New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-04-30
INSANITY AND CRIME.

| INSANITY And CRIMF.
The abuses of the defense OF insanity III
criminal trials are, leading, we believe, To
general public reaction, of which the address
read the other day by Mr.. David Dudley Field
at meeting of the Medico-Legal Society must
be taken as an important symptom. We under
stand that one of the most eminent of Amori-
can authorities on the disorders of the mind
| DIR. William A. Hammond-will shortly pub
lsh q paper sustaining in great part, if not
fully, the views of Mr.. Field. Thus we shall
have two of the foremost men IN the probes
sions of law and medicine c0ntendlng Tor
radical change i'm our theories of medical jul
risprudence; and that the lay public is ready
TO second their efforts we have no doubt what
ever.
Indeed, if murder is to be discouraged, our
laws must be greatly amended. A man who
never betrayed moments alteration of mind
deliberately shot his enemy, and, being released
on the excuse of insanity, walked out into
Broadway q free and uncmbaTassed citizen
and of course has been perfectly sane ever
since, ready to repeat the homicide if a similar
temptation arise. The man who shot the de-
baucher of his wife at Albany was said to have
been sane Immediately before the deed and
Immediately after, though not sane at the
moment of killing; he was acquitted on the
ground of insanity, and appointed to clerk
ship in the New-York Post-Oflice. The chief
actor in still more conspicuous case of the
same sort, who was adjudged not rational
enough to be responsible for his actions, be-
came q majOr-ge and foreign minister
In the case of the forger Huntington, it was
argued that man might be conscious Of tho
difference between right and wrong, and yet
through mental disease so strongly impelled
to wrong actions that it would be unjust to
hold him responsible for his conduct. In q
murder case tried in this city five years ago,
the court actually ruled that if the prisoner
committed the act in moment Of frenzy he
could not be convicted of any Ofiense and
Judge Brady, in the Scannell case, has de-
clared the law of this State to be that q man is
responsible for bis acts when he knows what
che is doing, is capable of distinguishing
Fright from wrong, understands the cOnse-
"quences of his act, and that it is in violation
"of the laws Of God and man. In other
words, if the prisoner was in such state of
" mind as to know that the deed was unlaw-
"ful and morally wrong, he is responsible
" otherwise nOt.n 1t is evident that an applca-
ton of these principles would set at liberty
half the murderers in our jails. Murders
after cool deliberation are rare. Hom-
eide is almost always done in mo-
ment of frenzy-that is to say, when the
passions are so much inflamed that the
murderer does not reflect upon the consequences
of his action. 1t may be said that he is for
the moment incapable of apprehending the
wickedness of the deed, just as drunken man
may be incapable of distinguishing between
right and wrong. But what good reason is
there for excusing crime committed in frenzy
any more than crime committed in drink
SO, too with hOmicides perpetrated under the
excitement of domestic calamity; the muir
derer's mind may be for the moment unhinged
by his misfortunes; he may satisfy himself
that it is no moral wrong to slay the destroyer
of his home and yet he retains the conscious
ness that what he is doing is violation of
the law: why should he be excused any more
than the thief who persuades himself he may
rightfully steal to keep himself from starving
A scientifcNstudy of insanity has thrown
great light upon the nature of mental disease,
and ought long ago TO have modified the laws
relating to it. Idiots, we may say, are beyond
the jurisdiction of law, like children under the
age of reason, except that the law may sub
ject them to whatever restraint is necessary to
the public safety. Insanity may be of four
kinds: it may affect the perceptions, giving
rise to illusions or hallucinations; it NAV i'm
pair the reasoning faculties; it may disturb
the emotions; and it may invalidate tho will.
Mr.. Field is disposed to make broad dis
tinction between these various kinds of
mental disease in treating with criminals, and
to hold that emotional insanity and
perceptional insanity, while they may furnish
strong abnormal temptation to crime,
ought never to be accepted as a sufficient plea
in bar of punishment. Ii is only when the
reason is 40 far destroyed that there is no
power of choosing between right aud wrong.
and the will so far inyaidated that il cannot
obey the reason, that man ceases to be NJ
sp0nsble for his actions and the law loses the
right to punish him. This distinction excludes
from the courts tho excuse Of emotional in
y a aaa..l sAa e. . .fal ,ari B ID