In no other class of cases does "luck" play so large a part in
the final disposition of the prisoner. A jury is quite as
likely to send an insane man to the electric chair as to
acquit a defendant who is fully responsible for his crime.
To recapitulate from the writer's experience:
(1) The ordinary juror tends to be sceptical as to the good
faith of the defence of insanity.
(2) When once this distrust is removed by honest evidence on
the part of the defence, he usually declines to follow the
legal test as laid down by the court on the general theory
that any one but an idiot or a maniac has some knowledge of
what he is doing and whether it is right or wrong.
(3) He applies the strict legal test only in cases of extreme
brutality.
(4) In all other cases he follows the medical rather than the
legal test, but instead of acquitting the accused on account
of his medical irresponsibility, merely convicts in a lower
degree.
The following deductions may also fairly be made from
observation:
(1) That the present legal test for criminal responsibility is
admittedly vague and inadequate, affording great opportunity
for divergent expert testimony and a readily availed of excuse
for the arbitrary and sentimental actions of juries, to which
is largely due the distrust prevailing of the claim of
insanity when interposed as a defence to crime.
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