Self-accusation

“ I need not say that our precognitions are our guarantee; but I have heard a report which would seem to impugn our discretion, if it do not shame our judgment, insomuch that, if it be true, we have seized the wrong person. Do you know anything of this woman with the white mice, who takes upon herself the burden of a self-accusation? Of course it is for you to help us to her as the salvation of your client. ”

“ There will be a frenzy of self-accusation—whether just or unjust it doesn't matter—and as for the victors, they will say: 'Our enemies admit their guilt, so what further proof is needed?' Where the real guilt is, that is an irrelevant and trivial question. ”

“ In exceptional cases, one would be bound to accuse oneself, namely, if there were a grave and urgent necessity of the community which outweighed the loss that would follow from self-accusation (see 1576, 1577) . Self-accusation is also a duty when one is the gravely culpable cause of the punishment of an innocent person, if there is no other lawful way of freeing him, and the self-accusation will not bring on one a much more serious evil than that which the innocent person suffers. ”

“ But, on the one hand, as my self-accusation does not amount to a confession of guilt, so, on the other, it is possible that, if it did, the benefit resulting to others, from the record of an experience purchased at so heavy a price, might compensate, by a vast over-balance, for any violence done to the feelings I have noticed, and justify a breach of the general rule. Infirmity and misery do not, of necessity, imply guilt. ”

“ Something of self-accusation must have had a share in it, thus to paralyze his strength—something more inextricable than any web that mortal man could cast over him unaided by a sense of his own iniquity. ”

“ It is false accusation indulged in apart from any obvious purpose. Like the swindling of pathological liars, it appears objectively more pernicious than the lying, but it is an expression of the same tendency. The most striking form of this type of conduct is, of course, self-accusation. Mendacious self- impeachment seems especially convincing of abnormality. ”

“ It is a well-known fact that men, whose minds are unhinged, will deliver themselves up to justice, accusing themselves of having committed crimes which have actually taken place, and it is only on investigation that their self-accusation proves to be false ”

“ This equitable and obviously necessary difference in treatment, between offenders and non-offenders, is always sensibly felt by the culprits themselves—often deeply resented; the true cause of it, rarely well understood, and still more rarely acknowledged or explained, especially to parents and guardians: for self-accusation is least apt to be made by those who most frequently commit acts that should produce it. ”

“ If this is really accomplished and some positive fact is established in the self-accusation, the question becomes one of finding the value seen by the confessor in blaming himself together with his fellow. Revenge, hatred, jealousy, envy, anger, suspicion, and other passions will be the forces in which this value will be found. One man brings his ancient comrade into jeopardy in revenge for the latter’s injustice in the division of the booty, or in deliberate anger at the commission of some dangerous stupidity in a burglary. ”

“ Subnormal verbalist type. Case 12. Man, 21 years. Developmental: Early illness with involvement of nervous system. Delinquencies: Lying excessive. Swindling. Stealing. ———————————————————————————————-
CHAPTER IV CASES OF PATHOLOGICAL ACCUSATION We include in this chapter pathological self-accusation as well as incrimination of others. In court work one sees many cases of false accusation, but few belong to the pathological variety. We have not considered those based upon vindictiveness, or self-defense, or where any other even slight, recognizable, normal gratification was at the bottom. ”

“ It is interesting to note that in such situations the accused tends toward over response, or exaggerated response; to hostility and emotional display; to self-righteousness, to counter accusation, to defense.... " He must believe that he is cut off from friendly or supporting forces. If he does, he himself becomes the only source of his "salvation." "Another condition, which is most probably necessary, though not sufficient for confession, is that the accused person feels guilt. A possible reason is that a sense of guilt promotes self-hostility." ”

“ If he resisted he could be cut down, while, if he submitted to capture, his fate was decided. Although brought before a court, he was not allowed to say anything in self-defence, nor was there any need for accusation, indictment or appeal. ”

“ In a small number of cases self-accusations appear and they confess to all kinds of imaginary crimes. As a rule they are elated and optimistic, but often affected and theatrical. Occasionally suicidal attempts are made. ”

“ In criminal cases, if an accuser offered battle, the defendant was forced either to accept it or to confess his guilt, unless he could prove an alibi, or unless the accuser was himself notoriously guilty of the crime in question, and the accusation was evidently a mere device to shift the guilt to the shoulders of another ”

“ But in this case a man ought not to accuse the opposite party, nor to attempt to transfer the criminality to another, but he ought to show that that has not and never has had any reference whatever to himself, either in respect of power or duty. And in this kind of cause there is this new circumstance, that the prosecutor often works up a fresh accusation out of the topics employed, to remove the guilt from the accused person. ”

“ I came before you willingly, though I could easily have avoided doing so; because I was eager to clear my fame. I expected accusers, and I knew I could confound accusation. But what is this that you call justice? You put together circumstances in your own mind: you form conjectures; and then, without information, accuser, or oath, without the semblance of guilt, you condemn me to prison, and expect to extort from me confession. In defect of articles of charge I disdain to answer: the only return a man of honour should make to loose conjectures and random calumnies is silence. ”

“ Deprecation is when the person on his trial confesses that he has done wrong, and that he has done wrong on purpose, and nevertheless entreats to be pardoned. But this kind of address can be used but very rarely. Removal of the accusation from oneself is when the person on his trial endeavours by force of argument and by influence to remove the charge which is brought against him from himself to another, so that it may not fix him himself with any guilt at all. And that can be done in two ways,—if either the cause of the deed, or the deed itself, is attributed to another. ”

