GUITEAU'S TEIAL. 



391 



challenged, and he had felt it incumbent on 

 him not to ignore a question so vital to the 

 rights of the accused. He had deemed it his 

 duty, therefore, to investigate the question 

 thoroughly. After a very exhaustive review 

 of the English and American authorities, he 

 expressed his conviction that the English au- 

 thority was decidedly in favor of jurisdiction 

 where the blow had taken place, and that in 

 this country there was a strong array of au- 

 thority in the same direction. He felt at 

 liberty to adopt and announce the doctrine 

 (which conformed to common sense), that the 

 jurisdiction was complete where the fatal 

 wound had been inflicted, and that, therefore, 

 the place of death was immaterial. Conse- 

 quently, it would be improper to grant the 

 thirteenth instruction prayed for by the de- 

 fense, because the offense charged might be 

 tried and conviction might follow under those 

 counts of the indictment which averred the 

 death to have occurred in the District of Co- 

 lumbia. For the same reason the fourteenth 

 instruction relating to jurisdiction had to be 

 denied. When it became his duty to charge 

 the jury in the case, it would be his effort to 

 expand and illustrate so much of those instruc- 

 tions as he considered correct; but, for the 

 present, he merely desired to express his opin- 

 ion sufficiently to guide the counsel in their 

 arguments to the jury. He then proceeded to 

 consider the first and second prayers of the 

 prosecution in connection with the third, fifth, 

 sixth, and eighth prayers of the defense. 



The first instruction asked for by the prose- 

 cution namely, that "the legal test of respon- 

 sibility where insanity is set up as defense for 

 alleged crime, is whether the accused at the 

 time of committing the act charged knew the 

 difference between right and wrong in respect 

 of such act " he regarded as correct. He re- 

 viewed at great length the questions involved 

 in the McN"aughton case, and quoted from tes- 

 timony given by Lord Justice Fitz James 

 Stephen before a parliamentary committee 

 which had before it, in 1874, a bill to define 

 the law of insanity. He referred to this, he 

 said, simply to show that the answers of the 

 judges in the McNaughton case had not since 

 been regarded as clearly establishing the prop- 

 osition that a mere capacity to know the law 

 of the land subjected persons to criminal re- 

 sponsibility. Since the McN"aughton case a 

 number of homicide cases had been tried at 

 nisi prius in England, and he had not been 

 able to find one in which a knowledge of the 

 law of the land had been laid down as a test. 

 In the United States there were numerous 

 cases that applied to a knowledge of right and 

 wrong in regard to the particular case, but the 

 instructions had been in the most vague and 

 general terms. He would therefore state his 

 own views, which he did as follows: 



To a sane man an act, whether morally wrong or 

 not, is wrong if it is in violation of the law of the land. 

 It can not be right for him, although he may think 



that independently of the law it would be. It can 

 not be right for him, although he may think it is right 

 notwithstanding the law, and that he may rightfully 

 commit it in violation of the law. But, while a sane 

 man is responsible for opinions contrary to law if car- 

 ried out in practice, an insane man is not held to the 

 same responsibility. He may know the law of the 

 land, but in his delusions he may insanely believe 

 that it is not the law for him, but that he is acting 

 under a higher ' authority which supersedes it. It, 

 therefore, I am to rule upon this proposition as pre- 

 sented, I grant it only with a qualification, and I give 

 as a substitute therefor my own (marked No. 1), aa 

 follows : 



No. 1. The legal test of responsibDity where insan- 

 ity is set up as a defense for alleged crime is whether 

 the accused at the time of committing the act charged 

 knew the difference between right and wrong in re- 

 spect of such act. Hence, in the present case, if the 

 ,j ury find that the accused committed the act charged 

 in the indictment, and at the time of the commission 

 of his crime knew what he was doing, and that what 

 he was doing was contrary to the law of the land, he 

 is responsible ; unless, in consequence of insane men- 

 tal delusions or other form of mental disorder, he waa 

 laboring under such defect of reason as to be incapa- 

 ble of understanding the obligation of the law of the 

 land and the duty and necessity of obedience to it, 

 and of understanding that his act was wrong because 

 it was in violation ot the law. 



I have prepared instruction No. 2, which embodies 

 all that I think is correct in the remaining instruc- 

 tions asked for by the Government, and in the first 

 four instructions asked for by the defense. It is aa 

 follows : 



No. 2. If the jury find that the defendant committed 

 the act charged, and at the time thereof knew what 

 he was doing, and that what he was doing was con- 

 trary to the law of the land, it constitutes no excuse, 

 even if it is true, that when ho committed the act ho 

 really believed that he was producing a great public 

 benefit, and that the death of the President was 

 required for the good of the American people ; nor 

 would such excuse be afforded by the fact that in the 

 commission of the act he was controlled bv a de- 

 praved moral sense, whether innate or acquired, or 

 by evil passions or indifference to moral obligations. 

 And even if the jury find that the defendant, as a re- 

 sult of his own reasoning and reflection, arrived at the 

 determination to kill the President, and as a further 

 result of his own reasoning and reflection believed 

 that his said purpose was approved, or suggested, or 

 inspired by the Deitv. such oelief would afford no 

 excuse. But it would be different, and he would not 

 be responsible criminally, if the act was done under 

 the influence and as the product of an insane mental 

 delusion that the Deity had commanded him to do 

 the act, which had taken possession of his mind not 

 as a result of his own reflections, but independently 

 of his own will and reason, and with such force as to 

 deprive him of the degree of reason necessary to dis- 

 tinguish between right and wrong as to the particular 

 act. In such case, even if he knew that the act was 

 a violation of the law of the land, he would not be re- 

 sponsible if his reason was so perverted by the in- 

 sanity that ho waa incapable of understanding the 

 obligation of the law of the land, and that the act waa 

 wrong under the obligation of that law and wrong in 

 itself. 



Judge Cox continued ns follows: 



In this connection 1 add the words " wrong in it- 

 self," because I can conceive a case in which one 

 mignt believe, insanely, that the law of the land pro- 

 vided no punishment for murder, and yet the person 

 might be perfectly aware of the moral enormity of the 

 crime. I would be unwilling to pronounce such a 

 person irresponsible. 



I have omitted from this instruction one important 

 feature of that asked for on the part of the defense. 



