On the amendment of the Law of Lunacy : a letter to Lord Brougham / by a phrenologist.

  • Tichborne, Thomas.
Date:
1843
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the amendment of the Law of Lunacy : a letter to Lord Brougham / by a phrenologist. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    impressions and contrary to what you would have deemed wise under the sway of sober and steady reason. (Hear, hear.) Lord Coke says, that to execute an insane person is murder, a course contrary to all law and all reason, and alien from all the principles of justice. (Hear.) My lords, if you entertain any doubts upon the law, you can summon the judges of the land and hear their opinion upon it (as it is a subject of great importance), and thus have the law laid down under their united authority, to operate in all time, for the guidance of courts of justice, and to direct, wdth more force than is attained by the influence of a single judge, the verdicts of juries. It is for your lordships to determine whether you will feel it necessary to resort to such a measure. But perhaps, my lords, you will ask, with some anxiety and curiosity, what the law of other countries is upon this subject? My lords, the law of other countries corresponds (as of necessity it must) with our own upon this subject. As for the law of Scotland, I quote from a learned writer, Mr. Alison (in his Criminal Law)—“ To amount to a complete bar as to punishment, the insanity, at the time of committing an act, must have been of such a kind as entirely to deprive the man of the use of his reason as applied to the act in question, and prevent him from knowing whether he was doing wrong.' And if your lordships refer to the learned treatises (on the criminal law) of Mr. Baron Hume, yo\i will find, that (though more expansively treated and more loosely worded) the law is deduced to an effect substantially the same; and further, I can call your lordships’ attention to a case cited by Mr. Alison on the subject. A man w'as indicted for the murder of another by shooting him ; having pursued him over a moor he shot him dead. The defence was insanity, under the delusion that the man murdered was an evil spirit •whom the prisoner had been commanded by God to destroy. No one doubted that if the facts necessary to support the defence had been made out to the satisfaction of the jury, the judges (it is clear from the way in which the case w’as conducted) would have considered it a substantial defence ; but the facts were not mafle out, and the man was found guilty from the defect in the evidence, the jury being of opinion, under the direction of the court, that there was not sufficient evidence to show that at the time the man committed the act he really w'as labouring under that delusion. My lords, to pass from Scotland to France. In the Code Napoleon (the criminal code not less of ancient than of modern France) the French law on the subject is thus laid (town :—“ With respect to every crime, and every misdemeanour, no man can be made accountable who, at the time he does the act, is under alienation of mind.” And though, my lords, I have no particular text writer to quote as to the law of Germany on the subject, I have read many German treatises upon it, in which cases are cited satisfying me that the la-w of Germany in this respect corresponds with the law' of France, the law of Scotland, and our own. The question then’is, wheiherwe can, under these circumstances, attempt to vary the law ? Is it practicable? Is it possible ? and, allowing it to be even practicable, would it be judicious ? (Hear, hear). My lords, some persons say, “ Define pre- cisely what the law is.” I say, to attempt to define upon a subject with which we are as yet only partially acquainted would be difiUcult and dangerous. (Hear, hear.) Let us leave the general law as it stands, and let the judges, before whom prisoners are arraigned and tried, apply the particular facts to the law so laid down. (Hear, hear.) My lords, I have heard it said (it is an argument I have heard in the streets), “The object of punishment is the prevention of crime: you do not punish by w\ay of retribution, or in a spirit of vengeance, but to prevent others from committing similar offences ; and, therefore” (it is said). “ although a man may be under the influence of an insane dehtsion at the time when he commits an offence, if he knew the effect he w'as about to produce—if he knew, for instance, when he fired the pistol that the result would be the death of the party fired at, there is a sufficient ground for carrying the law into execution against him, because w'e punish to prevent others from imitating the oflence.” My lords, I should have dealt summarily with this position if I had not found it supported in the writings of a most rev. prelate, not a member of your lordships’ house. [The noble and learned lord referred to Archbishop Whately, who, he was here informed, w'as a member of the House of Peers],—at least had 1 knowm that he was, I w'ould have certainly sent him a note upon the subject. That most rev. prelate stated the