INSANITY AS A DEFENSE FOR CRIME. 



433 



in the States of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, 

 Ohio, Kentucky, Minnesota, and Iowa. The 

 question of responsibility is left, in a general 

 way, to the jury, in New Hampshire, Indiana, 

 Illinois, Michigan, and Kansas. 



The rule of evidence as to the proof of in- 

 sanity has also been the subject of divergent 

 views and opinions. From these, three different 

 rules have been evolved : 1. Insanity must be 

 proved by a preponderance of evidence ; 2. 

 Insanity must be proved beyond a reasonable 

 doubt; and, 3. If the jury have a reason- 

 able doubt of sanity, they must acquit. Eng- 

 lish authority is strongly in favor of the po- 

 sition that, when insanity is pleaded by the 

 defense, it must, in the language of the judges, 

 in their answers in regard to McNaughten's 

 case, be "clearly proved." In the United 

 States there is some conflict and inconsistency 

 in the decisions, but New Jersey seems to 

 stand alone in requiring the defense to prove 

 the insanity beyond a reasonable doubt. The 

 burden of proof is held to be upon the prisoner, 

 but the degree of proof is not distinctly defined, 

 in the States of Massachusetts, Maine, Pennsyl- 

 vania, Delaware, Virginia, Ohio, Georgia, Ala- 

 bama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas, 

 Minnesota, and California. The same appears 

 to be the case in the Federal courts. In New 

 Hampshire, New York, Indiana. Illinois, Ken- 

 tucky, Kansas, Tennessee, Michigan, Nebraska, 

 and North Carolina, it has been generally held 

 that, where the jury have a reasonable doubt 

 of the prisoners sanity, they must acquit him. 

 The extremes have been presented in the con- 

 tiguous States of New York and New Jersey. 

 In the case of Spencer, in the latter State, 

 Chief-Justice Hornblower said that " every 

 man is presumed to be sane until the contrary 

 is clearly proved. . . . The proof of insanity 

 at the time of committing the act ought to be 

 as clear and satisfactory, in order to acquit him 

 on the ground of insanity, as the proof of com- 

 mitting the act ought to be in order to find a 

 sane man guilty." In the case of McCann, in 

 New York, on the other hand, the judge said : 

 " If there be a reasonable doubt about the act 

 of killing, all will concede that the prisoner is 

 entitled to the benefit of it ; and if there be 

 any doubt about the will, the faculty of the 

 prisoner to discern between right and wrong, 

 why should he be deprived of the benefit of it, 

 when both the act and the will are necessary 

 to make out the crime ? " In the case of Cole, 

 tried for killing Hiscock in a fit of jealousy, on 

 account of the alleged seduction of his (Cole's) 

 wife, the jury, in asking for further instruc- 

 tions, stated that they " found the prisoner to 

 have been sane at the moment before and the 

 moment after the killing; but they were in 

 doubt as to his sanity on the instant of the 

 homicide." Judge Hogeboom charged the jury 

 that "they must give the prisoner the benefit 

 of the doubt, if they had such rational doubt, 

 founded upon the evidence, and could believe 

 such doubt to be well founded upon such con- 

 VOL. xxi. 28 A 



dition of the case as was presented by this 

 statement of the jury." 



On the 2d of December, 1881, the trial of 

 Elizabeth Coleman for the murder of George 

 T. Coles was completed in the Court of Oyer 

 and Terminer in the city of New York. The 

 charge of Chief- Justice Davis to the jury was 

 as follows : 



Insanity is usually spoken of, both in common lan- 

 guage and in the books, as a defense to crime. But it 

 is no defense, because, where the insanity recognized 

 by the law exists, there can be no crime to defend. 

 An insane person is incapable of crime. He is devoid, 

 both in morals and in law, of the elements essential to 

 the constitution of crime, and hence is an object of 

 pity and protection, and not of punishment. There- 

 fore, whenever it is established that a party accused 

 of crime was, at the time of its alleged commission, 

 insane within the established rules of the criminal law, 

 lie is entitled to acquittal on the ground of innocence, 

 because of incapacity to commit the offense, however 

 monstrous his physical act may appear. Both human- 

 ity and the law revolt against the conviction and pun- 

 ishment of such a person. But insanity is a condition 

 easily asserted, and sometimes altogether too easily 

 accepted. Hence juries, while they should be care- 

 ful to see to it that no really insane person is found 

 guilty of crime, should be equally careful that no 

 guilty person escapes under an ill-founded pretext of 

 insanity. 



It is important that juries on trials of alleged crime 

 should clearly understand what insanity is, within the 

 established rules of the criminal law. "Without such 

 rules the administration of justice in such cases would 

 be dependent upon the sliifting caprices of judges, or 

 the equally unsubstantial passions or prejudices of 

 jurors. In this State the test of responsibility for 

 criminal acts, where insanity is asserted, is the capac- 

 ity of the accused to distinguish between right and 

 wrong at the time, and with respect to the act which 

 is the subject of inquiry. This rule is stated by the 

 authorities in different forms, but always in the same 

 substance. In one case it was said, "The inquiry is 

 always brought down to the single question of a ca- 

 pacity to distinguish between right and wrong at the 

 time the act was done." In the most authoritative of 

 the English cases it is said ; " It must be clearly proved 

 that, at the time of committing the offense, the party 

 accused was laboring 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 what was 

 wrong." And, in a very late case in our Court of 

 Appeals, a charge in that language was held to pre- 

 sent the law correctly to the jury. So you will see, 

 gentlemen of the jury, that, in "this case, the firing 

 by the prisoner of the shot by which the deceased 

 was killed being proved and admitted, the question 

 whether the act was criminal depends upon your find- 

 ing, as a matter of fact, whether, at the time of doing 

 the act, the prisoner knew what she was doing, and 

 that she was doing wrong ; or, in other words, did she 

 know that she was shooting the deceased, and that such 

 shooting was a wrongful act ? If she did know these 

 things, her alleged insanity is not established within 

 the rules of the law, however much you may be con- 

 vinced that she acted under the inten*est emotional 

 excitement, or however fully nho believed she was 

 justified in avenging her own wrongs, or however 

 much you may think the deceased was deserving of 

 punishment. " The doctrine that a criminal act may 

 be excused upon the notion of an irresistible impulse 

 to commit it when the offender has the ability to dis- 

 cover his legal and moral duty in respect to it ; has no 

 place in the law" ; and there is no form of insanity 

 Known to the law as a shield for an act otherwise 

 criminal, in which the faculties are so disordered or 

 deranged, that a man, though he perceives the moral 



