The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1870-12-15
THE MOMENTARYi INSANITY OF MURDER
Frs


ERS.
Hoswell the Hallowell murderer, a report
of whose trial we published last week, was
found guilty of manslaughter, and was sem
fenced to nine years in the State Prison 1t
is q matter of congratulation to the citizens
of this State that the miserable subterfuoes
by which murderers in other States have been
shielded from punishment have found no
favor with court or jury in Maine. The farce
of 4 Mcfarland trial, in which a red handed
and cowardly assassin is excused by an in
famous verdict, cannot be repeated within the
borders of this State. Maine has received
credit for having convicted and imprisoned
burglars that slipped through the hands of
justice elsewhere, and it will add to our credit
with all right thinking men that the absurd
and dangerous theory of ''momentarv in
sanity is refused consideration in our courts
In this connection we cannot help ccm-
mending the Just and able charge of Judge
Walton, whose calm and matured judgement
saw through the fallacy in which the counsel
for the prisoner sought to entangle the jury,
and bewilder them into verdict in favor of
their client The Judge said
"Tbc expert testimony upon the point of insanity,
has all Deer withheld. In my Judgment it was an
act of Judgment so to do; for of all kinds of evil
dence what is called expert testimony, is in nv
Judgment, the most unreliable. And especially is
this of the testimony of ordinary physicions
uron the subject of insanity. Any man of good
Judgment is well qualified to determine whether
4 person charged with crime, is or is not Grim
lnaty responsible, as physician, who has not
made mental diseases special study.
Besides, the insanity of the medical profession
is not the same in all the insanity of the
legal profession. The medical profession have in
their vocabulary several species of insanity which
are so like depravity that there no reliable tests
by which the one can be distinguished from the
other. They have homicidal mania, used to screen
MISUNDERSTANDING, used to screen pilferers
such as have an uncomfortable impulse to appro-
pirate to themselves the property of others.
1t was said by an eminent English Judge that
when these irresistible impulses are pleaded as u
defence for crime the answer ought to be that the
law contains an impulse equally irresistible to pun
ish them.
But of all modern inventions, that which is best
calculated to shelter all classes of criminals il the
mania TRANSITIONAL, Or it is commonly called in
Simultaneous insanity. 1t requires previous
preparation. A man can arm himself, seek his en-
envy, level his loaded pistol at him, and at the mo-
ment of pulling the trigger be seized with sudden
tit OF insanity, become for moment utterly ire
sponsible for his act and during that moment of
insanity shoot his enemy through the heart and
become instantly sane again. If called on to an
swer n criminal, he pleads his insanity, and if
they attempt to put him into the insane asylum he
tells you that this insanity like the measles and
small 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 pcntentiary and the insane asylum. 1t was
upon this ground that the prisoner acquitted in
one of the cases that has been read to you. 1t is
known the Cole-Hscock case The Jury came
into court, and the foreman stated they found the
prisoner to have been at the moment before
and the moment after the killing; but they We're in
loubt as to his sanity on the instant of the homicide
The Judge charged the jury that they must give
the prisoner the benefit Of the doubt and they there
upon acquitted him.
The Judge here referred to several other eases
where the same defence had been set up and then
proceeded:
To allow all these species of insanity to constitute
valid excuse for crime would paralyzc the arm of
Justice. The law against crime would still exist,
but there would be no persons against whom it
could be enforced. Under such n state of things
those now known as criminals would be regarded
us lunatics. The distinction between insanity and
crime would be obliterated, for between these
species of insanity and crime there are no reliable
tests.
Every man is presumed to be sane and to pos
sess sufficient degree of reason to be responsible
for his acts, unless the contrary is proved and to
establish defence on the ground of insanity, the
burden is on the defendant, to prove by propon-
derance of evidence, that at the time of committing
the act he was laboring under such defect of
son from disease of the mind, rs not to know the
nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, IL
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 criminal act To hold
otherwise would parayZe the arm of justice, and
deprive society of that protection which it is the OBJ
ect of all criminal law to secure.
If the courts should adopt these various shades of
insanity of the medical profession, which | have
described to you, and should hold that man could
brood over suspected injury, and then avenge it.
could be seized at the very moment Of the act of
violence with insanity, and accomplish the very
seek to accomplish, and yet be excused; it, | say,
we hold that that is insanity then in the of
common sense, ask you, what is crime? How
can you distinguish such from criminal acts
Ordinarily this is the very evidence introduced
by the government, to show motive that the de-
tendanr imagined he had received an injury, and
that he had brooded over it, until malice had taken
root in his heart, and then determined to take ven
geance on the object of his hatred; if that is to
be evidence of insanity and to excuse the act, then
[ again ask you, what in the name of common
sense is to be the evidence of crime? and can you
distinguish the one from the other:
The law does not take notice of such insanity.
1t must be such insanity have described to you.
There must be Il disease of the mind defect of
reason resulting from diseased mind, 80 that the
person does not know the nature and quality of his
act, or If he does, does not know it is wrong.
Partial insanity passion, resentment. anger, are
not insanity within the meaning Of the law. 1t
may be the insanity of the medical profession, but
it is not the insanity of the law such insanity as
will excuse men for their criminal acts. 1t is the
province of the law to teach and compel men TO re-
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