THE DOCTRINE OF "IRRESISTIBLE IMPULSE." 761

the judge and jury to arrive at certain practical conclusions. The question proposed to him involves a simple fact, and not its consequences; and if the latter consideration be entertained by him, it will be liable to bias his evidence on the fact, which is his legitimate topic. The definition of insanity becomes very expansive when its expansion may become protective to a criminal with whom we may happen to sympathize. The question whether the accused is a responsible agent is of a judicial nature: our evidence should be confined to the question whether the accused is insane in a certain sense or meaning in which it is understood and defined by law. A medical witness in these cases often moulds his evidence to a foregone conclusion on the criminal responsibility of the accused, and thus lays himself open to a remark from the judge that he must not encroach on the functions of the jury. It is certainly a great evil that, under the present mode of laying this question before a jury, the law operates unequally. One case becomes a subject of prominent public interest, and every exertion is made to construe the most trivial eccentricities of character into proofs of insanity, and to magnify the effects of an hereditary tendency by proving that a distant relative had been a lunatic: an acquittal follows. Another case may excite no interest: the accused is convicted, and either executed or otherwise punished, although the evidence of insanity, had it been as carefully sought for and brought out, would have been perhaps stronger in this than in the former instance.

The doctrine of "irresistible impulse" and the theory of impulsive insanity have been strained in recent times to such a degree as to create in the public mind a distrust of medical evidence on these occasions. It is obviously easy to convert this into a plea for the extenuation of all kinds of crimes for which motives are not at once apparent, and thus medical witnesses often expose themselves to severe rebuke. They are certainly not justified in setting up such a defence, unless they are prepared to draw a clear distinction between impulses which are "unresisted" and those which are irresistible. As a judge once remarked in his address to a jury, "What is the meaning of not being able to resist an impulse? Every crime is committed under an impulse, and the object of the law is to compel persons to control or resist these impulses. If it is made an excuse for a person who has committed a crime, that he was goaded to it by some impulse which medical men might choose to say he could not control, such a doctrine would be fraught with very great danger to society."

While the truth of these remarks is obvious, it must be admitted that the legal test for responsibility is not satisfactory. In addressing the jury in Reg. v. Cockroft, in a trial for murder (Leeds Aut. Ass., 1865), Mellor, J., made the following observations on the defence of insanity which had been set up: "It would be dangerous if the idea went abroad that persons committing crime under sudden impulse were therefore to be excused. At the same time, he thought that the definition of insanity which would excuse from criminal responsibility, as given in M'Naghten's case, hardly went far enough. He was of opinion that a man might know that he was doing an act which was wrong, and still he might be laboring under such disease of the mind as not to be able to restrain his impulse to do that act, and he should therefore not be amenable to the criminal law. The mere fact, however, of the prisoner being ignorant and of a low type of mind would be no excuse. If the jury thought that the prisoner knew at the time when he committed the act that he was doing wrong, and was not laboring under such a disease of the mind as incapacitated him from controlling his impulses, he was not entitled to acquittal on the ground of insanity. The doctrine of uncontrollable impulse, as laid down by some

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writers, was a very dangerous one, and required to be watched with the utmost care. Passion arising from provocation, however trivial, offered to a mind however ill-regulated, did not relieve the person from criminal responsibility." Hence it follows that a man might know that he was doing wrong and committing an act against the laws of God and man, yet if with this consciousness of the illegality of the act there was a diseased condition of mind which prevented him from controlling his actions, he will be entitled to an acquittal on the ground of insanity. With this admission, it is unnecessary to occupy space with metaphysical discussions regarding criminal responsibility; for however objectionable the theory-if the practice of the law be in any one case in conformity with that which has been advised by writers on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity, although it may be even adverse to the theory on which it is professedly based, this is all with which we have to concern ourselves— the principle is admitted. The great defect in the English criminal law is, not that it will not go even to the full extent of exculpating a person who has committed a crime with a knowledge of its illegality, and under what is called an "uncontrollable impulse," or an impulse which, owing to mental disease, his reason was not sufficient to control, but the uncertainty of its application. There are many cases reported which show that an acquittal on the ground of insanity, in a trial for murder, is frequently a mere matter of accident.

