So long as the ordinary ideal of punishment prevails, a crime must
consist of an act coupled with an intent to do the thing, which probably
means an intent to do evil. This is no doubt the right interpretation of
intent, although cases can be found, generally of a minor grade, which
hold that evil intent is not necessary to the crime. Under the law as
generally laid down, insanity is a defense to crime when the insanity is
so far advanced as to blot out and obliterate the sense of right and
wrong or render the accused unable to choose the right and avoid the
wrong. Of course, legal definitions of scientific terms, processes, or
things, do not ordinarily show the highest wisdom. It is safe to say
that few judges or lawyers have ever been students of insanity, of the
relation of "will" to "conduct," or of other questions of science or
philosophy. Each man confines himself to his field of operation, and the
love of living does not induce him to go far from the matter in hand,
which to him means the base of supplies.
The insane are exempted from punishment for crime on the ground that
they are not able to prepare and attend to their cases when placed on
trial and on the further ground that their "free will" is destroyed by
disease or "something else," and therefore they could form no intent. In
another place I have tried to point out the fact that the acts of the
sane and the insane are moved by like causes, but this is not the theory
of the law.
Insanity is often very insidious. Many cases are easily classified, but
there is always the border line, the twilight zone, which is sure to
exist in moral questions and in all questions of human conduct, and this
is hard to settle. It is generally determined by the feelings of a jury,
moved or not by the prejudice of the public, depending on whether the
community has been lashed or persuaded to take a hand in the conduct of
the case.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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