The definition of insanity, in the trial of a case involving that issue, is for the court; Wharf.. & St. Med. Jur. § 112; see 1 F. & F. 87; and it has entire discretion as to the method of disposing of a suggestion that the prisoner is so insane as to render him unable to make a rational defence; U. S. tr: Chis holm, 149 Fed. 284.
It is not error to instruct that insanity is a defence sometimes resorted to in default of other defences, and, while it is to be justly weighed, it is to be reckoned with ; People v. Allender, 117 Cal. 81, 48 Pac. 1014.
It is proper to refuse to charge that if the defendant at the time of the act was affected with a mental disease that impaired his will and rendered him likely at any time to com mit such an act, he must be acquitted ; Peo ple v. Barthleman, 120 Cal. 7, 52 Pac. 112. Where the accused killed his wife during an attack of epilepsy, it is not error to charge that' if he was insane up to the time of the act and was sane afterwards and remained sane until the present time they should find that he was sane when he committed the act ; Taylor v. U. S., 7 App. D. C. 27; Snell v. IL S., 16 App. D. C. 501.
The defence of insanity is a legal defence and an instruction that it is viewed with disfavor is error ; State v. Barry, 11 N. A. 428, 92 N. W. 809. Where the accused had been twice adjudged insane and committed to an asylum, but was discharged therefrom nearly two years before the act, there was no presumption of insanity; State v. Austin, 71 Ohio St. 317, 73 N. E. 218, 104 Am. St. Rep. 778.
The law of self-defence is applicable alike to the insane and the sane and the two de fences are consistent and either one, if sus tained, would justify a verdict of "not guilty"; State v. Wade, 161 Mo. 441, 61 S. W. 800.
In homicide, where there was evidence to support the request, the court should have charged that defendant was not guilty if he was laboring under such a defect of mind and reason as not to know the nature and quality of the acts he was doing, and was in capable of forming a criminal intent; that if the jury were not convinced beyond a rea sonable doubt that, on the night of the shoot ing, defendant was of sound mind and dis cretion, and was capable of forming a crim inal intent, they should acquit; that it was incumbent upon the prosecution to prove be yond a reasonable doubt the criminal intent with which the fatal shot was fired, fendant's mental capacity for forming an in tent to commit the alleged crime; and that if the jury could not say that they had a moral certainty that, on the night of the shooting, defendant's mind and discretion were sufficient for him to form a rational in tent to kill, his guilt had not been estab lished ; People v. Muste, 137 Mich. 216, 100
N. W. 455.
The rule already stated as to partial in sanity applies equally to delusions, which as has been stated were first brought within the law of mental irresponsibility for crime by Hadfield's case, supra. In McNaghten's case, supra, the question as to delusions was answered thus : "That if a person was acting under an insane delusion, and was in other respects sane, he must be considered in the same situation as to responsibility as if the facts with respect to which the delu sion exists were real. That is to say, that the acts of the criminal should be judged as if he had really been in the circumstances he imagined himself to be in. For example, if, under the influence of delusion, he supposes another man to be in the act of attempting to take his life, and he kills him, as he sup poses, in self-defence, he would be exempt from punishment. If his delusion was that the deceased had inflicted an injury upon him in character and fortune, and he killed him in revenge for such supposed injury, he would be liable to punishMent." In the Gui teau case, the jury were charged by Cox, J., on this subject, as follows : "An insane delu sion is never the result of reasoning and re flection. It is not generated by them and it cannot be dispelled by them. . . . When ever convictions are founded on evidence, on comparison of facts and opinions and arguments, they are not insane delusions. The insane delusion does not relate to mere sentiments or theories, or abstract questions of law, politics, or religion. All these are the subject of opinions, which are beliefs founded on reasoning and reflection. These opinions are often absurd in the extreme, and result from naturally weak or ill-trained reasoning powers, hasty conclusions from in sufficient data, ignorance of men and things, credulous dispositions, fraudulent imposture, and often from perverted moral sentiments. But still, they are opinions, founded upon some kind of evidence, and liable to be changed by better external evidence or sounder reasoning. But they are not insane delusions ;" Guiteau's Case, 10 Fed. 161. Following this opinion it was said that : "An insane delusion is an incorrigible belief, not the result of reasoning in the existence of facts which are either impossible absolute ly or impossible under the circumstances of the individual." State v. Lewis, 20 Nev. 333, 22 Pac. 241.