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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    This reasoning, says Dr. Wise (and with him I agree), has no force, even when seen through the spectacles of the law ! Let us compare it with Judge Montgomery’s charge in the case of Daley(3): “If he did know the nature and quality of the act, and that the act was wrong, but by reason of the duress of such mental disease, he had so far lost the power to choose between the right and wrong, and to avoid doing the act in question, and that free agency was at the time destroyed, and if so, if the homicide was so connected with such mental disease, in the relation of cause and effect, as to have been the product of it solely; if some controlling mental disease was in truth the acting power within him which he could not resist, then he will not be responsible.” There have been several other cases tried since the above judgment was given; they are very similar to that of Judge Mont¬ gomery’s, and show the advanced position the legal profession in America take on this matter. A reference to a file of volumes of the American Medico-Legal Journal has resulted in the unearthing of numerous cases where the plea of insanity has been adduced. When we consider the Colonial laws having reference to the subject in hand, our investigation is of a most unsatisfactory character. The laws themselves seem to be a curious medley of Roman laws as laid down by Justitian, Dutch and English en¬ actments of likewise ancient date, and I do not hesitate to state that at least the criminal law requires complete revision. Perhaps none of you are aware of the fact that, according to the law under which we live, a man may legally murder both his wife and paramour if discovered in the act of adultery ! I don’t know whether Colonial lawyers consider this enactment an advance on modern ideas; all I can say is that to permit it to exist on the statutes is a disgrace to any country calling itself civilised. So far as it goes, the law referring to insanity in its relation¬ ship to crime is fairly satisfactory, but then the legal definitions of insanity, as used by various experts, is most misleading, and must in many cases destroy the otherwise fairly favourable clauses. Thus Mr. Yan der Linden^ gives some amusing definitions of insanity, O) American Journal of Insanity, October, 1888. O) The Institutes of Holland (1806), translated from the Dutch by Mr. Juta (B.L ■), pages 176 et seq.