Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1881-12-09
THE INSANITY PLEA.

THE INSANITY PLEA.
Very few persons who have been watch
ing the progress of the Guiteau trial and
calmly weighing the evidence touching
the prisoner IS hereditary antecedents and
his cratic life can have any real doubt
that he is man of unbalanced mind. But
there still fewer who would be likely to
say en- their oaths that he is irresponsible.
This pleading of insanity has been so fire.
ouently and successfully used in America
that the popular mind has, after q fashion,
resigned itself 30 the belief that the merest
faint of insanity, proven, exculpates. LII
the present trial has no other good result
it will at least set the people to thinking.
and upset this absurd theory. The learned
men who know most about insanity-those
who have the insane under their profess
s,onal supervision, MAINTAIN and enforce
this theory Of responsibility on tleir patti
ents. There is, as general thing. as COM
nlete system of rewards and punishment.
in their asylums as is practiced in board
ING schools, except there is no physical
punishment. Certain bounds are marked
ont for certain classes of patients with al
most perfect certainty that those bounds
will be observed. Of course there are 9TH
er classes of patients that nothing OF this
sort can be done with. but it is the rarest
thug that any of these other classes are
arraicned in courts for crimes. The
crimlpals who appear at the bar simply for
acauttal are men with whose deeds the
public mind fully sympathises and Wnere
a iury only needs hint of insanity, in the
evidence for the defence, to set the prison
er free. There are also two or three Of
fences which in the eyes Of an American
Jury puts a life at the mercy OF those
against whom they are committed, and in
these s'emotional insanity is summoned
to bear the accused to free 10 IN and pub
lie reception. There have, too, been ac-
uuittais on the ground of insanity, by ]urles
corrupted by political or other influence.
Taken all together these escapes fro n JUS
tice through this plea have been so frequent
that in the language of the street 1t has
come to be known as the insanity dodge. .
But there is altogether another sort of
criminal who comes into court. The man
who is SO boldly unprincipled in all his acts
that men say he must be insane; the man
who is So open in his pursuit OF the most
degrading vices, that shocked communi-
ty saws his mind must be unbalanced: the
man who fully cogniZant of the right and
wrong of an act lays met hodical plans for
its commission and his escape from vio-
lence after it is committed, and of whom
the community, in view of the enormlty
and startling character of the crime. says
that he is deranged. 1t Is in dealing with
this last class as illustrated III the Wash
iugton prisoner that this case is to set pre-
cedent which shall control decisions fol-
many years to come. 1t is in this State
Case as it has been called that will be de-
cided the character and amount of respon-
sibility that person tainted with lnsanl-
ty aggravated by vile passions owes to the
community in which he lives. The public
will await with interest the legal decision
of the question whether a man under nc
frenzy of madness and fully aware OF the
weight of his act, moral and legal, can take
life or commit other crimes and escape
with impunity on showing that some Of
his ancestors were insane, and his own life
had been characterized by enough folly
fraud egotism, indolence and ecceLtrlctits
\ TO suggest an unbalanced mind.
There is .rdly a large city in the land
in syhich barring the act Of numbering d
President. Guiteau may not be found
nen wffa, like him. have determed to live
any way but by labor and whose schemfs
and eccentricities End fac-smiles i'll his
Who threaten to murder mi,lionaires If nol
aided financially. and shoot their !andl"
dies if they demand their board. These
things exactly do happen and have hap
psned in the past few months in the me
trapolis of the nation. Guiteau's act has
made the responsibility of insane persons
to the law a subject of Preside discussion
in every American family and the MANI Fl
in WHICH it is treated will be looked TO
with interest by the people, not SO mucl
on account of Guiteau, as en- account .
the part it will play ia settling = tLtur'
INTERPRETATION of law in similar Gases.