A treatise on medical jurisprudence / by Francis Wharton and Moreton Stillé ; the medical part revised and corrected, with numerous additions by Alfred Stillé.

Francis Wharton

Date:: 1860

Credit: A treatise on medical jurisprudence / by Francis Wharton and Moreton Stillé ; the medical part revised and corrected, with numerous additions by Alfred Stillé. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

Title Page

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$nature only in the perpetration of a criminal act. If these positions were true, it would be very easy to distinguish a sane from an insane criminal, but the rule wholly fails in practice. In the first place, non-discovery is here taken as a proof of the non-existence of a motive; while it is undoubted that motives may exist for many atrocious criminal acts without our being able to discover \]xem a fact proved by the numerous recorded confessions of criminals before execution, in cases of which, until these confessions were made, no motive for the perpetration of the crime had appeared to the acutest minds. In the case of Courvoisier, who was convicted of the murder of Lord William Russell, in June, 1840, it was the reliance upon this alleged criterion before the secret proofs of guilt accidentally came out, and led many to believe he could not have committed the crime; and the absence 'of motive' was urged by his counsel as the strongest proof of the man's innocence. It was ingeniously contended, 'that the most trifling action of human life had its spring from some motive or other.' This is undoubtedly true, but it is not always in the power of man untainted with crime to detect and uin'avel the motives which influence criminals to the perpetration of murder. No reasonable motive was ever discovered for the atrocious murders and mutilations perpetrated by Greenack and Good; yet these persons were very properly made responsible for their crimes. On the trial of Francis for shooting at the Queen, the main ground of the defence was, that the prisoner had no motive for the act and therefore he was irresponsible; but he was convicted. It is difficult to com- prehend under what circumstances any motive for such an act as this could exist; and therefore the admission of such a defence would have been like laying down the rule, that the evidence of the perpetration of so henious a crime should, in all cases, be taken as a proof of the existence of an irrespon- sible state of mind. Crimes have been sometimes committed without any apparent motive, by sane individuals who were at the time perfectly aware of the criminality of their conduct. No mark of insanity or delusion could be discovered about them, and they had nothing to say in their defence. They have, however, been very properly held responsible. On the other hand, luna- tics confined in a lunatic asylum have been known to be influenced by motives in the perpetration of crimes. Thus they have often murdered their keepers in revenge for ill treatment which they have experienced at their hands.(w) Thus Farmer was acquitted as insane, while the clear motive for homicide was revenge and ill-feeling. In another case the act of murder was perpetrated from jealousy, (v) On the whole, the conclusion with respect to this assumed criterion is, that an absence of motive may, when there are other strong evi- dences of insanity, favor the view of irresponsibility for crime; but the non- discovery of a motive for a criminal act cannot of itself be taken as any proof of the existence of homicidal monomania in the perpetrator. It is right to state, however, that the law invariably acts on the humane principle, that the absence of a sufficient motive forms a strong presumption of innocence—the presence of one is no proof of guilt.(w) (u) See the case of the Queen v. Farmer. York Spring Assizes 1831; (r) Reg. v. Goule. Durham Summer Assizes, 1845. (w>) Taylor's Med. Jurisprudence, pp. 578, 579.$