Volume 1

Criminal responsibility / by Charles Mercier.

  • Mercier, Charles Arthur, 1852-1919.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Criminal responsibility / by Charles Mercier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    certainly determinable, and admitting of no doubt. Such is very far from being the case. Every alienist of experi¬ ence must have seen cases in which it took days of careful observation to determine whether or no a person was insane; and, when this question is determined, the difficulty is not at an end. There remains the further question, Is he so insane as not to be responsible for his act ? This is a question on which differences of opinion may and must exist. The grades by which sanity merges into insanity are of infinite minuteness, and no more difficult problem can be entertained by the mind than that of determining, in some cases of crime, whether and how far a prisoner should be punished for the act that he has done. It is not a matter of fact. It is not a matter which can be certainly determined if only we have all the data before us, such as is the question whether the man did or did not do the offence with which he is charged. This may be uncertain upon the evidence ; but outside the evidence it is certain that he either did or did not do it, and this fact depends on no peculiarity in the mind of the observer. It is in the true sense a fact—a thing done. But whether the prisoner ought or ought not to be punished for his crime is not a fact. It is a matter of opinion, which will be variously determined by different observers who are all in possession of precisely the same facts. Conflict of evidence can never be elimin¬ ated, therefore, as long as medical witnesses conduct their examinations separately, and separately give their evidence. But need they be thus separated ? Why should they not consult together, and agree upon the evidence that they shall give ? The change is now being discussed by the British Medical Association, and there is much that can be said in its favour, much that can be said against it. MKRCIER P