“ In the midst of one’s self-accusings and misgivings, an ill-founded allegation brings a certain sense of relief: if this be the extent of my culpability, I may be proud of my conduct, is such satisfactory judgment to address to one’s own heart. He would have felt more comfort, it is true, in the reflection, if he did not remember that it was a frequent artifice of the day to accuse men of crimes of which they were innocent, to afford time and opportunity to involve them in some more grounded charge. ”

“ for over-modesty borders nearly on pride, and too liberal self-accusations are generally but so many traps for acquittal with applause: so that (whatever other ladies might) you will not be forgiven, if you deal with us in a way so poorly artful; ”

“ But as the accuser when he is seeking to remove the guilt from others must use the topics proper to an advocate for the defence; so the man on his trial must use those topics which have been allotted to an accuser, when he wishes to transfer an accusation from his own shoulders to those of others. ”

“ Every word of the court had been an accusation, a sneer, an acceptance of the defendant's guilt as a matter of course, an abuse far more subversive of our theory of government than the mere acquittal of a single criminal, for it struck at the very foundations of that liberty which the fathers had sought the shores of the unknown continent to gain. ”

“ Voluntary injury deserves punishment, involuntary deserves forgiveness. Hence when the judge becomes aware that a man has made a false accusation, not with a mind to do harm, but involuntarily through ignorance or a just error, he does not impose the punishment of retaliation. ”

“ If such guilt existed, it called for condign punishment and as God's instrument he must mete it out. But he was a righteous man and must first be certain. Therefore, he would not let her suspect his own doubts. If she were dissembling he would dissemble, too, but to a better end. In her this deceit was a sinful hypocrisy, but in him it would be as virtuous as the care with which the prosecutor cajoles the criminal into self-conviction. So he inquired with a reserved and indulgent suavity, "Are you particularly fond of that poem, my dear?" ”

“ If I believed myself to be the man described, in the indictment--which I must do before I could consent to plead guilty--I would fly to the uttermost parts of the earth; for a man is totally destroyed when he has lost all feeling of self-respect, and the esteem and regard of his friends and associates. ”

“ It is an established maxim, that no man can be obliged to accuse himself, or to answer any questions which may have any tendency to discover what the nature of his defence requires to be concealed. His guilt must appear either by a voluntary and unconstrained confession, which the terrours of conscience have sometimes extorted, and the notoriety of the crime has at other times produced, or by the deposition of such witnesses as the jury shall think worthy of belief. ”

“ The benign and ever paternal rule under which we live gives even to the most-with-accusation-surrounded, and with-strong-presumption-implicated prisoner, every facility of defence. Having read and matured this indictment, you will, after a week, make choice of an advocate.”
“Am I to be confronted with my accuser?”
“I sincerely hope that the indecent spectacle of insulting attack and offensive rejoinder thus suggested is unknown to the administration of our law.” ”

“ I concur with the Court in its assertions of the value of the self-incrimination clause-that it may be used as a shield by guilty and innocent alike-and that it should be construed liberally as it has been to cover more than the literal reading of the phrase 'No person * * * shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself' would suggest. ”

“ Tenderly and considerately is he cautioned on no account to criminate himself: he is exhorted, even by judges, to withdraw the honest and truthful plea of 'guilty,' now the only amends which such a one can make to the outraged laws of God and man: he is defended, even to the desperate length of malignant accusation of the innocent, by learned men, whose aim it is to pervert justice and screen the guilty! he is lodged and tended with more circumstances of outward comfort and consideration than he probably has ever experienced in all his life before ”

“ Even if the paraphernalia of justice,—the judge, and the jury, and the lawyers, could be induced to declare her innocent before all men, must she not confess her guilt to him,—to that one,—for whose verdict alone she cared? ”

“ We have seen that the plaintiff asked the court to instruct the jury that if the assured intentionally killed himself when his reasoning faculties were so far impaired by insanity that he was unable to understand the moral character of his act, even if he did understand its physical nature, consequence, and effect, such self-destruction would not of itself prevent recovery upon the policies. ”

“ The reprobation of compulsory self-incrimination is an established doctrine of our civilized society. As stated by appellant's counsel, it is the 'result of the long struggle between the opposing forces of the spirit of individual liberty, on the one hand, and the collective power of the state, on the other.' As such, it should be condemned with great earnestness.
The essential and inherent cruelty of compelling a man to expose his own guilt is obvious to every one, and needs no illustration. It is plain to every person who gives the subject a moment's thought. ”

“ Manly; I have been prosecuted with a cruelty scarcely to be paralleled. A person avowedly criminal in the same indictment with myself has been brought forth as a capital witness against me; a fact, I believe, totally unexampled. My lords, oppressed as I am with infamy, loaded as I am with distress, sunk under this cruel prosecution, your lordships and the gentlemen of the jury cannot think life a matter of any value to me. ”

“ We conclude that the policies of the privilege against compelled self-incrimination are not offended when a defendant in a capital case yields to the pressure to testify on the issue of punishment at the risk of damaging his case on guilt. We therefore turn to the converse situation, in which a defendant remains silent on the issue of guilt and thereby loses any opportunity to address the jury personally on punishment. ”

“ I then, jurors, think that sufficient accusation has been made, for I think it is necessary to carry the accusation up to this point until the accused shall appear to have done things worthy of death; for this is the most extreme punishment we can inflict upon them, so that I do not know what need there is to make many accusations against men who would not be able to give satisfaction for each of their offenses even by dying twice. ”

“ And this is granted to be true by all men, in that they lead criminals to execution, and 128prison, with armed men, notwithstanding that such criminals have consented to the law, by which they are condemned.
No man obliged to accuse himself. A covenant to accuse oneself, without assurance of pardon, is likewise invalid. For in the condition of nature, where every man is judge, there is no place for accusation: and in the civil state, the accusation is followed with punishment; which being force, a man is not obliged not to resist. ”