INSANITY AND CRIME

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18975, 28 March 1924, Page 5

INSANITY AND CRIME

LIMIT OF RESPONSIBILITY BRITISH LAW EXPLAINED “Insanity and the Criminal Law’’ was the title of an address delivered at the weekly gathering of the Auckland Rotary Club this week by Professor B. M, Algie, professor of law at the Auckland University College. Mr Algie laid down the principle that British law never did say that a person was excused from responsibility for crime merely because he was insane. The rule, as laid down by the House of Lords 80 years ago, was that a guilty person was only relieved if his insanity was such as to prevent him from knowing the nature and quality of his act, and from knowing that that act was wrong. Whether such was the case or not was entirely a matter to be decided by the jury that tried his case, after it had heard the evidence of expert medical men. In the event of conviction, it was still open for the Crown, on the evidence of two medical men that the prisoner was insane, to commute the sentence. This was what had happened in New .Zealand in the case of Higgins, the itian found guilty of the Waikino murders, following the precedent of earlier cases in New Zealand and in Britain.

The British Medical Association had, however, recommended to the British Government, through a Royal Commission, that where a man committed a crime while suffering from such mental disease as produced an uncontrollable impulse, he should be acquitted. 'On this point, Professor Algie pointed out that it was impossible for anybody other than the accused himself to say absolutely that the impulse was uncontrollable, and that in any case the position was sufficiently-guarded by the freedom of action left to the jury. The danger was that if legislation were attempted on so difficult a subject Parliament might do something mischievous.