Upon the general question of the removal of any insane convicts to the State Asylum, we indicated an opinion in our number for July, 1852, and farther inquiry and reflection confirms the doubt then expressed, whether a general State Lunatic Hospital should receive convicts of any class.
If an offender has been convicted and sentenced according to law, he must be regarded and received into the cell as a suitable subject of convict-discipline. A process of law so terminated, is tantamount to incontrovertible evidence, that the party is in all respects amenable to the penal sanctions of the law. Otherwise he is not a convict, but an oppressed and abused sufferer. Having thus been committed, he must abide the life of a convict. If his health fails, humane provision should be made for him in a proper apartment, called an infirmary or hospital, with proper attendance, medicine, nourishment, &c., but why should he be pardoned, removed or discharged? Sickness in prison is one of the risks he voluntarily takes in committing the offence. If he breaks a limb or loses an eye, it is what happens to honest men as well as convicts, and he can claim no exemption from such calamities, and must be satisfied with prison fare when they overtake him as a convict. Why should the failure or loss of mental soundness be a cause of discharging a prisoner, any more than the weakness or maiming of the body? Why should not provision be made within the prison-bounds for the proper care and treatment of this class of ailments, as well as any other? Certainly not because it is not practicable to do it, for the medical records show that the recoveries among convict-lunatics here and in England, bear quite as high a proportion to the cases, as in our best Insane Asylums. If it should be maintained that the proper room and attendance cannot be obtained, the same reason might be urged for discharging the sick and lame, that there was no room for an infirmary, nor for surgical operations, nor for nurses, &c. We do not see what reasonable ground can be urged for the removal of the former, which might not be quite as tenable in relation to the latter.
It seems to us that when the Commonwealth, whose peace and dignity have been violated by a breach of the law, seizes on the offender, and separates him from honest citizens, clearly proves his guilt, and commits him for punishment to hard labor in the penitentiary for a term of months or years, nothing should avail to discharge him from that sentence, except the discovery of some evidence of its injustice. It is assumed, of course, that he has been legally and fairly dealt with in the whole process of the prosecution, and that the sentence is as light as the law or the circumstances of the case will justify; and this being conceded, we confidently maintain that the State takes him into her custody as a convict, and that, as a convict she is bound to provide for him whatever he needs, whether in health or sickness, in strength or weakness, in life or death, until he has accomplished his full term.
We venture to make these suggestions the more plainly, because we perceive not a little confusion in the views which are gaining ground on the subject.
In the recent report of the Inspectors of the Eastern State Penitentiary, cases are mentioned of prisoners who were clearly insane when first sentenced to the Penitentiary. How this fact was proved in any case, does not appear. The question would be relieved of much embarrassment if it did. But the report hazards another and much graver remark, viz: that the “experience and observation” (of the Inspectors) “have convinced them that the commission of crime is more frequently connected with mental disease than courts or juries suspect.” We had supposed that the danger, if any, was in the opposite direction. It must be very rare, we apprehend, that the plea of insanity is not urged where there is the slightest pretence to sustain it. And courts and juries, in our country at least, have been regarded as quite sufficiently indulgent towards it whenever it is urged.
It is scarcely safe, as it seems to us, after conviction by due course of law, to go behind the proceedings and attempt to avert their legitimate consequences by alleging the existence of a fact which should have stayed them entirely. That property is taken, mischief committed, and violent deeds done by persons of insane mind and of course irresponsible for their acts, we all know; but these acts are not offences, nor are the perpetrators of them offenders, nor can they, by any process of law, be turned into convicts. Yet the time to show this (if it is not plainly apparent) is when they are arrested for such acts, and their state of mind is relied on to exempt them from any responsibility. If it is not shown then, it is our duty (in ordinary circumstances) forever after to hold our peace.
It is not our province to vindicate the established tribunals of the country from the charge of “presumption” or “inhumanity,” when they direct a maniac, who, in a paroxysm of his malady, has taken the life of his wife or his friend, to be confined within the cells of a penitentiary as one dangerous to society. But we suppose the community has a claim to be protected against the violence of the lawless, whether they are rendered so by the visitation of God or by the indulgence of depraved and malevolent passions.
That this protection can be made sure by existing arrangements in our State Hospital, or that adequate provision can be made therein without injuriously affecting the interests of third parties, we are not prepared to say. But we are well persuaded that proper provision for all classes of convicts, whatever their physical or mental condition, can be made in either of our State Penitentiaries; and we shall not cease to consider those institutions very imperfectly constructed or organized, so long as such provision is not made within their walls.
Before our readers pronounce judgment on these views, we trust they will take sober thought and established facts into their counsels.
While these sheets were passing through the press, we were favored with the report of the New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica, for the current year, in which the most emphatic remonstrance is made to sending thither persons acquitted of crime, on the ground of insanity, or convicts who become insane. The reasons are plainly stated: