GUITEAU'S TRIAL. 



395 



might justly doubt on which side, under all the cir- 

 cumstances, the truth lay, and in such case the ac- 

 cused party was entitled to the benefit of the doubt. 

 All that a jury could be expected to do was to be rea- 

 sonably and morally certain of the facts which they 

 declared to be their verdict. In illustration of this 

 point, Judge Cox quoted the charge of Chief- Justice 

 Shaw, of Massachusetts, in the case of the Common- 

 wealth against Webster. 



With reference to the evidence in this case very 

 little comment was required by the court, except upon 

 one question the others being hardly matters of dis- 

 pute. That the defendant fired at, and shot, the de- 

 ceased President was abundantly proved ; that the 

 wound was fatal had been testified to by the surgeons, 

 who were competent to speak, and they were uncon- 

 tradicted ; that the homicide was committed with 

 malice aforethought (it' the defendant were capable 

 of criminal intent or malice), could hardly bo gain- 

 said. It was not necessary to prove that any special 

 or express hatred or malice was entertained by the 

 accused toward the deceased. It was sufficient to 

 prove that the act was done by deliberate intent, as 

 distinct from an act done under a certain impulse in 

 the heat of blood and without previous malice. Evi- 

 dence had been exhibited to the jury tending to show 

 that the defendant admitted in nis own handwriting 

 that he had conceived the idea of " removing the 

 President," as he called it, six weeks before the shoot- 

 ing ; that he had deliberated upon it and come to the 

 determination to do it, and that about two weeks be- 

 fore he accomplished it he stationed himself at certain 

 points to do the act, but for some reason was pre- 

 vented. His preparation for it by the purchase of a 

 pistol had been shown. All these facts came up to 

 the full measure of the proof required to establish 

 what the law denominated malice aforethought. The 

 jury would find little difficulty in reaching a conclu- 

 sion as to all the elements that made up the crime 

 charged in the indictment, except it might be as to 

 the one of sound mind, memory, and discretion but 

 that was only 

 sane man. 



He had already said 

 sense that makes him irresponsible can not commit a 

 crime. The defense of insanity had been so abused 

 as to be brought into great discredit. It was the last 

 resort in cases of unquestioned guilt. It had been an 

 excuse for juries to bring in a verdict of acquittal when 

 there was a public sympathy for the accused, and es- 

 pecially where there was provocation for the homi- 

 cide according to public sentiment, but not according 

 to law. For that reason the defense of insanity was 

 viewed with disfavor, and public sentiment was hos- 

 tile to it. Nevertheless, if insanity were established 

 to a degree necessary, it was a perfect defense for an 

 indictment for murder, and must be allowed full 

 weight. It would be observed that in this case there 

 was no trouble with any question about what might 

 be called total insanity, such as raving mania or ab- 

 solute imbecility, in which all exercise of reason is 

 wanting, and where there is no recognition of persons 

 or things or their relations. But there was a debata- 

 ble border-lino between sanity and insanity, and there 

 was often great difficulty in determining on which 

 side of this line a person was to be put. There were 

 cases in which a man's mental faculties generally 

 seemed to be in full vigor, but where on one single 

 subject he seemed to be deranged. A man was pos- 

 sessed, perhaps, by a belief of something absurd 

 which he could not be reasoned out of (what was 

 called an insane delusion), or ho might have some mor- 

 bid propensity, seemingly in harsh discord with the 

 rest of his intellectual and moral nature. Those were 

 cases which, for want of a better term, were called 

 partial insanity. Sometimes its existence and some- 

 times its limits were doubtful and indefinable, and in 

 those cases it was difficult to determine whether the 

 patient had passed the line of moral or legal accounta- 

 bility for his actions. 



The jury would bear in mind that a man did not 



much control over them as in health. He might com- 

 mit offenses, too, with which his infirmity had noth- 

 ing to do. He might be sane as to the crime he com- 

 mitted, might understand its nature ? and might be 

 governed by the same motives in relation to it as other 

 people, while on other subjects having no relations 

 whatever to the crime he might be the victim of delu- 

 sion. Whenever this partial insanity was relied on 

 as a defense, it must appear that the crime charged 

 was a product of the delusion or other morbid condi- 

 tion, and connected with it as effect with cause, and 

 that it was not the result of sane reasoning which the 

 party rnujht be capable of, notwithstanding his limit- 

 ed and circumscribed disorder. Assuming that that 

 infirmity of mind had a direct influence on crime, 

 the difficulty was to fix the character of the disorder 

 which fixed responsibility or irresponsibility in law. 

 The outgoings of the judicial mind on that subject 

 had not oeen always entirely satisfactory nor in har- 

 mony with the conclusions of medical science. Courts 

 had, in former times, passed upon the law in regard 

 to insanity without regard to the medical aspect of 

 the subject ; but it would be only properly dealt with 

 by a concurrence of harmonious treatment between 

 the two sciences of law and medicine. The courts 

 had, therefore, adopted and again discarded one the- 

 ory after another in the effort to find some common 

 ground on which to stand, and his effort would be to 

 give to the jury the results most commonly accepted by 

 the courts. It would be well to say a word to tne jury 

 as to the kind of evidence by which courts and juries 

 were guided in this difficult and delicate inquiry. 

 That subtile essence called mind defied, of course, ocu- 

 lar inspection. It could only be known by its mani- 

 festations. The test was as to whether the conduct of 

 the man and his thoughts and emotions conformed 

 with those of persons of sound mind, or whether they 

 contrasted harshly with it. By that a judgment was 

 formed as to a man's soundness of mind. And for 

 that reason evidence was admissible to show conduct 

 and language that would indicate to the general mind 

 some morbid condition of the intellectual powers. 

 Everything relating to his mental and physical his- 

 tory was, therefore, relevant, because any conclusion 

 on the subject must often rest on a large number of 

 facts ; and letters, spontaneously written, afforded ono 

 of the best indications of mental condition. Evidence 

 of insanity in the parents was always pertinent ; but 

 juries were never allowed to infer insanity of the ac- 

 cused from the mere fact of its existence in the ances- 

 tors. When, however, there was evidence tending to 

 show insane conduct on the part of the accused, evi- 

 dence of insanity in the ancestors was admissible as 

 corroborative of the others. Therefore it was that, in 

 this case, the defense had been allowed to intioduco 

 evidence covering the whole life of the accused and 

 reaching also his family antecedents. In a case so 

 full of 'detail, he should deem it to be his duty to call 

 the attention of the jury to particular parts of it, but 

 ho wished the jury distinctly to understand that it 

 was their province, and not bis, to decide upon the 

 facts ; and if he, at any time, seemed to express or 

 intimate an opinion on the facts (which ho did not 

 design to do) it would not bo binding on them ; but 

 they must draw their own conclusions from the evi- 

 dence. 



The instructions which ho had already given to tho 

 jury imported that the true test of criminal responsi- 

 bility, where the defense of insanity was interposed, 

 was whether tho accused had sufficient use of his rea- 

 son to understand the nature of the act with which ho 

 was charged, and to understand that it was wrong for 

 him to commit it. If those were tho facts, ho was 

 criminally responsible for the act, whatever peculiari- 

 ties might bo shown of him in other respects. On tho 

 other hand, if his reason were so defective, in conso- 



