on an allegation of insanity in order to save his life. He is not obliged to plead insanity. If he prefers life in an insane asylum, with a chance of pardon, to death, that is his affair not the State's. He makes his own bed. Let him lie on it. No more deterrent act in respect of the wayward, badly brought up, self-willed fast young man, whose wealth is a curse to himself as well as the community, could be devised. Eighth. Care has been taken to provide that under such an act no such person, who regains his sanity, shall be confined for a longer period than if he had been sane. The provision that if he shall regain sanity his confinement shall cease after the period which he would have had to serve if sane will give him the right to be released on habeas corpus on its expiration. That is now the remedy for any person confined in prison who at the expiration of his sentence is not set free. Your Committee is of opinion that with this provision in the bill it cannot be successfully attacked on any constitutional grounds. Lastly, the power of the jury to render a verdict of guilty but insane would, in connection with its power, which is to remain unaffected, to render a verdict of not guilty or guilty, as the case may require, will enable a jury to do exact and equal justice between the community on the one hand and the accused on the other. To sum up. Formerly the jury was shut up to the alternative of conviction or acquittal. The state of mind of the accused might well be such as to prevent, and properly prevent, a jury from rendering a verdict which in a case of murder in the first degree would require the taking of his life. Thus it resulted that where the jury was in doubt as to how far the heredity of the accused and his former actions evidenced a state of mind which made it dubious as to the justice of a verdict which would result in taking his life, they were compelled to render a verdict of acquittal. The scandals arising from such verdicts which, by the way, every one of us who criticise jury trials would probably have rendered if we had been in the jury box-grew to such an extent that they had to be recognized by the law. Then came the middle course of allowing a jury to render a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. This may have been well enough for that stage of our evolution and in that stage of our ignorance as to true psychology. That statute, however, while it provided a way of escape for a jury from a most distressing dilemma in turn brought about other evils. In the meanwhile we have progressed in knowledge of psychology. In the judgment of the Committee the time has come to take a further step in the evolution of our criminal law. In the belief that the proposed bill is the proper step now to be taken the Committee recommends its approval by the Association and its presentation to the Legislature for passage. The Committee therefore recommends the adoption of the following resolution: Resolved, That the report of the Committee on the Commitment and Discharge of the Criminal Insane be approved, and the Committee is hereby directed to present to the Legislature for enactment the amendments of the Insanity Law, of the Code of Civil Procedure, of the Penal Law and of the Code of Criminal Procedure as urged by it, to wit; the amendment of section 93 of the Insanity Law, the adding thereto a section 93a, the amendment of section 2016 of the Code of Civil Procedure and adding thereto a section 2016a, as reported in its first and second reports, and approved by the resolution of the Association passed at the annual meeting in 1911, and the amendment to section 1120 of the Penal Law, the adding thereto a section 2199, and the amendments of and additions to the various sections of the Code of Criminal Procedure as set forth in its last report, and the Committee is hereby empowered to make or consent to such changes in the bill thus to be presented as may be desirable the better to effectuate its two objects of preventing the misuse of the writ of habeas corpus and the substitution of verdicts of guilty but insane in place of verdicts of not guilty by reason of insanity. All of which is respectfully submitted. Dated January 10, 1914. JOHN BROOKS LEAVITT, First District. A. PAGE SMITH, Third District. * Fourth District. *Fifth District. LYNN J. ARNOLD, Sixth District. John Brooks Leavitt, of New York: I move the adoption of the resolution. The motion was duly seconded. Charles A. Boston, of New York: Mr. President, the motion having been seconded I presume it is now open for discussion. I feel it my duty to commend to this Association one of the recommendations made by the committee in its resolution and to denounce *The Hon. Edwin A. Merritt, Jr., the member for the Fourth District, was unable to give his attention owing to illness. Mr. S. Mortimer Coon, the member for the Fifth, died last April. in unmeasured terms and to seek to prevent this Association from adopting the other of its recommendations. I feel justified and impelled to do this by the fact that for several years past I have been an officer and one of the directors of the Society of Medical Jurisprudence of this city and was the chairman of its committee on the law of insanity, and in that connection and as the representative of the committee have been in conference with the chairman of the committee who has just spoken. Our committee of the Society of Medical Jurisprudence has this advantage, our meetings are held frequently and have been so held for the last thirty years. The society numbers among its membership some of the most distinguished alienists and some of the most distinguished physicians in this community. No man could attend the meetings of that society and hear the discussions and hear the views which are expressed from time to time by these specialists in mental. trouble without being convinced that the law in its legal. definition of insanity in relation to crime is a long way behind the times and has no justification in fact and should be denounced by every man who has a scientific interest in that subject. For that reason not only myself, but I feel a majority of our society (though it has not acted on the subject and I cannot say that it has committed itself) is in favor of the view that something should be done to bring. into line the advance of modern medical science, especially along the line of mental defect, with the law of the land,. and that we owe it to the community and we owe it to the medical profession. We have had under consideration the way of doing that, and our committee recommended the society has not approved it the very thing which this. committee recommends, namely, the abolition of the legal definition of insanity. It has been so abolished in some States, particularly in Maryland, in this respect, because in Maryland and under the constitution of that State the jury is in all matters judges of the law as well as of the fact. We are familiar with that aspect of the situation in respect to criminal libel, we are familiar with that aspec of the situation with respect to negligence and fraud. Why should we adhere to a legal definition of insanity in its relation to crime, when it does not express the best results of modern scientific thought, when the jury might well be left to consider for itself and lay down in a case of insanity what it may lay down in case of fraud, negligence and criminal libel. Therefore, I speak heartily in favor of the recommendation of this committee in that aspect of the case, but with equal fervor and insistence I speak against the other recommendation, which provides that a man who has committed a crime as the result of mental disease shall be punished by the community by incarceration in jail as a punishment after he shall have recovered from the cause which prompted him to commit the crime. I am in favor of the suggestion of the committee that a man should not be acquitted on the ground of insanity. I am in favor of the suggestion of the committee that the verdict should be guilty but insane; but in respect to the suggestion of the committee that a man, after he has fully recovered from the insanity which has prompted him to commit the act should then suffer what the committee is pleased to style expiation for his crime, to my mind is abhorrent to every sense of justice, and this Association should not go on record as commending that particular feature of the recommendation of this committee. Therefore, in order that all the excellent recommendations of the committee may receive the approval and the unstinted approval of this Association and that we should not commit ourselves to |