Numerous trials for murder have within the last few years taken place in which there have been acquittals on the ground of insanity, and the accused confined during her Majesty's pleasure. In some of these epilepsy has been associated with insanity. The details of these cases present no striking difference from those recorded in the text, with the exception of one, in which a man who had been a lunatic and had recovered was tried on a charge of murder and acquitted on the ground of insanity. (Reg. v. Blampied, Maidstone Sum. Ass., 1875.) The prisoner was charged with the wilful murder of a fellow-laborer named Catt. Blampied became insane in Dec. 1868, was confined in an asylum, from which he was discharged as cured in Dec. 1872, and had ever since worked at his trade in a proper manner. The deceased man was often associated with him, and some months previously a quarrel had taken place between them, but it was not serious, and they were apparently on friendly terms. In April, 1875, they were working within six feet of each other, when the prisoner, without any known provocation, struck the deceased violently with an adze on the back of the head, fracturing his skull and causing his death. The man pleaded not guilty, with every appearance of sanity. In the defence it was urged that he was not responsible for the act on the ground of insanity. Brett, J., told the jury that the law took no heed of sanity or insanity abstractedly considered, or of the presence or absence of delusions. To exempt from responsibility, a man must be so mad as not to know the nature of the act he committed. If he knew what he was doing, and if he knew that it was wrong, then, however mad he might be, he was still responsible. He also remarked that for three years previously the prisoner had been sane and had been treated as sane by his associates. These remarks pointed clearly to a conviction, but the jury after consulting for a short time, found a verdict of guilty, but that the prisoner was not accountable for his acts; in other words, they acquitted him on the ground of insanity. This shows that on these occasions a jury may decline to accept the legal rule of responsibility as here laid down and act upon their own judgment.

[There is no legal warrant either in England or America for the language

JUDICIAL OPINIONS ON INSANE DELUSION.

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imputed to Mr. Justice Brett, in the case of Reg. v. Blampied, Maidstone Sum. Ass., 1895. The decision of the jury was correct and eminently proper. The dicta of Mr. Justice Miller (ante) in Reg. v. Cockroft more correctly states the law applicable to such cases.

1. There is a difference between an insane delusion which dominates and controls the action of an insane person, and a mere delusion which affects the sane or the insane mind similarly. Both sane and insane minds may rest under delusions, but whether the insane delusion be of such a character as to dominate the will and action of the accused, in reference to the act, is the crucial test of criminal responsibility.

2. No amount of moral degeneration, or vice, which has become unresisted or irresistible ever excuses crime. The second-nature criminal may have irresistible impulses to steal, rob, and commit crime. The light of science shines upon the path and clearly marks the boundary line of crime and vice in him who, dominated by an insane delusion, which controls the conduct and dominates the will, commits an act which lacks all the essential elements of crime. Chief Justice Gibson states the law correctly when he says in Commonwealth v. Mosler, 4 Barr. 266: "It (insanity) must amount to delusion or hallucination controlling his will, and making the commission of the act a duty or overruling necessity," and again: "The law is that whether insanity be general or partial it must be so great as to have controlled the will of its subject, and to have taken from him the freedom of moral action."

