Involuntary suicide is death occasioned by the act of the party, either without an actual intention of destroying life or of committing any other wilful malicious act, or without the legal capacity of in tending to do so. Neither self-felony nor any other crime can be committed by a child who has not attained years of dis cretion; nor can it be committed by a person who, by disease or otherwise, has lost, or has been prevented from acquir ing, the faculty of discerning right from wrong.
At common law, which in this respect follows the canon law, a person found by inquest to be felo de se is considered as having died in mortal sin ; and his re mains were formerly interred in the pub lic highway without the rites of Chris tian burial, and a stake was driven through the body : but by the 4 Geo. IV. c. 52, the coroner or other officer by whom the inquest is held is required to give directions for the private interment of the remains of any person against whom a finding of felo de se shall be had, without any stake being driven through the body, in the churchyard or other burial-ground of the parish in which the remains of such person might by the laws or customs of England be interred, if the verdict of felo de se had not been found ; such interment to be made within twenty-four hours from the finding of the inquisition, and to take place within the hours of nine and twelve at night, with out performance of any of the rites of Christian burial.
The Code Final of France contains no legislation on the subject of suicide. Of the modern codes of Germany, some con tain no provisions, and others vary in their particular provisions. In the Ba varian and Saxon codes suicide is not mentioned. The Prussian code forbids all mutilation of the dead body of a self murderer under ordinary circumstances ; but declares that it shall be buried with out any marks of respect otherwise suit able to the rank of the deceased; and it directs that if any sentence has been pro nounced, it shall, as far as it is feasible, be executed, due regard being had to de cency and propriety, on the dead body. The body of a criminal who commits self-murder to escape the execution of a sentence pronounced against him is to be buried at night by the common execu tioner, at the usual place of execution for criminals. The Austrian code simply provides that the body of a self-murderer shall be:buried by the officers of justice, but not in a churchyard or other place of common interment.