Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1870-12-08

a feeling in his mind of intense rescntmen.
for grevious wrong, and while thus excited,
thus moved he slew Latin, it would not be n
case of such cool, deliberate murder as would
make it murder in the first degree.
You thus see the wisdom of our law. For
merly there were no degrees of murder. All
murder was murder of the first degree. Hence
it may be feared that in some of the cases
which nave been read to you the jury were
driver, to the necessity of returning such a
verdict would result in sentence of death,
or else aequit the prisoner altogether. Under
our law they will be driven to no such neces-
sity.
Again. in some of the States, adultery is no
crime; and juries may be led to look with less
indignation upon a man who takes punish
ment into his own hands, than they would il
! the law punished the adulteier in such cases.
Having now. gentlemen, expressed an opn-
! ion which think you cannot misunderstood,
| that if Won find the facts ms the prisoner S
counsel contend they should be found; that
is, if you find that he had reason to believe.
and did in fact believe, when he slew Latin,
that he was pursuing one who had invaded
| his marital rights. and he acted under that
strong conviction and feeling of resentment
so natural TO the human heart in such cases g,
he was not guilty ofmurler of the first degree.
A mind thus ruffled, thus disturbed, thus tor
tuIed by passion, is not sedate mind. A
murder thus determined upon and executed,
is not a murder coolly and deliberately plan
ned, and is not therefore committed with ex-
press malice aforethought.
This is an all-important distinction, for on
one side of the case is death, ana on the 9TH
| er is life. If he is guilty of murder of the
! first degree, his crime is punishable with
death, if of a less degree, it is only punisha-
| BILE by imprisonment in the States prison.
The distinction, you perceive, is al-impor
tant for it is one on which the life of the pris-
oner hangs.
| Having thus expressed myself as clearly
as am able upon that important point, the
point upon which the life of the prisoner
hangs. shall be equally explicit upon anoth-
er points that is, with regard to the alleged
insanity of the prisoner.
The exp TT testimony upon this point has
all been Withheld. In my Judgment it was an
act of wisdom so to do; for of all kinds of ev
idence. what is called expert testimony is, in
my Judgment, the most unreliable. And es
pecaly is this true of the testimony Of ordi-
| nary physicians upon the subject of insanity.
Any man of good judgement is well quail
fled to determine whether person charged
with crime, is or is not criminally reSpon-
sble. as physician, who has not made men
tai diseases special study.
Besides, the insanity of the medical profess
sion is not the same in all cases as the insani
ty of the legal profession. The medical pro-
fession have in their vocabulary several
species of insanity which are SO like depravi
ty that there are no reliable tests by which the
one can be distinguished from the other.
They have homicidal mania, used TO screen
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS., used TO screen pill
ferers such as have an uncomfortable impulse
to appropriate TO themselves the property of
others,
1t was said by an eminent English Judge
that when these irresistible impulses are
pleaded as defence for crime, the answer
ought to be that the law contains an impulse
equally irresistible to punish them.
But of all modern inventions, that which is
best calculated to shelter all classes of GRIM
inals, is the mania transitoria, or, as it is
commonly called, instantaneous insanity. 1t
requires no previous preparation. man
can arm himself seek his enemy, level his
loaded pistol at him, and at the moment of
pulling the trigger be seized with sudden tit
of insanity, become for a moment utterly ir-
responsible for his act. and during that mo-
ment of insanity shoot his enemy through the
heart, and become instantly sane again. II
called on to answer as a criminal, he pleads
his insanity, and if they attempt to put him
into the insane asylum, he tells you that this
pox, never attacks man but once, and there
| will be no danger of his killing another man
in such state of Inconsistencies. He thus
escapes both the penetentiary and the insane
asylum. 1t was upon this ground that the
prisoner was acquitted in one of the cases that
has been read to you. 1t is known as the
Cole Hiseock case. The Jury came into
court, and the foreman stated they found the
prisoner to have been sane at the moment be-
fore and the moment after the killing but
they were in doubt as to his sanity on the in
slant of the homicide.
The Judge charged the jury that they must
give the prisoner the benefit Of the doubt and
they thereupon acquitted him.
| rhe Judge here referred to several other
cases where the same defense had been set
up and then proceeded
To allow all these species of insanity to
constitute valid excuse for crime would
paralyze the arm of justice. The law against
crime would still exist, but there would be no
persons against whom 1t could be enforced.
Under such a state of things those now known
as criminals would be regarded as lunatics.
| The distinction between insanity and crime
would be obliterated, for between these species
of insanity and crime there are no reliable
tests. y.-
Every man is presumed to be sane, and
1 10 pOsstSs ueSIcc VI ItdoOH W uc
responsible for his acts, unless the contrary
is proved; and to establish defence on the
ground of insanity, the burden is on the de-
PENDANT, to prove by a preponderance of evil
dence, that at the time of committing the
act he was laboring under such 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 wrong. Partial
insanity, if not to the extent here indicated,
will not excuse q criminal act. To hold
otherwise would paralyze the arm of justice,
and deprive society of that protection which
it is the object of all criminal law to secure.
Ii the courts should adopt these various
shades of insanity of the medical profession,
which have described TO you, and should
hold that a man could brood over a suspected
injury, and then avenge it, or could be seized
at the very moment of the act of violence
with insanity, and accomplish the very pur-
pose which sane man in a fit of passion
would seek to accomplish, and yet be ex-
cused; if say, we hold that that is insanity,
this in the name of common sense, / ask
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