News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-02-02
Extracts from Judge cox's Charge.

~AkH 0~kS th~lhs
At 3.15 p. m, Judge Cox began
his charge to the jury. Among other
things he said: With what difficulty
and trouble the law has been admin
istered in the present case, the jurors
had been daily witnesses. 1t was,
however, consolation to think that not
one of these sacred guarantees of the
constitution had been violated in the
person of the accused. The prisoner
had frequently taken occasion to pro-
claim that public opinion, as evidenced
by the press and correspondence, was
in his favor. Those declarations
could not have been prevented, ex-
cept by the process of gagging the
prisoner. For the sole purpose OF
purging the record of any objectiona-
BILE matter, he should simply say that
anything which had been said on either
side, in reference to the public excite
ment of newspaper opinion, was not
to be regarded by the jury. 1t had
to be proved, first: that death was
caused by the act of the accused with
malice aforethought. That did not
mean, however, that the government
had to prove any ill-will or hatred on
the part of the accused toward the
deceased. Wherever a homicide was
shown to have been committed with
out lawful authority and with deliber-
ate intent, it was sufficiently proved
to have been done with malice afore-
thought. The jury would have to say
| either that the defendant was guilty of
murder or was innocent.
In order to constitute the crime of
murder, the assassin must have a
reasonably sane mind. In technical
terms he must be ''of sound mind,
memory and discretion" An ire
sponsibly insane nan could not com
nit a murder, if he was laboring I'M
der a disease of his mental faculties
to such an extent that he did not know
what he was doing, or did not know
it was wrong. The government was
not bound to show affirmatively as a
part of its proof that the defendant
was sane, as insanity vas the excep-
ton, and as the majority of men are
sane. The law presumed the latter
was the case until some reason was
shown to believe to the contrary. The
burden was, therefore, on the defend
ant, who set up insanity as an excuse
for the crime, to produce proofs in the
first instance to show that that pre-
sumption was applicable to the pris-
oner.
1t ought not to be a doubt as to
whether the party might not be inno-
cent in the face of strong proofs of his
guilt, but it must be a sincere doubt
as to whether he had been proved
guilty. All that the jury could be ex-
pected to do was to be reasonably
and morally certain of the facts that
they declared TO be their verdict. The
jury would find little difficulty in
reaching a conclusion as to all the ele-
ments that made up the crime charged
in the indictment, except that it might
be as to one Of sound mind, memory
and discretion but that was only a
technical expression for a ~respensibly
sane man.
If the jury were satisfied that his
ordinary chronic condition was that
of sanity, at least SO far that he knew
the character of his own actions. and
how far they were right or wrong, and
that he was not under any permanent
insane delusion, which destroyed his
power of discriminating between right
and wrong, then the remaining inqui-
ry was whether there was any special
insanity connected with the crime
1t would be seer that the reliance of
the defence was upon the existence of
an insane delusion in the prisoners
mind, which SO prevented his reason
to i~ncapacitate him from ~perceiving
the difference between right and wrong
as to- this particular act. Therefore,
was that in this cas- the defence
had been allowed to introduce evil
dence covering the whole life of the
accused and reaching also his family
antecedents. If the accused had suf-
icient use Of his reason to understand
the nature Of the act with which he
was charged, and to understand that
it las wrong for him to commit it.
he was criminally responsible for the
act, whatever peculiarities might be
shown of him in other respects. On
The other hand, if his reason were so
defective in consequence of brain dis
hat he could not understand
what he was doing, he ought to be
as an irresponsible lunatic.