December 31. Huntington trial terminated yesterday with a verdict of guilty and a sentence to United States Prison. I expected the jury to disagree; but the moral insanity dodge was a little too steep. E.K. Collins says old Belden has lost $300,000 by Huntington. Dubito. If he has, eight per cent a minute will make up for it very fast.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Happy New Year, Homer and Mr. Strong.
I’m not surprised by the outcome of the Huntington case. The idea of “mental disease or defect” as a defense to a criminal charge was a very new concept in 1856. It had only been established in Britian in M’Naughten’s Case in 1843, and this was when psychiatry was in it’s pre-history.
The basic rule in M’Naughten’s case was that a person is “not responsible” (as opposed to “not guilty”) if, as a result of mental disease or defect, they could not appreciate the wrongfulness of their conduct or could not control their conduct to conform to the law (”Irresistible Impulse”). Most American jurisdictions recognize the “right/wrong” insanity defense. In fact, it can even be raised as a defense by Guantanamo terror detainees under the Military Commissions Act. No jurisdiction now recognizes the “Irresistible Impulse” defense.
The defense was controversial when it was adopted and remains so to this day. Juries do not like it, and most people believe, with some good reason, that it is the last legal refuge of the blatantly guilty. In my time as an attorney, I have tried three murder cases where insanity was raised, two as prosecutor, one as defense attorney. In one case, the jury found the defendant guilty and didn’t even make a finding of mentally ill, in another case the defendant had a well documented 24 year history of chronic paranoid schizophrenia and was found not responsible by reason of insanity. In the final case, the two shrinks said the guy was insane, but under the facts and during jury selection it was clear the jury was never going to buy it. So instead of a week long trial that would really have been a “slow guilty plea” to life without parole we did a fast guilty plea to 55 years.
Oh, yeah...Happy New Year and all that stuff.