396 



GUITEAU'S TRIAL. 



quence of brain-disease, that he could not understand 

 what he was doing, or could not understand that what 

 he was doing was wrong, he ought to be treated as an 

 irresponsible lunatic. As the law assumed every one, 

 at the outset, to be sane and responsible, the question 

 was, What was there in this case to show the contrary 

 as to this defendant ? A jury was not warranted in 

 inferring that a man was insane from the mere fact of 

 his committing a crime, or from the enormity of the 

 crime, because the law presumes that there is a bad 

 motive, and that the crime is prompted by malice, if 

 nothing else appears. Perhaps the easiest way for the 

 jury to examine into the subject was, first to satisfy 

 themselves about the condition of the prisoner's mind 

 for a reasonable period of time before any conception 

 of the assassination had entered it, ana also at the 

 present time, and then consider what evidence exists as 

 to a different condition of mind at the time of the com- 

 mission of the act. He should not spend any time on 

 the first questionj because to examine it at all would 

 require a review of the evidence relating to over twenty 

 years of the prisoner's life, and this had been so ex- 

 haustively discussed by counsel that any thing he could 

 Bay would be a wearisome repetition. It was enough 

 to say that, on the one side, this evidence was sup- 

 posea to show a chronic condition of insanity before 

 the crime, and, on the other side, to show an excep- 

 tionally quick intelligence and decided powers of 

 discrimination. The jury would have to draw its own 

 conclusions. Was the prisoner's ordinary, permanent, 

 chronic condition of mind such that he was unable to 

 understand the nature of his actions, and to distin- 

 guish between right and wrong in his conduct ? Was 

 he subjectj all the^time, to insane delusions, which de- 

 stroyed his power so to distinguish ; and did those 

 continue down to, and embrace, the act for which he 

 is on trial ? If so, he was simply an irresponsible lu- 

 natic. On the other hand, had no the ordinary intel- 

 ligence of sane people, so that he could distinguish 

 between right and wrong as to his actions ? If another 

 person had committed the assassination, would the 

 prisoner have appreciated the wickedness of it ? Would 

 he have understood the character of the act and its 

 wrongfulncss if another person had suggested it to 

 him ? The jury must consider these questions in their 

 own mind. If the jury were satisfied that his ordi- 

 nary and chronic condition was that of sanity at least 

 so far that he knew the character of his own actions, 

 and how far they were right or wrong and that he 

 was not under any permanent insane delusion which 

 destroyed his power of discriminating between right 

 and wrong, then the remaining inquiry was, Avhethcr 

 there was any special insanity connected with this 

 crime. It would be seen that the reliance of the de- 

 fense was the existence of an insane delusion in the 

 prisoner's mind which so perverted his reason as to 

 incapacitate him from perceiving the difference be- 

 tween right and wrong as to this particular act. 



As a part of the history of judicial sentiment on this 

 subjectj and by way of illustrating the difference be- 

 tween insane delusions and responsibility, he would 

 refer the jury to a celebrated case in English history 

 which had already been commented onln the argu- 

 ments. Judge Cox here quoted from the opinions of 

 the judges in the McNaughton case and from some 

 American authorities on the same subject. He went 

 on to say f hat the subject of insane delusion played an 

 important part in this case and demanded careful con- 

 sideration. The subject was treated to a limited ex- 

 tent in judicial decisions, but more was learned about 

 it from works of medical jurisprudence and from ex- 

 pert testimony. Sane people were sometimes said to 

 have delusions proceeding from temporary disorders 

 and from mistakes in the senses. Sometimes they 

 speculated on matters beyond the scope of human 

 knowledge, but delusions in sane people were always 

 susceptible of being corrected and removed by evi- 

 dence and argument. On the contrary, insane delu- 

 sions, according to all testimony, were unreasoning 

 and incorrigible. Those who had them believed in 



the existence of facts which were either impossible 

 absolutely or impossible at least under the circum- 

 stances of the individual. A man might, with no 

 reason for it, believe that another was plotting against 

 his life, or that he himself was the owner of untold 

 wealth, or that he had invented something which 

 would revolutionize the world, or that he was the 

 President of the United States, or Christ, or God, or 

 that he was inspired by God to do a certain act, or 

 that he had a glass limb, and those were cases of in- 

 sane delusion. Generally, the delusion centered around 

 the patient himself, his rights or his wrongs. It cume 

 and went independently of the exercise of will and 

 reason, like the phantom of a dream. It was, in fact, 

 the waking dream of the insane, in which ideas pre- 

 sented themselves to the mind as real facts. The 

 most certain thing was, that an insane delusion was 

 never the result of reasoning and reflection ; was not 

 generated by the mind, could not be dispelled by them. 

 A man might reason himself, or be reasoned by others, 

 into absurd opinions and be persuaded into impracti- 

 cable schemes, but he could not be reasoned or per- 

 suaded into insanity or insane delusions. Whenever 

 evidence was found of an insane delusion, it was found 

 that the insane delusion did not relate to mere senti- 

 ment or theory, or abstract questions in laws, politics, 

 or religion. All these were subjects of opinions, 

 and were founded on reasoning and reflection. Such 

 opinions were often absurd in the extreme. Some 

 persons believed in animal magnetism, in spiritualism, 

 and other like matters, in a degree which seemed ab- 

 surd to other people. There was no absurdity in re- 

 gard to religious, political, and social questions that 

 had not its sincere supporters. Those opinions might 

 arise from natural weakness, bad reasoning powers, 

 ignorance of men and things, fraudulent imposture, 

 and often from perverted moral sentiment ; but still 

 they were opinions founded on some kind of evidence, 

 and liable to be abandoned on better information or 

 on sounder reasoning, but they were not insane delu- 

 sions. An insane delusion was the coinage of a dis- 

 eased brain, which defies reason and ridicule, and 

 throws into disorder all the springs of human action. 



Before asking the jury to apply these considerations 

 to the facts in this case, he wished to premise one or 

 two things. The question for the jury to determine 

 was, What was the condition of the prisoner's mind at 

 the time when this project was executed ? If he were 

 sufficiently sane then to be responsible, it mattered 

 not what might have been his condition before or 

 after. Still, evidence had been properly admitted as 

 to his previous and subsequent condition, because it 

 threw light, prospectively and retrospectively,, on his 

 condition at the time. Inasmuch as these disorders 

 were of gradual growth and of indefinite continuance, 

 if he were insane shortly before or shortly after the 

 commission of the crime, it was natural to infer that 

 he was so at the time. But still, all the evidence 

 must center around the time when the deed was done. 

 The jury had heard a good deal of evidence respecting 

 the peculiarities of the prisoner through a long period 

 of time before this occurrence, and it was claimed on 

 the part of the defense that he was during all that 

 time subject to delusions that were calculated to dis- 

 turb his reason, and to throw it off its balance. The 

 only materiality of that evidence was the probability 

 which it might afford of the defendant's liability to 

 such disorders of mind, and the corroboration which 

 it might yield to other evidence tending to show such 

 disorder at the time of the commission of the crime. 

 The jury must determine whether at the time the hom- 

 icide was committed the defendant was laboring under 

 any insane delusion prompting or impelling him to do 

 the deed. Naturally, they would look first to any ex- 

 planation of the act that might have been made by the 

 defendant himself at the time, or immediately before 

 or after. Several papers had been laid before them 

 that had been in the prisoner's possession, and that 

 purported to assign the motive for the deed. In the 

 address to the American people of the 16th of June he 



