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EDWARD D. WORRELL. 41

peal to hurtful prejudices. His work was but half done; it
remains for him to shape the defense, and crush it in advance.

“T know,’’ he exclaims, ‘‘there is not human power enough
to deny the guilt of Worrell—it will not be denied; but the
plea of insanity will be set up. Everything now-a-days is in-
sanity. Drunkenness is insanity; eccentricity is insanity;
forgery is insanity. Huntingdon was insane. Insanity is the
broad, common cloak spread to cover crime.’”

Jurors, I am sorry to see a man of talents and high moral
position, like my friend, pander to a popular prejudice any-
where, but the regret is deepened to witness such misdirec-
tion of power in this place. He should have left such work
to the thoughtless, inconsiderate, and irresponsible portions
of the press, whose daily function it is to interfere with the
tribunals of justice. They know no better, and are but little
more responsible than the stripling boy who explodes a mag-
azine with a random firecracker,

There is a want of historical accuracy in this compendious
statement. Insanity is a rare plea in our judicial annals.
In 8 practice of near thirty years, this is the third occasion
on which I have presented insanity es any part of the de-
fense. I claim to be somewhat familiar with judicial pro-
ceedings at St. Louis, and in fourteen years I do not believe
ten cases of pleaded insanity can be culled out of all the homi-
cides which have been there the subject of criminel adjudica-
tion.

But that is not the greatest error of the statement. The
error is not statistical that I must find fault with—it is above
any question of numbers, it is moral, philosophical, legal,
judicial error. What if the plea of insanity had been put in
im every trial of every homicide done in the state, since the
criminal courts were first opened, and every plea found to be
a false pleat Is insanity therefore no defense? Is the plea
in this case therefore bad? Are you therefore to banish from.
your consideration all proof of mental disorder, and erase from
the conscience the principle upon which the responsibility
of man to government and to God is founded? How are you
instructed in your duty by this sneering reference to past

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