Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-03-05
Five Noted Maine Murderers
Were Clearly Insane.
So Claims DR.. A. S. Thayer Of Port
land, in Medical Journal.
Cites Cases of Scribncr, Libby, Hurd
Knight and Brainerd.

have not been in the habit of falsely al
leging insanity as an excuse for the
commission of crime. DIR. Thayer says:
In dealing with insane persons who
have committed homicide, the expert
ence of the State of Maine has been
peculiar. The same theory which exists
elsewhere among civilized people-that
insane persons who commit acts of eN-
treme violence are to be held RESPONSE
BILE to a less degree than persons of
sound mind-exists also in Maine 1t
exists. but it does not prevail.
There is no apparent reason why
courts and juries in Maine should es-
pecially suspect the use of insanity as
. subterfuge-a cloak for crime 1t is
true that in two recent instances in
| Maine a criminal has feigned insanity.
In one of these two instances an expert
was found who testified that in his
{ pnion the criminal was insane The
Overwhelming weight of expert evil
donce, however, indicated that this
PRISONER was shamming: and an ar
rant shainmer he proved to be. The
:ccond prisoner who feigned insanity
was promptly detected. Neither of
these two criminals was charged with
hon Go.
| persistent inquiry has failed to bring
knowledge of a single instance in which
the verdict not guilty by reason of in
| sanity has been rendered in Maine in
cast of homicide.
| ON the other hand, in this State,
| within the last % years, there have
been at least five cases of homicide,
| z nd probably several more than five,
| for the defense of which the plea of in
sanity has been adduced. In all of
| these five cases the prisoner has been
found guilty of murder. All of these
| five cOnvicts have shown unmistak-
able evidence of insanity. Two of
them, before death, which occurred
within a few years of conviction. be-
came so palpably insane that nobody
questioned it. The three others are in
the State prison today, and are still
. insane.
1.-THE visiting physician of the State
| prison, DR.. Addison r. Smith, states
| that in addition to these three convicts
there are now in the prison, under SEN
tcnce for murder, five others, of whom
| one is probably insane and four are I'M
nuestionably insane.
Dui ms tliC Ittltdl VI Il lew ldClS
concerning five of these cases, attention
is invited to the following points: Be
havior which would suggest, even to
people unaccustomed to the study of
! mental disease, the presence of insan-
| ity. The unanimity of the opinions of
| the experts, and the unanimity with
which their opinions were disregarded.
| Particularly. the illumination which
| these cases throw upon "the only
proper legal criterion" the right-and-
wrong test for insanity, test which
every observing asylum nurse knows
| to be fallacious, and which would brand
as criminals two thirds of the inmates
| of aSylums for the insane.
| There can be little liability to error
concerning the only proper legal
criterion as it exists at present in
Maine. 1t has been restated within the
past year in a decision of the Supreme
court in the case of State VS.. Bradford
Knight. The language of the rescript.
rendered by Judge Whitehouse, is as
| follows:
When the insanity of the accused
is pleaded in defense, the test of his
responsibility for crime, afforded by his
| capacity to understand the nature and
| quality of the act he was doing and his
mental power to distinguish between
right and wrong with respect to that
| particular act at the time he com
mitted it, is the only proper legal
| criterion"
The first case cited by DR.. Thayer is
that of Jason p. Scribner of this city,
| of which he writes as follows:
| "On the afternoon of May IL, 1878,
Jason p. Scribner, at his home. three
miles from the State House, in Au-
gusta, seized a shovel and pounded the
heads If the three youngest of his own
children-fve. three and two years of
age. One of the children died i'm
mediatoly. the baby died in 4 few hours
and the other child eventually recov-
cred. Scribner ut the time was 81 years
old. One of mis- brothers had died in
sane at the hospital in Augusta, and
there had been other instances of in
sanity among his relatives. For five
wears Scribner had been brooding over
his own troubles. some of which were
imaginary, but the first of which was
only too real While in partially
drunken condition he had accidentally
turned a kettle of boiling water over
one pl MS CflIhicti, CRUISING us UedIn.
Not long afterwards he gave up the use
Of alcohol altogether, and still alter he
rose for prayers in a religious meeting.
But he believed that the people in the
churo h did not treat him well, and in
fact. that everybody. as he expressed il,
was picking upon him. He thought his
brothers wife made fun of him. and
with his brother he was not on speaking
terms. He hated especially to see peo-
pie going towards the Westinghouse
When he thought of the Lord or the
Saviour sort of madness would seize
him. AT o'clock one morning he
sprang out of bed, rushed into the room
where his father lay dying. and at
tempted to strike his father with a
cudgel, being restrained by his brother
and sisters. AT another time he 4 ran
out into the darkness screaming:
Murder. Murder Th, devils are
after met
AT various times he threatened to
kill all the members of his family, and
to burn not only the house We're he
lived, but the whole city of Augusta.
"a few days before the homicide. his
|