190 Page – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

Here is the translated text as follows:

158 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

The law distinguishes between the guilt of an act that results from criminal design and one committed under the pressure of mental disorder and its insane impulses. The former is regarded as a crime deserving of punishment, while the latter is seen as a misfortune deserving of compassion. The former is considered the act of a free agent capable of reason and influenced by motives, whereas the latter is viewed as the act of a victim of disease and a slave of delusion.

In order to impart any guilty or criminal quality to an act done in violation of the law, it must appear that the person who commits it had, at the time, sufficient mind and intelligence to deliberate on its necessity and propriety, and to form criminal purposes. Only such persons are adjudged capable of crime and responsible for their acts. It would be a perversion of law and incompatible with the dignity of public justice to inflict punishment on that unfortunate class of mankind whose minds, due to disease, have become so depraved and perverted that they have no will, no conscience, and no controlling power over their actions. They have become the unresisting slaves of false impressions and insane delusions.

The diseases of the mind are of such a mysterious nature and manifest themselves in so many forms and in such various degrees of intensity that, even if I were otherwise able, it would be impossible in a charge to the jury to attempt even a general account of them. The evidence relied upon to prove and disprove its existence in the present case is before the jury and demands your most careful and watchful examination. Confining myself within the limits of my legitimate duties, all that I propose to do to aid you in your inquiries is to present to your view the general principles of the law which excuse an act of homicide on the grounds of insanity and exempt the unhappy agent who commits it from any accountability.

First, if the prisoner, at the time of committing the act charged against him, is found by the jury to have been laboring under such a defect of reason from mental disorder as...

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