiot with the letters written by him, which exhibited no traces of mental incapacity.[88] In commenting on the opinions of the medical men of experience in insanity, he adopted the judgment of Dr. Lushington in the Dyce Sombre case, “that the facts to which they depose, and not their opinions alone, were of weight;” and added “that he sincerely believed that the jury were as capable of judging as these mad doctors.”

“Two of them,” continued the learned judge, “were of opinion that the contemplation of a crime constituted insanity, if it were only contemplated enough. Then it was said that a man who had a propensity to vice, to cruelty, to crime, was insane. Take the case of a man found guilty at these assizes of a crime. It is found that he has twice been convicted before and in prison half a dozen times, and that he has a general propensity to commit crime. In such a case, why should not Dr. Williams come forward and say, “You are wrong. He is insane; you ought not to punish him.” If they believed these experts you would take away protection from the community, because they would have a check less to prevent the commission of crime. It would be affectation in him to say that he did not set a value on this scientific evidence. But he would rather take his own independent opinion, than that of others, on the facts. But it was not for him to do more than comment, and for the jury to judge of its value—of the conduct of the prisoner, of his letters, and of the arguments before them.”