The principles of forensic medicine, systematically arranged and applied to British practice / John Gordon Smith.

  • John Gordon Smith
Date:
1827
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles of forensic medicine, systematically arranged and applied to British practice / John Gordon Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    APPENDIX, abo > How far such unfortunate beings should be considered amenable te: justice, has been matter of consideration; and i shail supply any formal consideration of the subject, by the following account, which is of no little interest, and may suggest all that is necessary to be added on the topic. Our assistance will never be called for, but in a case of suspected, or pretended deafness or dumbness. - sg -“* High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, July, 1817. The court pro- ceeded to advise the information in the case of Jean Campbell, alias Bruce, a deaf and dumb woman, accused of drowning her child. The Judges delivered their opinions at considerable length. ; | ** Lord Hermand was of opinion that the pannel [prisoner] was not a fit object of trial. She was deaf and dumb from her infaney—had had no instruction whatever—was unable to give information to her counset -——to communicate the names of ber exculpatory witnesses, if she had. any, and was unable to plead to the indictment in any way whatever, except by certain signs, which he considered in point of law to be no pleading whatever. : : ‘“ Lords Justice Clerk, Gillies, Pitmilly and Reston, were of a different opinion. From the evidence of Mr. Kinniburgh and Mr. Wood *, they were of opinion that the pannel was doli capax, quoud the actual crime, she was charged with. It was true that this was a new case in Scot-, land, but in England a case of a similar nature had occurred. One, Jones was arraigned at the Old Bailey in 1773, for stealing five guineas, He appeared to be deaf and dumb: a jury was impanelled to try whe- ther he wilfully stood mute, or from the visitation of God: they returned a verdict ‘ from the visitation of God’ —and it having appeared that the ptisoner had been in the use of helding conversation, by means of signs, with a woman of the name of Fanny Lazarus, she wag Sworn an inter- preter. He was tried, convicted, and transported. In the present case the pannel had described to Mr. Kinniburgh most minutely the manner in which the accident had happened to her child; and from the indignant way in which she rejected the assertion that she had thrown it over the bridge, it was evident she was sensible that to murder it was a crime. It was also observed by Lord Reston, that it would be an act of justice towards the pannel herself to bring her to trial; for if the court found she was a perfect non-entity, and could not be tried for a crime, it followed, as a natural consequence, that the unhappy woman would be confined for life; whereas if she was brought to trial, and it turned out that the accident occurred in the way she described it, she Tere immediately be set at liberty. The court found her a fit object or trial.” Abbie XXXII. Page 502. The case here referred to, occurred in France in the prior part of last century; and is narrated in the Causes Celebres—a work by the way that throws the respectability of the French Judicature deeply into the shade. Not only are there too many instances on record to prove the polluted state of the streams of justice; but also the shameless and open ‘wenality, or the imperturbable stupidity of many of the judges, or pro- bably both. I would recommend, as an amusing specimen of the con- temptible state of these matters, Foderé’s short abstract of the case, given in his first volume, § 75. PN Nalaeriss, Bae Oat > le Afier a man. bad been condemned to the gallies, and spent two years a ence a ea TS ah TT aT nen EEN * Gentlemen eonncoted with the Edinburgh Institution for the deaf and dumb. | ie