The knowledge of right and wrong, either in the abstract or in regard to the act committed, knowledge of its character and consequences, even, may exist, as in the case of Guiteau and possibly, though not probably, in the case of Dr. Beach (at the moment of the killing), then even, in the language of Judge Gibson, "if it (the insanity) was so great as to have controlled the will and taken from him the freedom of moral action," by the law of Pennsylvania the accused would not be responsible; and in cases of moral insanity under the law of that State, as announced by the court, Mr. Chief Justice Lewis pronouncing the opinion, "We say to you as the result of our reflections on this branch of the subject, that if the prisoner was actuated by an irresistible inclination to kill, and was utterly unable to control his will or subjugate his intellect, and was not actuated by anger, jealousy, revenge, and kindred evil passions, he is entitled to an acquittal.' Sir James Fitz James Stephen, by far the ablest writer upon the criminal law of England, in reviewing it historically, writing as late as his treatise on the History of the Criminal Law of England (1883), says: "I know of no single instance in which the Court for Crown Cases Reserved, or any other court sitting in banco, has delivered a considered written judgment on the relation of insanity to criminal responsibility, though there are several of such decisions as to the effect of insanity on the validity of contracts and wills." (Stephen's Hist. Crim. Law of Eng., vol. ii. p. 152.)

The question is, or should be, How far does the delusion dominate the volition? or, in another class of cases, as Sir James Stephen puts it, "Was the accused deprived, by a disease affecting the mind, of the power of passing a rational judgment on the moral character of the act which she meant to do?" (Bell's Medico-Legal Studies, vol. ii. p. 1.) Lord Denman

said, in Rex v. Oxford, 2 C. & P., p. 225, where the accused was evidently acting under the duress of a delusion, probably of an insane character: “If some controlling disease was in truth the acting power within him which he could not resist, then he will not be responsible." In State v. Pike, 49 N. H. 399 (50 N. H. 367).

The opinion of Chief Justice Doe is the most masterly and instructive

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JUDICIAL OPINIONS ON INSANE DELUSION.

discussion of the law of Criminal Responsibility of the Insane extant. (Bell's Med.-Legal Studies, vol. ii. p. 14; vide also Laws on Insanity, p. 311–312, and 2 Lawson's Crim. Def. 311 et seq.; also Decisions in American States (Kriel v. Com., 5 Bush (Ky.) 362, Smith v. Com., 1 Duv. (Ky.) 224); in Virginia (Dejarnette v. Com., 75 Va. 876); in Mississippi (Cunningham v. State, 56 Miss., 269); in Connecticut (State v. Johnson, 40 Conn. 136, Anderson v. State, 43 Conn. 514); in Iowa (State v. McWhorter, 46 Iowa 88, State v. Feltes, 35 Iowa, 68); in Illinois (Hopp v. People, 31 Ill. 385); in Indiana (Bradley v. State, 31 Ind. 492); in Texas (Harris ". State, 18 Tex. Court of Appeals, 87); in Pennsylvania (Coyle v. Com., 100 Pa., p. 573); in Georgia (Roberts v. State, 3 Ga. 310); in Massachusetts (Com. v. Rogers, 7 Metc. 500).

The most complete recent statement of the law will be found in the opinion of Somerville, J., in Parsons v. State, given in full in Bell's Med.Legal Studies, vol. ii. p. 16; and Med.-Legal Jour. This case holds that the inquiries to be submitted to the jury in any criminal trial where the defence of insanity is interposed should be:

1. Was the defendant at the time of the commission of the alleged crime, as matter of fact, afflicted with a disease of the brain affecting the mind, so as to be either idiotic, or otherwise insane?

2. If such be the case, did he know right from wrong as applied to the particular act in question? If he did not have such knowledge, he is not legally responsible.

3. If he did have such knowledge, he may nevertheless not be legally responsible if the two following conditions concur :

the

(1.) If, by reason of the duress of such mental disease, he had so far lost power to choose between the right and the wrong, and to avoid doing the act in question, as that his free agency was at the time destroyed.

(2.) And if, at the same time, the alleged crime was so connected with such mental disease, in the relation of cause and effect, as to have been the product of it solely.

