United States v. Lancaster.

testimony of professional men who have given special attention to the investigation of mental and nervous diseases, and who, by reason of their skill and attainments, are deemed in law qualified to give an opinion as experts, or persons of skill upon the question before you.

You have heard from the various witnesses who have known the defendant, some of them for many years, many facts in regard to his previous life; his business, his temperament, and various vicissitudes and incidents in his career; his successes and failures, and the alleged changes which, it is claimed, have taken place in him, and from which you are asked to infer that he has become insane. There are no special contradictions or discrepancies in this testimony. The witnesses who have been called on both sides agree in many of the substantial matters of fact.

It may be considered as conceded that defendant now is about fifty years of age; that for many years previous to 1873 he had been an extensive and successful operator in real estate, and had accumulated a large amount of property, his property being estimated as worth, in 1873, over and above incumbrances, from $150,000 to $250,000; that he possessed unusual capacity as a business man was prompt and rapid in his conduct of negotiations and business affairs, and always exhibited a quick and irascible temper and a somewhat imperious, jealous and exacting disposition; that in 1869 he lost his wife, and in 1870 his children died, and he showed immediately after his bereavment great grief, and had a very demonstrative way of displaying it. Sometime in the summer of 1873, a Miss Warren, of New York City, brought some suits against him for the collection of about $12,000, which she claimed he owed her. He resisted this claim, and insisted that it was prosecuted for purposes of blackmail, and charged all persons who took part in its prosecution as conspiring against him. And it seems to have become an almost fixed habit to indulge in violent denunciations of, and threats toward, all who had any part in the prosecution of these suits. His property has melted away, and he is now impoverished, and instead of being wealthy, is really a poor man. These facts are admitted, or at least not disputed.

Other facts which may be said to be proved but are not admitted: that his mind is engrossed in trifles; he has become indifferent to business; has acted in a strange and unusual manner; become eccentric in his conduct; and, although indicted for a grave crime, did not appear to realize his danger, and made no preparation for his defence, although often urged to do so by his friends. Eminent medical men,

Opinions of Medical Men.

from examinations and from knowledge of the man, give an opinion, as a matter of skill, that he is insane.

From all this group of facts, you are asked to deduce the conclusion that the prisoner was, at the time of trial, insane, the theory being that the proof shows that since the death of his children, his mind has been giving way, until he is now and was at the time of his trial, actually insane, or so far in the incipient stages of insanity as to render him incapable of properly appreciating and meeting the peril in which he was placed.

On the part of the Government it is contended, and supported by the evidence of eminent medical men,, that while they do not deny many of the facts testified to, they deny that they necessarily or fairly establish the allegation of insanity, but insist that all the incidents and facts stated in the testimony, only show him to be a man of violent passions, who has given way in latter years to a sort of ungovernable rage toward those who were endeavoring to enforce the collection of a valid debt from him; that he was always quick tempered and jealous, and has only exhibited to an aggravated degree his natural character toward those whom he disliked, and is simulating or putting on the appearance of insanity to avoid sentence.

The real question, as I have before said is, whether the evidence satisfies you that this man's mind had so far broken down and lost its texture that he was at the time of his trial incapable of comprehending the dangerous predicament in which he was placed, and taking intelligent measures to meet it? Did he realize the gravity of the offence with which he was charged, as he would if in the possession of his ordinary mental faculties? Not that he should have been so much affected by it as some other men would, if he had been in possession of his ordinary mental vigor and coherence of ideas.

All the evidence tends to show that he was at one time, and not many years ago, a man of clear mental perceptions, understood the ordinary obligations which one man owes to another and to society, and while he may have been shrewd and sharp at a bargain, and perhaps exacting in enforcing what he deemed a legal or business advantage over those with whom he was dealing, yet there is no proof but that he recognized the ordinary moral and legal obligations of business, and was as truthful and upright as ordinary men in their dealings. And I think it may be considered as proven, that in the last two or three years, since the loss of his children, to some extent, and since the commencement of his troubles with Miss Warren in a more palpable degree, his most intimate friends have noticed a marked change in his manner, conduct, and habits of thought.

United States v. Lancaster.

Does the proof satisfy you that the change in the man shows that he has become insane, or so far insane as to be incapable of properly caring for himself? And a single act of eccentricity or of irrational conduct is not evidence of insanity, but a group or series of unnatural acts may properly be considered as tending to prove insanity. Or were these acts the result of his giving way to a naturally violent temper and jealous disposition? Were these exhibitions the result of insanity, or mere neglect to properly rule his own spirit? Has he simulated insanity, or was he in fact insane at the time of his trial?

The name of the disease is not important if the man is really crazy. It makes no difference whether it is called paralysis of the insane, or paresis - or by some other name - if the fact of insanity exists. Doctors may disagree as to a diagnosis of disease, but we have nothing to do with mere names.

