Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/93

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Since the answers of the judges were made to the House of Lords, the law as relating to insanity in a criminal trial has been laid down in conformity with their conclusions: if the accused person at the time of committing the offense knew right from wrong, and that he was doing wrong, he must be brought in guilty, whether insane or not. If insane, he is not necessarily exempted from the punishment of his crime; the question is, whether he was at the time capable of committing a crime; and that must be determined by evidence of the absence, not of insanity, but of a knowledge of right and wrong. Was his insanity of such a kind as to render him irresponsible by destroying his knowledge of right and wrong? Nevertheless, juries often, and judges occasionally, out of a natural humanity repudiate this dogma in particular cases, and, so far from any certainty of result having been secured by its application, it is notorious that the acquittal or conviction of a prisoner, when insanity is alleged, is a matter of chance. Were the issue to be decided by tossing up a shilling, instead of by the grave procedure of a trial in court, it could hardly be more uncertain. The less insane person sometimes escapes, while the more insane person is sometimes hanged; one man laboring under a particular form of derangement is acquitted at one trial, while another having an exactly similar form of derangement is convicted at another trial. No