Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 09.pdf/578

 Cliaptcrs in the English Law of Lunacy. assault upon his wife took place when he had had liquor but was not obviously drunk, and that it was probably provoked by his dis pleasure at her having hidden a pint bottle of whiskey and some money on the night in question to prevent him from getting more drink. Lord Deas said : — "' There remained the question whether the offense was anything short of murder. It was • difficult for the law to recognize it as anything else. On the other hand, however, he could not say that it was be yond the province of the jury to find a verdict of culpable homicide if they thought that was the nature of theoffense. The chief circumstances for their consideration with this view were, first, the unpremeditated and sudden nature of the at tack; second, the pris oner's habitual kindness to his wife, of which there could be no doubt, when drink did not in terfere; third, there was only one stab or blow — this, while not, per haps, like what an in MR. .11 STICK sane man would have done, was favorable to the prisoner in other respects; fourth, the prisoner appeared not only to have been peculiar in his mental con stitution, but to have had his mind weakened by successive attacks of disease. It seemed highly probable that he had a stroke of the sun in India, and that his subsequent fits were of an epileptic nature. There could be no doubt that he had had repeated attacks of delirium tremens, and if weakness of mind could be an element in any case in the question between murder and culpable homicide, it seemed difficult to exclude that element here. The state of mind of a prisoner might, his lordship thought, be an extenuating

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circumstance, although not such as to warrant an acquittal on the ground of insanity; and he could not, therefore, exclude it from the consideration of the jury here, along with the whole other cir cumstances, in making up their minds whether, if responsible to the law at all, the prisoner was to be held guilty of murder or of culpable homicide.' "The jury found the prisoner guilty of culpalile homicide, and he received a sentence of ten years' penal servitude." This precedent has been followed by English judges in later times. The law may probably be stated thus : — 1. Drunkenness may properly be, and is, taken into account where the question is whether a certain act was done with pre meditation, or with sudden heat and im pulse, or where the prisoner acted in selfdefense or under provocation, and the question is whether the danger appre hended, or the prov ocation, was sufficient to justify his action. 2. It was at one KKKEWICH. time laid down that drunkenness is no excuse for crime unless the mental derangement resulting from it is fixed and continuous. But Mr. Justice Day dissented from this view in Reg. v. Baines (1886). Counsel for the prosecution sub mitted that a state of disease brought about by a person's own act, i.e. delirium tremáis, was no excuse for committing a crime un less the disease so produced was permanent. His Lordship said : " It is immaterial whether the insanity is permanent or temporary," and added, " I have ruled that if a man were in such a state of intoxication that he did