Letter to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel, bart. on the responsibility of monomaniacs for the crime of murder / by James Stark.
- Date:
- 1843
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Letter to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel, bart. on the responsibility of monomaniacs for the crime of murder / by James Stark. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![Mr Justice Tracey, at the trial of Arnold for shooting Lord- Onslow, where the plea of insanity was likewise endeavoured to be proved, remarked, it is not every kind of partial humour and something unaccountable in a man's action that points him out to be such a madman as is exempted from punishment; it must be a man that is totally deprived of his understanding and memory, and does not know what he is doing, no more than an infant, than a brute, or a wild beast,—such a one is never the object of punishment. (Har- grave's State Trials, p. 322.) Sir Simon Le Blanc, before whom Bowler was tried for shooting at Barrows, and where insanity was attempted to be proved, in his address to the jury, observed, that it was for them to determine whether the prisoner when he committed the offence for which he stood charged, was or was not incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, or under the influence of any illusion in respect of the pro- secutor, which rendered his mind at the moment insensible of the na- ture of the act he was about to commit, since in that case he would not be legally responsible for his'conduct. On the other hand, pro- vided they should be of opinion that when he committed the offence he was capable of distinguishing right from wrong, and not under the influence of such an illusion as disabled him from discerning that he was doing a wrong act, he would be amenable to the justice of his country and guilty in the eye of the law. At the trial of Bellingham for the murder of Mr Percival, where insanity was also pleaded, Sir Vicary Gibbs, then Attorney-General of England, expressed thus strongly the law relative to the insane : A man may be deranged in his mind,—his intellects may be insuf- ficient for enabling him to conduct the common affairs of life, such as disposing of his property, or judging of the claims which his respec- tive relations have upon him ; and if he be so, the administration of his country will take his affairs into their management, and appoint him trustees ; but, at the same time, such a man is not discharged from his responsibility for criminal acts. And again, Although a manmay be incapable of conducting his own affairs, he may still be answerable for his criminal acts, if he possess a mind capable of dis- tinguishing right from wrong. (Collinson on Lunacy, p. 657.) On the same trial Lord Chief-Justice Mansfield, who presided, thus expressed himself in his charge to the jury : If a man were depriv- ed of all power of reasoning, so as not to be able to distinguish whe- ther it was right or wrong to commit the most wicked transaction, he could not do an act against the law. Such a man so destitute of all power of judgment could have no intention at all. In order lo support the defence, however, it ought to be proved by the most dis- tinct and un(][ue8tionable evidence, that the crirainal*'was incapable of judging between right and wrong. It must, in fact, be praved be- yond all doubt, that at the time he committed the atrocious act with which he stood charged, he did not consider that murder was a crime against the laws of God and nature. There teas no other proof of insanity which could excuse murder or any other crime. There were](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21928794_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
