Insanity (law)

“ In all civilized communities, ancient or modern, insanity has been regarded as exempting from the punishment of crime, and vitiating the civil acts of those who are affected with it. The only difficulty, or diversity of opinion, consists in determining who are really insane, in the meaning of the law, which has been content with merely laying down some general principles, and leaving their application to the discretion of the judicial authorities.... ”

“ It is agreed that at common law an insane person was not to suffer punishment. The question here is, what, after conviction and sentence, was the method by which the existence of insanity in the convict was to be ascertained, when a suggestion of such insanity has made. ”

“ On a more attentive consideration, there appears to be something latent and perhaps mischievous, in the terms Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, as applied to cases of [20] insanity. If an insane person be responsible for his conduct, I know of no law which sanctions his confinement. If he can discriminate between Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, on what pretence is he to be deprived of his liberty? Is it humane to suppose him in his senses when he becomes most outrageous? ”

“ Yet, although it stresses that the purpose of § 24-301 (d) was to protect the public from the release of dangerous persons acquitted as insane, and although it concedes that a defendant may be acquitted as insane without pleading insanity, the Court requires a finding of present insanity in order to commit in such a case. To me neither the words nor the policy of the law supports this; I cannot believe Congress thought only people who claim to be crazy are dangerous enough to be confined without further findings. ”

“ The law is remiss if it permit a mentally unsound person to act on his own behalf, or others to act for him, without its sanction; and is it, we ask, consonant with English jurisprudence to detain a man against his will, in other words, to imprison him, even in his own house, and under the authority of his own immediate relatives? As soon as insanity has declared itself, so soon, we maintain, should both the person and the property of the sufferer come under the protection of the law ”

“ Under the common law, insanity was an absolute answer to an accusation of crime. Since 1883, where insanity is proved to have existed at the date of the commission of the incriminated acts, the accused is found guilty of the acts but insane when he did them, and is relegated to a criminal lunatic asylum. ”

“ It is presumed, that no person, actually under a commission of lunacy, could legally dispose of his property by will, because such instrument confides the management of his affairs to others. But in the judgment before cited, and where the law is expounded by the highest and most competent authority, it appears, that the legal definition of a lunatic, implies a person interchangeably visited by insanity and reason. ”

“ The insane are exempted from punishment for crime on the ground that they are not able to prepare and attend to their cases when placed on trial and on the further ground that their "free will" is destroyed by disease or "something else," and therefore they could form no intent. In another place I have tried to point out the fact that the acts of the sane and the insane are moved by like causes, but this is not the theory of the law.
Insanity is often very insidious. ”

“ The gentlemen who compose the jury and whose province it is to determine on the lunacy [65] of the party, may not be acquainted with the different species of insanity, nor possess any considerable knowledge of the physiology of the intellect; yet they are entitled, and fully able to exercise their judgment, their honest and plain sense, on those opinions and that conduct which characterize an insane mind, and which disqualify the person so affected from having the management of himself or of his affairs. ”

“ If it was offered to show insanity at the time of the commission of the crime, it was obviously a defense which should be heard at the time of his trial, or by a preliminary hearing in the jurisdiction of the crime, if so provided for by its laws. By the law of New Jersey, insanity as an excuse for crime is a defense, and the burden of making it out is upon the defendant. ”

“ Since the answers of the judges were made to the House of Lords, the law as relating to insanity in a criminal trial has been laid down in conformity with their conclusions: if the accused person at the time of committing the offense knew right from wrong, and that he was doing wrong, he must be brought in guilty, whether insane or not. If insane, he is not necessarily exempted from the punishment of his crime ”

“ What, to some, would infallibly be the exhibitions of a diseased mind, may, to others, be the harmless frolics of a person of odd and eccentric manners. And, just for this reason, the decisions of courts have fluctuated, and, on this subject, have been the least satisfactory. When we lay down a definition of insanity, and agree upon it, we are next met with the further difficulty, to bring the facts of a person’s life or actions within it, and so to classify them. ”

“ It is not necessary to enter on an investigation, or to enumerate all the particular states of mind which may be comprehended under the terms Insanity, Madness or Lunacy, but it [70] is a subject of grave and important enquiry to ascertain what degree of mental derangement, or imbecility ought to disqualify an individual from being the master of his person and property. It has sometimes occurred that persons evidently under mental derangement have for months continued to transact their affairs with prudence, and have conducted themselves quietly in society. ”

“ If there existed in the mind of the defendant an insane illusion it is not an excuse unless the illusion is of such a character that if true it would result in his injury.
“Proof of partial or incipient insanity is not sufficient as an excuse. The settled law of the state is that so long as that power to appreciate the nature and quality of the act is present no man must commit crime if he would escape the consequences. ”

“ Accordingly he goes back to his haunts and his vices, impatient of restraint, and is soon in the hands of the police again. Clearly there is need of some modification in the law or its administration to permit of such persons being dealt with.
Insane offenders may be divided into two classes: those whose wrongdoing is the result of their insanity; and those who have been sound enough to begin with, but who have become insane, just as they have contracted physical diseases, as a result of vicious indulgence and its treatment. ”

