Notes of medico-legal cases : with comments / by John Crawford.

  • Crawford, John (fl. 1850)
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes of medico-legal cases : with comments / by John Crawford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    6/28 (page 6)
    ment: are you guilty or not guilty?” Her answer-winch, to my mind, was strongly corroborative of the opinion i had formed —was, “ I dinna ken what guilty isand this reply was accom- panied with an assumed expression very different from that which her countenance, stupid as it was at the best, wore when she gave me the details i have alluded to. A really fatuous person, or a person actually labouring under such extreme imbecility as this prisoner was counterfeiting, might have answered yes or no, or might have remained silent,—might have laughed, or might have cried but would not have answered thus. Evidence as to her mental state was taken by the judge (Lord Deas). I read the above report, and adhered to the opinion expressed in it. i be officer who had apprehended her, and the witnesses m whose presence her declaration had been emitted, were examined, and his lordship, satisfied that she was a fit subject for trial, or, as it is technically expressed, u competent to plead,” ordered a jury to be impanneled. The case was clearly proven, and the prisoner was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment, the judge adding a significant warning, that if she was brought before the court again, she would find it useless to pretend to be. insane. This case, although not possessing the absorbing interest which attaches to one arising out of an atrocious offence,, involving perhaps the heaviest penalty of the law, is not devoid of some circumstances calling for the attention of the medical jurist io him indeed, the nature of the offence—unless so far as that is calculated to throw light on the mental condition of the accused —and the magnitude of the appropriate legal penalty, ought to be matters of comparative indifference. However trivial the crime the insanity of the offender, if that can be established, ouo’ht to confer immunity from punishment; and, on. the other hand, the plea of insanity ought not to be lightly admitted, how- ever paltry the offence. . . , ~ In all cases where a question arises as to the state ot mind ot an accused party, two distinct inquiries present themselves. 1 he first has reference to the accused’s mental state at the time the alleged offence was perpetrated;. the second, to his condition at the time he is put upon his trial. The medical exammei, m conducting the first, has to be guided by the results ot his exami- nation taken in connection with a certain case of facts put betoie him : in the second, he must rely upon his own direct observation. The first point is to be decided by the jury on the evidence, * medical and otherwise, laid before them ; the second—involving the competency of the accused to plead to the charge, mi ns capacity to instruct counsel for his defence—must be decided, as in the above case, by the judge, principally of course on medical evidence, before the case goes to a jury at all. In the instance 1 liave given, the result of my examination left no doubt upon my mind that the prisoner was perfectly able to understand the natme