084 Slide – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

52 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

@ few diligently conceal it, or if they avoid it declare their murder-
ous designs and form divers schemes for putting them in execution,
testifying no sentiment of remorse or

“¥, The most of them having gratified their propensity to Jill,
voluntarily confess the act and quietly give themselves up ta the
proper authorities. A very few ouly, and these to an intelligent
observer show the strongest indications of insanity, fly and persist
in denying the act.

“VT. While the criminal act itself is in some instances the only
indication of insanity, the individual appearing rational as far as
ean be learned both before and after the act; in others it is followed
or preeeded or both by strange behavior if not open and decided
insanity.

“VII. Some plead insanity in defense of their condnet or an
entire ignorance of what they did; others deny that they labored
under any such condition, and at most acknowledge only 8 pertur-
bation of mind.”

There are many helps provided by men who have studied
the mind in ruins for those lesa informed, whose duty it is to
‘pass upon a question of human responsibility. They are
ealled ‘‘testa’’ and in scientific language the term is proper
and conveys a definitive idea well understood, but it would
be a great mistake to treat these ‘‘tests’’ as infallible or even
certain indications. Out of the exact sciences, approxima-
tions are in general the best instrnmentalities of the scientific.
I do not know one infallible test of insanity, nor one infallible
test of the age of a fetus at the delivery, yet in both cases
the application of all the helps provided by the learned to
the circumstances of the particular case will ordinarily reach.
moral certainty.

If I were called upon to designate the standard by which
I would measure insanity and the evidence best ealeulated to
establish its existence, I would say that the highest proof of
it is the testimony which establishes a sudden, violent and
continued departure without external cause from the etate
of feeling and modes of thinking habitual to the individual
when in health. In other words, a violent sudden change
without adequate outward cause from the normal standard
of character. A pious man does not in a moment become im-
pious; the honest man does not suddenly become a thief; the
man of avarice does not instantly lose hia love for money;