The legal doctrine of responsibility in cases of insanity, connected with alleged criminal acts / by Forbes Winslow.

  • Winslow, Forbes, 1810-1874.
Date:
1858
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The legal doctrine of responsibility in cases of insanity, connected with alleged criminal acts / by Forbes Winslow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    a delusion, provided the person imagined that he was redress- ing a supposed grievance, or under the impression of obtaining some public or private benefit, was propounded by Lord Erskine in his celebrated speech in defence of Hadfield. He there declared, “ That when a madman commits a crime under the influence of an impression which is entirely visionary, and purely the hallucination of Insanity, he is not the object of punishment; but that though he may have shown Insanity in other things, he is liable to punishment if the impression under which he acted was true, and the human passion arising out of it was directed to its proper object.” He illustrates this prin- ciple by contrasting the case of Hadfield with that of Lord Ferrers. Hadfield laboured under the delusion that the end of the world was at hand, and that on the death of the king the Messiah would immediately appear on earth, and the reign of the Millennium begin (a). Lord Ferrers, after showing various indications of Insanity, murdered a man against whom he was known to harbour deep-rooted resentment on account of real transactions in which that individual had rendered himself obnoxious to him. The former therefore is considered as an example of the pure hallucination of Insanity, the latter as one of human passion founded on real events, and directed to its proper object. Hadfield was accordingly acquitted, but Lord Ferrers was convicted of murder and executed. It will be for us to discuss whether it is consistent with an enlightened Jurisprudence, and a philosophic view of Insanity, to consider that a man in an insane state of mind should be held amenable to the punishment of death, because his delusion is to a degree based upon actual circumstances, and because there is in his (a) Although very insane, Hadfield exhibited great acuteness, coolness, and self-possession, common features in cases even of dangerous Insanity. It is stated that when standing at the pit door of the theatre, waiting for admission, the people around pressed and crowded inconveniently upon him, when a young woman, putting her hand on his shoulder, said, “ Sir, you are hurting me ; the handle of your umbrella is running into my bosom.” “I could not,” he added, “help smiling at the time, for the handle of what she supposed my umbrella was the handle of my pistol, which I held concealed within my coat under my arm.”