While the burden of proof may be said to be on the defendant, to satisfy you that he is in fact insane, yet, if the proof, when all considered together, leaves a reasonable doubt upon your mind of this man's sanity, he should have the benefit of the doubt. That is to say, no man should be considered as a proper subject for criminal prosecution, of whose sanity there is ground for a reasonable doubt.

The question is not as stated by counsel for the prisoner, whether the defendant has had a fair trial, but whether he was in such a mental condition as to be capable of appreciating the exigency and properly preparing for it. If he was sane he ought to have made proper preparations for his trial. If he was so insane as not to comprehend the peril he was in, or the crime he was charged to have committed, then he ought not to have been tried, and if he is still so insane, he ought not to be sentenced for the crime of which he has been found guilty by the jury. This case should be considered in the same light by you as if it had not been tried.

Suppose his trial was not impending, and his counsel should come into court and suggest that his client was so far insane as that he ought not to be tried, and the court as a preliminary step, had ordered a jury to be impanelled to try the question of his sanity or insanity, the duty of that jury would be precisely what yours is now — that is, to inquire into and find whether the defendant was so far insane as to be incapable of realizing the peril in which he was placed, and taking such steps as a prudent man, under the circumstances, would have taken to prepare for his trial, and whether that insane condition still continues.

If found insane by your verdict, the verdict now standing against him will be set aside.

State v. Patten.

The jury found the prisoner to have been insane at the time of his trial on the indictment.

On calling the matter for trial, the question arose as to which side should open the case. The court ruled that counsel for the prisoner should open and close the case to the jury.

INSANITY AT TRIAL-PROCEDURE-RIGHT OF PRISONER TO WAIVE

QUESTION.

STATE V. PATTEN.

[10 La. Ann. 299.]

In the Supreme Court of Louisiana, April, 1855.

1. Whenever a Prisoner's Sanity at the time of the offence alleged is in question, the rule that he may control or discharge his counsel at pleasure, should be so far relaxed as to permit them to offer evidence on these points, even against his will.

2. In a Criminal Case, when after the close of the testimony in behalf of the State, the counsel of the accused alleged the prisoner's insanity before, at the time of, and since the killing, and offered to introduce testimony in proof of the fact, and thereupon the prisoner arose, and repudiated such defence, and discharged his counsel, and the court gave the case to the jury without further evidence or pleadings on behalf of the prisoner: Held, that the court erred in allowing the prisoner, under the circumstances, to discharge his counsel, and erred in not allowing them to offer proofs on the question of insanity.

APPEAL from the First District Court of New Orleans. ROBERTSON, J. Isaac E. Morse, Attorney-General for the State.

Larue & Whittaker and A. Hennen, for defendant and appellant. SPOFFORD, J.-Upon the trial of James Patten for the murder of Turnbull, the following bill of exceptions was taken by the prisoner's counsel: :

"Be it remembered, that on the trial of this cause on the 20th day of March, 1854, after the evidence on the part of the State was closed, and when the counsel of the prisoner were proceeding to prove, by the evidence of the witnesses, the insanity of said prisoner at the time of the

State v. Patten.

killing, set forth in the indictment, and a long time before, and even since the said killing, the said prisoner arose and objected to, and repudiated the said defence, and insisted upon discharging his counsel and submitting his case to the jury without any further evidence or action of his counsel in his defence; his counsel opposed, and remonstrated against the prisoner's being permitted to do so, alleging that they were prepared to prove the defence by clear and irresistible testimony; but the court overruled the objection of the said counsel, and permitted the prisoner to discharge his said counsel, and refused to hear them further in his defence, and gave the case to the jury without any further evidence or pleading on his behalf; to all which opinion and ruling of said court, the defendant's said counsed excepts, and prays his exceptions may be signed," etc.

[Signed]

JNO. B. ROBERTSON, Judge.

There was a verdict of "guilty, without capital punishment,” and after his former counsel had, in the quality of amici curia, attempted to obtain a new trial and an arrest of judgment without success, the prisoner was sentenced to hard labor for life in the penitentiary. From that judgment the present appeal has been taken.

The sanity or insanity of the prisoner is a matter of fact; the admissibility of evidence to establish his insanity, under the circumstances detailed in the bill of exceptions is a matter of law, and the only matter which the constitution authorizes the tribunal to decide.

The case is so extraordinary in its circumstances that we are left without the aid of precedents.

In support of the ruling of the district judge, it has been urged that every man is presumed to be sane until the contrary appears, and that a person on trial for an alleged offence has a constitutional right to discharge his counsel at any moment, to repudiate their action on the spot, and to be heard by himself; hence the inference is deduced that the judge could not have admitted the evidence, against the protest of the prisoner, without reversing the ordinary presumption and presuming insanity.

In criminal trials it is important to keep ever in mind the distinction between law and fact, between the functions of a judge and those of a jury. It was for the jury and the jury alone to determine whether there was insanity or not, after hearing the evidence and the instructions of the court as to the principles of law applicable to the case. By receiving the proffered evidence for what it might be worth, the judge would have decided no question of fact; he would merely have told the jury: "The law permits you to hear and weigh this evidence; whether it prove