Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-14
TIE EXPERT TESTIMONY IN THE
eUITEkU CASE.

| In the first place it is not impartial testi-
mony, since the medical witnesses are
paid by the side which produces them.
Expert testimony of nearly all kinds is
open to the same objection, and in fact it
is almost universally regarded with dis
trust and contempt by lawyers. 1t has
been said that it is always possible to bring
as many doctors to swear to one view as to
the opposite view. and experience certainly
bears out this conclusion. In the Guiteau
case the familiar proceedings are being re-
produced. The defense introduces doctors
who express the opinion that the prisoner
is insane. The prosecution introduces
other doctors who express the opin-
ion that he is sane. The only effect
of all this conflicting evidence is,
| first, to produce the impression that the
whole question of the prisoners punish
ability rests on the determination OF his
sanity and, second, to create the belief
that medical science is utterly at sea on
the subject. Under such circumstances
an average jury may fall back upon the
primitive methods of settling difficult
problems. Thus if there are ten medical
opinions in favor of the sanity theory, and
only nine in favor of the insanity theory,
the jury may decide with the majority.
Or if the medical opinions in favor of in
sanity preponderate, the jury may find
the prisoner insane. But all such attempts
to make clear demonstration of the pris-
oner's mental condition are certain to re-
suit in some such confusion, and the worst
of the matter is that the really vital issue
is in danger of being lost sight of in the
fog of medical contradictions.
That vital issue is not, whether Guiteau
was insane when he killed the President,
but whether he was legally irresponsible.
There are almost infinite gradations of
mental unsoundness, and this is principal
reason why expert testimony In these
cases is so conflicting. From observation
Of Guiteaus conduct we think it may be
safely predicated that he is of unsound
mind, The corrollary that he is irrespon.
sible, is, however, by no means necessary
sequence of this belief. The one great
question to be decided in this trial is
whether man who is conclusively shown
to have been perfectly competent to reason,
to draw differences, to transact the ordi-
nary business of life, shall be allowed to
go UNPUBLISHED for heinous crime, on the
plea of insanity. The prosecution appears
70 us to have missed its strongest position
in allowing the defense to assume that the
question of insanity was the crucial one in
the case Had it taken the ground that
the prisoner might have been of unsound
mind, but that he was nevertheless fully re-
| sponsible for his actions, it would have not
| only overthrow the main dependence
of the defense, but have established pre-
cedent of incalculable value.
Nor has the prosecution apparently done
anything to bring into prominence the fact
that the expert testimony has but very
remote bearing upon the question Of re-
sponsibility. Doctors may satisfy them
selves that Guiteau is insane more or less,
but in expressing that opinion they do not
pass upon his responsibility, though unfor-
tunately for the interests of justice the
average jury is very apt to think that they
do. To man ignorant of physiology and
mental pathology there are no degrees in
insanity, and when a prisoner is declared
insane the tendency is to Jump to the con-
clusion that he is therefore, and of neces.
sity, irresponsible. But the most expert.
enced alienists have been teaching for years
that complete accountability may co-exist
with pronounced cerebral disease, and the
annals of crime confirm this conclusion re-
markably. The cases in which crime is
the effect of irresistible impulse are ex-
tremely rare. In fact they may probably
be limited to the instances in which a
homicidal impulse occurs contemporaneous-
ly with suspension of the perceptive facul-
ties. Such case was that of the man who
awoke in the night under the impression
that he was attacked by robber, and who
killed his own wife under the hallucina-
ton. AS a rule, however, the most con-
firmed maniac knows enough to resist the
homicidal impulse, and it is only in the
access of epileptic frenzy that all power of
resistance to that impulse disappears.
This is the doctrine which in our judy
ment the prosecution should have adopted.
1t is the doctrine of the most advanced
alienist science, and therefore it ought
to be accepted. The broad truth is that
insanity is very widely diffused in modern
society. 1t may be said to resemble the
scrofulous diathesis, which is inherited by
thousands in the most various degrees, and
which in one person may produce but tenn.
porary and local disturbances, while in
another it permeates the entire system,
attacks the ganglionic centers, and de-
stroys health, reason, or even life itself.
Just SO there are scores of thousands of
persons inheriting the insane temperament,
who merely exhibit more or less eccen.
tricity. There are other thousands who are
so much more mad as to be incapable of
persistent application. And by slow de-
grees we reach the class whose insanity
becomes so pronounced as to compel their
confinement. Guiteau evidently belongs
In one of the first categories. He is man
of Unbalanced mind, but quite capable of
understanding the significance of his own
actions. To say that he is insane is not
therefore to say that he is irresponsible,
and this is what the prosecution ought to
affirm. The proof of Guiteau's responsibility
is matter which an average jury can b.
made to comprehend, moreover. It is not
ike scientific evidence upon question of
mental pathology, the most part of which
goes over their heads. The expert testi-
mony can throw no light upon the real
issue. It can only obscure that issue, and
this in fact is what it is doing We are
sorry that the prosecution should have
dropped so readily into the old grooves,