Commonwealth v. Charles Mosler

• Decision Date: 20 November 1846
• Citation: 4 Pa. 264
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH <I>v.</I> CHARLES MOSLER.<SMALL><SUP>(a)</SUP></SMALL>
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 264

4 Pa. 264

COMMONWEALTH v. CHARLES MOSLER.^(a)

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

November 20, 1846.

PER CURIAM.

Cases on the statutes of Philip and Mary, or on the 7 Geo. 4, c. 64, which has supplanted them, are inapplicable to a confession made to an officer who has the prisoner in custody. The examination by a magistrate is an official act, and must be done as well with due solemnity, as with an observance of every form proper to prevent intimidation or surprise. A confession to a constable, as well as to a private person, must be unattended with any inducement of hope or fear; and it must not be founded on a question calculated to entrap the prisoner: for instance, a question which contains an assumption of the fact of guilt. But in no case has it been ruled, that such a confession must be preceded by an admonition to put the prisoner on his guard. On the contrary, that was not deemed necessary in Rex v. Jane Richards, 5 Car. & Payne, 318, (24 E. C. L. R.,) in which it was held sufficient, that no inducement had been held out by the constable. Considerable experience in criminal trials, at one period of my life, enables me to say that thus the law has been held in Pennsylvania. The arrest of the prisoner without warrant was undoubtedly legal; but no advantage was taken of the predicament in which he stood. Indeed, he had voluntarily confessed the perpetration of the act before he was arrested; and the subsequent inquiry by the witness, who had him in charge, had regard only to the circumstances. Whatever he said in reply to the question thus put, may undoubtedly be given in evidence to affect him.

The evidence being closed, after arguments by Stokes, and Read, attorney-general, for the Commonwealth, and Barnes and Barton, for the defence, the jury were charged as follows:

(a) This and the following case were decided at the Oyer and Terminer, in Nov. 1846, in Philadelphia, before Gibson, C. J., Coulter, J., and Bell, J. The reports were prepared for the Law Journal, whose editors have kindly furnished them to the reporter.

Nov. 20. GIBSON, C. J.

The fact of killing is not denied. Two points of defence have been set up: the first, that of insanity, implying an entire deprivation, on the part of the prisoner, of the power of self-control, and constituting a complete defence to the charge; the second, that of temporary fury induced by adequate provocation, reducing the offence to manslaughter. The first, if sustained, will acquit him altogether; the second, while acquitting him of murder, will leave him guilty of manslaughter.

Insanity is mental or moral; the latter being sometimes called homicidal mania, and properly so. It is my purpose to deliver to you the law on this ground of defence, and not to press upon your consideration, at least to an unusual degree, the circumstances of the present case on which the law acts.

A man may be mad on all subjects; and then, though he may have glimmerings of reason, he is not a responsible agent. This is general insanity; but if it be not so great in its extent or degree as to blind him to the nature and consequences of his moral duty, it is no defence to an accusation of crime. It must be so great as entirely to destroy his perception of right and wrong; and it is not until that perception is thus destroyed, that he ceases to be responsible. It must amount to delusion or hallucination, controlling his will, and making the commission of the act, in his apprehension, a duty of overruling necessity. The most apt illustration of the latter is the perverted sense of religious obligation which has caused men sometimes to sacrifice their wives and children.

Partial insanity is confined to a particular subject, the man being sane on every other. In that species of madness, it is plain that he is a responsible agent, if he were not instigated by his madness to perpetrate the act. He continues to be a legitimate subject of punishment, although he may have been labouring under a moral obliquity of perception, as much so as if he were merely labouring under an obliquity of vision. A man whose mind squints, unless impelled to crime by this very mental obliquity, is as much amenable to punishment as one whose eye squints. On this point there has been a mistake, as melancholy as it is popular. It has been announced by learned doctors, that if a man has the least taint of insanity entering into his mental structure, it discharges him of all responsibility to the laws. To this monstrous error may be traced both the fecundity in homicides, which has dishonoured this country, and the immunity that has attended them. The law is, that...