Criminal responsibility in insanity, with special reference to epilepsy / by T. Duncan Greenlees.

  • Greenlees, T. Duncan.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Criminal responsibility in insanity, with special reference to epilepsy / by T. Duncan Greenlees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in consequence of congenital defect or acquired disease, the power of self-control is absent altogether, or is so far wanting as to render the individual irresponsible. . . . The unconscious¬ ness of right and wrong is one thing, and the powerlessness, through cerebral defect or disease, to do right is another thing.” When we consider the American laws having reference to this subject, we find that the Americans, not having a disgraceful history to look back upon, began well, and were ahead of the English from the beginning, in the broad and liberal view they took on the subject of responsibility in its relationship to insanity. A case recorded three years ago(2) illustrates the American procedure so well, that I do not hesitate to refer to it. A man, Richard Baker, aged 27, was charged with murdering a married woman, with the family of whom he resided, and whom he con¬ sidered his best friends in America. In the midst of social intercourse and pleasant conversation he made a sudden murderous attack, first on the husband, and then on the woman, killing her. He afterwards set fire to the house. When the accused was charged with the crime, he said, “ I do not remember doing it,” and “ I suppose I must have done it, as everybody tells me I did.” The defence rested upon the following facts: there was an inherited epileptic diathesis; the prisoner was known to have been subject to fits until he was nine years of age; he had had nocturnal fits during the preceding winter, and there was an entire absence of motive for the crime. The Judge’s charge is so important, that I do not hesitate to quote it in extenso :— “You will therefore see that there may be a very broad difference between what medical men define as insanity and legal responsibility. No matter how insane a man may be, no matter how much under the influence of an epileptic attack, or epileptic furor; no matter by what force impelled, resistible or irresistible, if this defendant at the time he did the act, knew the nature and quality of the act, and knew that it was wrong, then, gentlemen of the jury, he is in the eyes of the law legally responsible for the act that he has done, and if that act constitutes a crime, he must suffer the punishment which the law prescribes.” (2) “ Legal responsibility of Epileptics,” by Lr. P. M. Wise.—American Journal of Insanity, January, 1888, p. 360.