powers remaining unimpaired, that which is the Court, comments on the case of Guiteau,' sometimes called ' moral ' or ' emotional who was tried, sentenced, and executed for insanity ' savors too much of a seared con the assassination of James A. Garfield, then President of the United States, which oc science or atrocious wickedness, to be enter tained as a legal defense." And he says, curred in July, 188 1, in such a way as to further, of that clause in the decision of indicate that he has doubts whether Guiteau's Chief-Justice Gibson (the first case men- i delusions ought not to have exculpated him. tioned in this article), that " there maybe Chief-Justice Stone wrote a dissenting opin an unseen ligament pressing on his mind, ion, in which he says: "Impulse is emo drawing it to consequences which it sees but tional rather than intellectual. It is a sudden cannot avoid, and placing it under a coer emotional influence brought to bear on the cion, which, while its results are clearly will as an intellectual faculty, and not the perceived, is incapable of resistance :" " With offspring of the reasoning faculties. It is all respect for the great jurist who uttered rather the antithesis of a formed judgment. this language, we submit if this is not almost It differs from the cognitive or knowing faculty, and not infrequently so dominates or quite the synonym of that highest evi dence of murderous intent known 'to the the latter as to acquire for the time the common law — a heart totally depraved and mastery of the will. The will, the execu fatally bent on mischief." In Texas, in tive faculty of the mind, cannot, with pro priety, be said to be subverted or overturned. 1 88 1,' kleptomania was recognized as a de fense in a case of larceny. In California, in To be subverted or overturned, is to cease 1 882,1 the Court held that an irresistible to have purpose — to cease to act; for with impulse to commit a criminal act does not out the function of the will there can be no physical action. The will retains all its absolve the actor, if at the time and in re power, but for the time ceases to act in spect to the act he had the power to distin guish between right and wrong. The same harmony with the knowledge-possessing fac was held to be the law in Texas, A.D. 1886.3 ulty. It is perverted, but not subverted. Justice White, in writing the opinion of the When the will is perverted by a disease of Court in this case, relies on and quotes from the brain or intellectual faculties, then any the case decided in Alabama in 1879>4 and act caused thereby is blameless in the sight decides that " moral insanity has no support, of the law. On the other hand, if there be no disease of the intellectual faculties, and either in psychology or law." The next year, A.D. 1887, 5 the Court of the act done, though by a perverted will, is nevertheless the offspring of moral depravity, Alabama declares incorrect their former de cision, and decides that " one who by reason debauched appetite, blunted sense of right, of mental disease has lost the power of will or other kindred promptings of a wicked to control his actions and choose between heart, then for such an act there is a moral right and wrong, is not responsible to the and legal accountability, in the amplest criminal law for an act which is solely the sense of those terms. The murderer, the product of such disease, although he may assassin, the burglar, the incendiary, can truthfully plead that their wills have ceased know right from wrong." In this case, Jus tice Somerville, who wrote the opinion of to be the executors of their intellectual promptings. Criminal passions or appetite 1 I.ooney v. State, 10 Tex. Ct. App. 520. has obtained mastery over their higher and
- People v. Hoin, 62 Cal. 120.
purer intellectual endowments, and perverted 1 Leache v. State, 22, Tex. Ct. App. 279. their wills to its baser use." " I have jn* See p. 369. J Parson V. State, 81 Ala. 357. 1 United States v. Guiteau, 10 Ked. Rep. 161.
