Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1884-01-30

some circumstances approximate de-
rangement. There are persons, said
Judge Curtis Tin U. S. vs. McGlue l
Curtis U. S. Rep.); filling important
stations in life, who upon some one
subject are insane. There sre others
whose minds are such that the conclu-
sion of their reason and the result OF
their judgment are very far from
right. And others whose passions
are so strong or whose conscience, rea-
son and judgment are so weak or per-
verted that they may in some sense be
said to be insane. But 1t Is not the
business of the law to inquire into
these peculiarities, but solely whether
the person accused was capable of hav-
ing and did have criminal intent.
In Com. vs.. Mosler, Barr 264,
Judge Gibson, in delivering the opin-
ion of the Supreme Conrt, said:
"A person continues to be a legiti-
mate subject of punishment, although
be may be laboring under moral OBJ
liquity Of perception, as much as if he
were laboring under an obliquity OF
vision. On this point there has been
a mistake as melancholy as it is popu-
lar 1t has been announced by learn
ed doctors that if man has the least
taint of insanity in his mental struc-
ture, it discharges him from all &C.
countability to the law. The law Che
continues) is, that whether the insani-
ty be general or partial, the degree of
it must be so great as to have controll-
ed the will of its subject and to have
taken from him the freedom of moral
action"
To the same effect is the declaration
of Judge Dillon in State vs.. Fetter, %
Iowa r. 81. If the defendants act
was caus, by mental disease or dis
order which dethroned his reason and
judgment with respect to that act;
which destroyed his power nationally
to comprehend the nature and conse-
quences of that act and which over
powered his will, irresistibly forcing
him to its commission, he is not amen
able to legal punishment. But, if the
jury believefrom allthe evidence and cir
cumstances that defendant was in pos
session of rational intellect and sound
mind and allowed his passions to es-
cape control, then, though passion may
for the time being have driven reason
from her seat and usurped it and have
urged the defendant, with force at
the moment irresistible, to desperate
acts, he cannot claim for such acts the
protection of insanity. And we might
spend hours reading to you other opin-
ions of learned Judges in different parts
of the United States which the coun-
sci engaged in tLis case have called
my attention to of similar import, but
we will let the foregoing suffice for the
present.
The conclusion / have arrived at
and which | instruct you is the law, is
this: Ia order to relieve the prisoner
from legal responsibility for the killing
of Dukes, the jury must be satisfied
from the evidence that ut the time of
the killing his will was so far overmas-
tered and controlled that be was pow
erless to resist the commission of the
act He was bound to use all the
power of resistance he possessed, and
if he did and was by irresistible i'm
pulse forced to do the is not to be held
accountable to the law. Every person
who has capacity to know right from
wrong is bound to exercise his utmost
power to refrain from doing what he
knows to be wrong, especially SO ter
rible wrong as destroying fellow
creature. And he must not passively
submit TO an impulse to do On unlaw-
ful act; be must make all the resistance
in his power
Noa MUCH FAITH IN TEMPORARY IN
SANITY.
This doctrine is one, hewever, which
in its relations and application should
be carefully considered and cautiously
applied by juries on the trial of Grimm
al cases. This is especially so where
there is not any, or very little, evidence
of mental disturbance or insanity pre-
vious to the commission of the act for
which one is being tried, followed by
apparently perfect sanity afterwards.
For myself, l must say that have,
to say the least of it, very little conf
dence in a suggestion of insanity which
without some evidence of previous ex-
istence springs into life for single
moment aud then dies away instantly,
leaving no trace behind. And l do
not think any jury should acquit upon
such ground, unless the evidence fairly
shows such preceding mental peculiar
ity and condition as makes it reason
ably appa' ent that the act was the re-
suit of an irresistible impulse, actually
brought about or developed at the time
of the commission and from which it
emanated.
The jury have no right to infer in
sanity solely from the act itself, nor
the unusual manner in which 1t was
perpetrated. But evidence being given
tending to show mental unsoundness
or popularity as condition from which
insanity might suddenly develope, un-
der circumstances shown by the evi-
dence to have existed at the time of the
act, the jury may then consider the de-
tail of the killing in regard to the SAN
ity or insanity of the killer.
Upon the question of responsibility
of the prisoner he has called large
number of witnesses who knew him
for years, some of them from childhood,
who told what they knew about him
and his mental peculiarities and defects.
You heard how he acted after the death
of bis father and af,er the acquittal of
Dukes, even down TO the day of the
killing. You have heard read the let
ters which passed between Dukes and
his father, and your attention has been
called to the trial of Dukes, the popu-
lar excitement which followed, and
some of the newspaper publications.
And above all. you have had number
of physicians examined as experts be-
fore Won nnon what we call a hypotheti-