Genz v. State

• Citation: 59 N.J.L. 488,37 A. 69
• Parties: GENZ v. STATE.
• Decision Date: 02 March 1897
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

37 A. 69

59 N.J.L. 488

GENZ

v. STATE.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

March 2, 1897.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to court of oyer and terminer; before Justice Lippincott.

Paul Genz was convicted of murder in the first degree, and brings error. Affirmed.

Gilbert Collins and William S. Stuhr, for plaintiff in error.

Charles H. Winfield, for the State.

GUMMERE, J. The plaintiff in error was indicted by the grand jury of the county of Hudson for the crime of murder, in willfully, deliberately, and premeditatedly killing one Clara Arnim, on Tuesday, the 28th day of August, 1894. Being tried upon that indictment, he was found guilty, by the verdict of a jury, of murder of the first degree. The judgment entered upon that verdict and all the proceedings had upon the trial have been removed, by writ of error, into this court, and it becomes our duty, under the supplement of May 9, 1894, to the act regulating proceedings in criminal cases (Gen. St. p. 1134, § 170), to review the Whole of such proceedings, in order that we may be satisfied that the plaintiff in error has not suffered manifest wrong or injury, either by the rejection of testimony, or in the charge made to the jury, or in the denial of any matter by the trial court which was a matter of discretion, or upon the evidence adduced upon the trial.

It was admitted at the trial that Clara Arnim, who was the mistress of the plaintiff in error, came to her death at his hands. His defense was that he was insane at the time when he committed the act, and the principal injury which it is alleged on his behalf that he suffered at the trial was the failure of the court to correctly charge the jury on the subject of insanity as a defense. The instruction of the court to the jury on this point was as follows, viz.: "That the defense of insanity is that the mind of the prisoner was so impaired and diseased that, at the time of the commission of the act of killing, he was not capable of distinguishing the nature and quality of the act done by him; that he was then incapable, by reason of mental disease or impairment of his mind, to conceive the intent to kill the deceased; that at that time he was incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong with respect to that act; that, if he was in this state of mind, in the eye of the law, he was insane; that the burden of proof in making out the defense of insanity rests upon the prisoner; that he is presumed to be sane; and that, when he sets up the defense of insanity, he must make out such defense by sufficient proof,— such proof as would satisfy the jury that he was mentally incapable of understanding the nature and quality of his act, or incapable of understanding whether his act of killing was right or wrong; that if the jury should find the prisoner was, by reason of any disease of the mind, at the time of the commission of the act of killing, incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong in the doing of the act, it would be their duty to acquit him of any degree of murder." It is insisted on behalf of the plaintiff in error that this instruction was not a correct exposition of the law of insanity as a defense in criminal cases, and that the court should have charged the jury that if they believed from the evidence that the prisoner was mentally diseased, and, being in that condition of mind, was forced by an irresistible impulse to take the life of the deceased, it was their duty to acquit him. Whether or not the true test of responsibility for criminal acts, in cases of alleged insanity, is the ability to distinguish right from wrong, has never been considered or determined in this court; but, ever since the charge of the court to the jury in the case of State v. Spencer, 21 N. J. Law, 196, it has been accepted as the law of this state that if the accused, at the time of committing the act, was capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, and was conscious that the act was one which he ought not to have done, he cannot be excused on the ground of insanity. Since the promulgation of that decision, more than 50 years ago, the test of responsibility in cases of alleged insanity there laid down has always been adopted by the criminal courts of our state in instructing juries upon this branch of the law. A rule so important, and which has been accepted so long and so universally, ought not now to be changed by judicial decision. As was said by Chief Justice Beasley in the case of Graves v. State, 45 N. J. Law, 208, in commenting upon an attack made upon another rule laid down in the Spencer Case: "if such a rule, after so conspicuous and protracted an existence, is to be pushed aside, or even is to be considered as liable to challenge on theoretic grounds, it is difficult to divine upon what stable basis the administration of the law is to be conducted. Very many of the legal regulations which belong to the trial of causes, criminal and civil, are the creatures of custom and usage, and if such regulations, after having been unquestioned and enforced for half a century, are to be deemed, with respect to their legality, subject to assault, the utmost uncertainty and confusion would be introduced." The test of criminal responsibility in cases of alleged insanity, as stated by the trial court in its charge to the jury, was in accordance with the settled law of the state, and consequently the plaintiff in error suffered no injury therefrom.

But, even if it had been the policy of our law to relieve insane persons from responsibility for criminal acts, the doing of which the...