(Bell's Med.-Legal Studies, vol. ii. p. 31. Vide also opinion by Dillon, C. J., in State v. Felton, 35 Iowa 67 (Bell's Med.-Legal Studies, vol. ii. p. 16). Judge Dillon held: That the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong was not a safe test of criminal responsibility in all cases, and it was accordingly decided, that, if a person commit a homicide, knowing it to be wrong, but do so under the influence of an uncontrollable and irresistible impulse, arising not from natural passion, but from an insane condition of the mind, he is not criminally responsible. "If," said Chief Justice Dillon, "by the observation and concurrent testimony of medical men who make the study of insanity a specialty, it shall be definitely established to be true that there is an unsound condition of the mind, that is, a diseased condition of the mind, in which, though a person abstractly knows that a given act is wrong, he is yet, by an insane impulse, that is, an impulse proceeding from a diseased intellect, irresistibly driven to commit it-the law must modify its ancient doctrines and recognize the truth, and give to this condition, when it is satisfactorily shown to exist, its exculpatory effect."

In the case of People v. Daly-trial in 8th District Court at Washington, D. C., Jan. 13, 1887-Judge Montgomery charged the jury as follows: "1. Was the defendant at the time, the time of the act, as matter of fact, afflicted with disease of the mind-was he wholly or partially insane? "2. If he was so afflicted, did he know right from wrong, as applied to the homicide in question?

"If he did have such knowledge, had he by reason of the duress of such mental disease, so far lost the power to choose between the right and the

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wrong, and to avoid doing the act in question, as that his free agency was, at the time, destroyed, and if so, was the homicide so connected with such mental disease, in the relation of cause and effect, as to have been the product of it (the mental disease) solely. If you are satisfied from the evidence that the defendant was mentally afflicted, so that he did not know right from wrong, as applied to the act, or if he did know, but by reason of the duress, the stress of his mental disease (if he had any), he had no power to choose, no power to avoid doing what he did, and if the homicide was the product of his mental condition solely, or, if by reason of the insane delusions which the defendant had been harboring (if any), he had reached that condition of mind where the morbid impulse to kill became irresistible, and existed in such violence as to subjugate his intellect, control his will, and render it impossible for him to do otherwise than to yield and do as he did, then he is not to be held accountable.

"If some controlling (mental) disease was in truth the acting power within him, which he could not resist, then he will not be responsible.'

"If a person commit a homicide under the influence of an uncontrollable and irresistible impulse, arising not from natural passion, but from an insane condition of the mind, he is not criminally responsible.""]

From the number of acquittals which annually take place on the ground of insanity, it will be understood that Broadmoor and other county asylums have a large population of criminal lunatics. In 1883, there were 535 in Broadmoor. In 1881, five murderers were. discharged from Broadmoor, and six died. It thus appears that nearly half our lunatic murderers are eventually set at liberty.

CHAPTER LXVII.

PUERPERAL MANIA.- PYROMANIA.- KLEPTOMANIA. DIPSOMANIA. RESPONSIBILITY OF DRUNKARDS.-DELIRIUM TREMENS.-SOMNAMBULISM.-THE DEAF AND DUMB.

Puerperal Insanity.-Mania may present itself in other forms than those hitherto considered. Women who have been recently delivered are liable to sudden attacks, in which a disposition to murder their offspring is the most marked symptom. This has been long known and recognized by physicians as "puerperal mania." The disorder seldom attacks a woman before the third day, often not for a fortnight, and in some instances not until several weeks after delivery. Out of ninety-two cases, Simpson observed that the attack occurred in twenty-one between the fifth and the fifteenth day. (Med. Times and Gaz., 1860, ii. p. 201.) The most frequent period is at or about the commencement of lactation, and between that and the cessation of the uterine discharges. According to Esquirol, it is generally preceded or attended by a suppression of the lochia and milk. Ashwell remarked that undue lactation might give rise to an attack of mania, under which the murder of the offspring might be perpetrated. (Dis of Women, p. 732. See the case of Reg. v. Lacey, Nottingham Sum. Ass., 1858.) It may also come on after forced or voluntary weaning.

The symptoms do not differ from those of mania generally, but it may assume any of the other forms of insanity; and, in one-half of the cases, it may be traced to hereditary tendency. There is a childish disposition