Letter to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel, bart. on the responsibility of monomaniacs for the crime of murder / by James Stark.

Date:
1843
Catalogue details

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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    of crime as evidence of insanity, and to make every atrocious and ex- traordinary wickedness its own excuse. Strictly speaking, there never could he an adequate motive to crime, and it would he most d.iugerous to assume that every person committing a crime without adequate motive was insane, and, therefore, not accountable fbr his actions. It seems scarcely necessary to say, that the jury seem to have r^e- turned a veridict of not guilty, first, because it could not be proved that the pistols were loaded with bullets, and secondly, because it seems to have been judged better to consider him insane than that it should be presumed that any one could be so wicked and debased as shoot at a monarch so much beloved by all her subjects. At the late trial of Daniel M'Naughten for the atrocious murder of Mr Drummond, the Sohcitor-General, Sir W. Follett, stated, that the jury would have to decide whether he was in that degree of insanity at the time he committed that crime which would render him not a responsible agent, and not -answerable to the laws of his coun- try. There are few crimes that are committed, and, above all,' crimes of an atrocious nature like this, that are not committed by persons labouring under some morbid affection of the mind ; and it is difficult for well-regulated minds to understand the motives which lead to such offences in the absence of that morbid aflfection of the mind. I believe the truth of this remark will be more especially proved when attacks are directed to persons holding high and impor- tant stations in the nation. If you look at a neighbouring coun- try, you will see that persons in broad day, in the crowded streets of the metropolis of France, without any precaution for their own safe- ty, without any attempt to escape, in the midst of the people, close to the armed guards of the King, have discharged their weapons at the person of the sovereign of that country. What motive had they ? We know of none, but that of an ill-regulated mind, worked upon by political feeling. I refer to these things to show that the circumstances attendant upon crime itself, afford no grounds for hold- ing that the parties committing it are not responsible to the laws of their country. The whole question will turn upon this : If you believe that the prisoner at the bar, at the time he committed the act, was not a re- sponsible agent—if you believe that when he fired the ])istol he was incapable of distinguishing right fi'om wrong—if you believe he was under the influence and control of some disease of the mind which prevented him from being conscious that he was committing a crime —if you believe that he did not know that he was violating the laws both of Grod and of man, then, undoubtedly, he is entitled to your ac- quittal. But it is my duty, subject to the correction of my Lord, and to the observations of my learned friend, to tell you that nothing short of that excuse can excuse him upon the principle of the Eng- lish law. To excuse him it will not be sufficient that he laboured at the time under partial insanity ; that he had a morbid disposition of mind which could not exist in a sane person ; that it is not enough