“ Although of the utmost consideration, the extent of this enquiry would seem to be very limited, and contained in this simple question. Is the person accused, of insane mind? If he be insane he will be acquitted on the proof of his insanity—if he be not of insane mind, he must be treated as an ordinary delinquent. In those cases where the prisoner is so bereft of his reason, that any twelve men would not entertain a different opinion, where numerous evidences appear to testify to repeated acts of [3] insanity, which are so manifest that they cannot be otherwise interpreted ”

“ And besides these intrinsic difficulties in arriving at correct judgments regarding alleged cases of insanity, there are extrinsic difficulties more formidable still, for no subject is more overlaid with public prejudice than this. While such things as law, justice, civilization, and Christianity, have asserted their supremacy for thousands of years, it is only within recent times—so recent as to be still within the memory of men that the system of atrocious barbarity by which the insane had been always and everywhere treated has been brought to a termination. ”

“ Finally, it is necessary to observe that insanity may be counterfeited by the criminal, in order to defeat the progress of justice;—and with this view, may attempt to impose on the medical practitioner. ”

“ Our courts of law generalize such impulses under the term “temporary insanity,” and the world accepts the term as a satisfactory one, for it is not human to believe that, a sane person would under any circumstances throw up life. ”

“ The law already recognizes that, but only in rare cases of a very flagrant nature, or when the culprit's wealth permits the luxury of criminal insanity. It has become quite fashionable to be the victim of paranoia. ”

“ It certainly would do so, if they could persue the investigation with that careful and impartial spirit of inquiry that alone leads to knowledge. Erroneous tests of insanity have been incorporated into works of law, and these dogmas have become a part of the judicial mind. Practically ignorant of nervous disorders and the physiological knowledge necessary to comprehend them, and unused to contact with the insane, what wonder is it that the judicial ideas of insanity are as crude as the antiquated law which inspired them. The study of the mind is the study of the human body. ”

“ It is of frequent occurrence, that persons labouring under insanity, although of exemplary lives and unblemished character, shall believe themselves guilty of the most atrocious crimes;—reputation, the dearest possession of the sound mind is sacrificed without a regret [40] by the despairing lunatic;—he accuses himself of cowardice, of fraud, of secret murder, or of a turpitude at which man revolts:—and others blessed with opulence, and enjoying those comforts which render life desirable, become apprehensive of terminating their existence in the work-house. ”

“ According to the present state of the law, there is no intermediate position for a person suffering from any form of cerebral agitation or of mental disturbance; he must be declared by certificate a lunatic, or his insanity must be called ‘nervousness.’ Under the latter designation of his malady, he cannot receive treatment in an Asylum or Licensed House ”

“ This judicial approval of the doctrine of partial insanity formed the subject of an animated debate in the House of Lords, and in the end certain questions were put by that House to the judges, and answered by Chief Justice Tindal on behalf of all his colleagues except Mr Justice Maule, who gave 613 independent replies. The answers to those questions are commonly called “The Rules in Macnaughton’s case,” and they still nominally contain the law of England as to the criminal responsibility of the insane. ”

“ The cunning of the insane is proverbial, and this extends also to the subrational, and many of these folk realize that their difference from others, their queerness, as their folks call it, is quite enough to make a verdict of insanity in their case assured with the present lax enforcement of law. ”

“ Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against insanity. ”

“ Because its inadequacy is so apparent, and because no experienced person seriously expects juries to apply it consistently, it fairly deserves first place in any discussion of present problems.
Thanks to human sympathy, the law governing insanity has had comparatively few victims, but the fact remains that more than one irresponsible insane man has swung miserably from the scaffold. ”

“ Today we have our differences over the legal definition of insanity. But however insanity is defined, it is, in end effect, treated as a disease. While afflicted people [p669] may be confined either for treatment or for the protection of society, they are not branded as criminals.
Yet terror and punishment linger on as means of dealing with some diseases. ”

“ Allowing that family prejudices and pride were of more moment than we are willing to admit, yet they should not suspend the enforcement of registration; for it must be remembered that the insane stand in a different class to patients suffering from any bodily infirmity. They forfeit by their malady the power to act in their own affairs; or their actions, if their mental disorder has been as far as possible concealed, are at any time during their life or after their death, liable to be called in question on the plea of insanity. ”

“ Nothing can more strongly illustrate the popular ignorance respecting insanity than the proposition, equally objectionable in its humanity and its logic, that the insane should be punished for criminal acts in order to deter other insane persons from doing the same thing. ”

“ To our mind, this state of things proves a grievous defect in the law of lunacy. Every person has an inherent right to the protection of the law; yet practically, if insane, he does not at all, as a matter of course, obtain it: his malady and position may very probably be unknown, and he may be helpless, or otherwise debarred from making it known. ”

“ We do not hang a person on the simple opinion that he is a murderer, but proof is required from the accused’s own actions, that he is guilty of the charge which forfeits his life. So the charge which forfeits our personal liberty ought to be proved from the individual’s own conduct, before imprisonment.
So long as insanity is treated as a crime, instead of a misfortune, as our present system practically does so treat it, the protection of our individual liberty imperatively demands such an enactment. Many contend that every person is insane on some point. ”

“ In order to a better appreciation of the existing provision for the insane, and of its defects, the author has introduced certain preliminary chapters on the number of the insane, on the increase of insanity, on the inadequacy of the existing public provision for the insane, and on the curability of insanity. In reviewing the character and extent of the provisions for the insane, the course adopted has been to regard them in reference to their effects on recovery, and to discover the conditions inimical to it, whether without or within asylums. ”