Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/204

 192 FEDERAL REPORTES. �must be objective as distinguished from subjective. They must be delusions of the senses, or such as relate to facts or objects, not raere wrong notions or impressions; and the aberration in such case must be mental, not moral, and must aflfect the intellect of the individual. It is not enough that they show a diseased or depraved state of raind, or an aberration of the moral feelings, the sense of right and wrong continuing to exist, although it may be in a per- verted condition. To enable them to be set up as a defenee to an indictment for a crime, they must go to such crime objectively ; i. e., they must involve an honest mistake as to the object at which the crime is direc^^d. 8ee Rex v. Burton, 3 F. «& F. 772; Rex v. Totonley, 3 F. & F. 839. �The distinction before us may be illustrated by Levett's Case, which has uever been questioned, and which has been sanctioned by the most rigid of the com- mon-law jurists, where it was held a sufflcient defenee to an indictment for murder, that the mortal blow was struck by the defendant under the delusion that the deceased was a robber, who had entered the house. Levett's Case, Cro. Cas. 438; and see Uex v. Townley, supra. It would have been other- wise had the delusion been that the victim was a politioal opponent whom it was politic to remove. To this efifect is the opinion of Chief Justice Shaw, in 1844, in Com, v. Rogers, 7 Metc. 500. " Monomania," said this eminent judge, « may operate as an excuse for criminal act," wheii " the delusion is such, that the person under its influence has a real and flrm belief of some fact, not true in itself, but which, if it were true, would excuse bis act; as where the belief is that the party killed had an immediate design upon his life, and under that belief the insane man kills in supposed self-defence. A common instance is where hefally helieves that the aot he is doing is done by the imme- diate oommand of God, and he aots under the delusive but sincere belief that what he is doing is by the oommand of a superior power, which supersedes all human laws and the laws of nature." To raake such a delusion a defenee, however, there must be no consciousness of the wrongf ulness of the act to which the delusion prompts. If there be reason enough to dispel the delusion ; if the defendant obstinately refuses, under such circumstances, to listen to argu- ments by which the delusion could be dispelled; if, on the contrary, he cher- ishes such delusion, and makes it the pretext of wrongs to others, — thon he is responsible for such wrongs. Thus, in a case of homicide in Delaware, in 1851, the deceased being the defendant's wife, the defenee was delusion con- sisting in a belief that his wife was untrue to him, that his children were be- gotten by his wife's intercourse with another, and that sundry conjurations were being practiced upon him, and the evidence showed that he wasashrewd and wealthy business man. The court charged the jury that if a person, other- wiseratioaal, commit a homicide, though affeeted by delusions on subjects with which the act is connected, he is criminally responsible, if he were capable of the perception of consciousness of right and wrong as applied to the act, and had the ability through that consciousness to choose by an effort of the will whether he would do the deed. State v. Windsor, 5 Harr. 512. And this is good law. �Irresistible Impulse. " Irresistible impulse " is not « moral insanity," deflning " moral insanity " to consist of insanity of the moral System, co-exist- ing with mental sanity. "Moral insanity," as thus deflued, has no support, ��� �