By Irving Browne.
CURRENT TOPICS. Drunkenness as an Excuse for Crime. — We had supposed that there was no essential difference on this subject between England and America. The "London Law Journal " however recently said : — "In the United States more effect is given than in England to the plea of drunkenness as a defense to a charge of crime; but while in theory it is here no excuse at all, there is undoubtedly a tendency among juries and even judges to give some effect to the plea; and Sir James Stephen, in Regina v. Davis, 14 Cox Cr. Cas. 563, and Regina v. Doherty, 16 Cox Cr. 306, has ruled that delirium tremens may be treated as insanity, and that ordinary drunkenness may be such as to negative formation of the intent necessary to constitute a particular criminal offense. "If this is good law, some, if not all, drunkards are put into the position of lunatics under the old law, and are exempt from conviction, but have the advantage over lunatics that they are not subject to detention during Her Majesty's pleasure. It would be a salutary amendment of the law to provide that where a drunken man does an act which would be crime in a sober man, he should, if ac quitted on the ground of drunkenness, be subjected to some form of penal treatment for qualifying himself for acquittal by recourse to drink." The doctrine of the two cases cited above is un doubtedly the law in this country, and very bad law it is. Why should a man be held less guilty because he has deliberately put himself into a state of mind in which he is unable to form the intent technically required? He is not excused from the penalty of rape, for example, when he is ignorant that the victim is under ten years of age, and she consents; and this is very wholesome law. It is grossly immoral to hold that a man may escape the gallows because he has made himself so drunk that he cannot remember and observe the statutory distinction between the first and the second degree of murder. But this is not by any means so immoral as to hold that he may go scotfree because he has, by a long course of vicious and voluntary self-indulgence, disabled himself not only from observing legal distinctions, but from knowing what he is doing and fulfilling his duty to society, and thus by reason of years of bad conduct he be comes an object of mercy. A man who never did a wrong thing in his life, may subject himself to capital punishment by a moment's vicious indulgence of
passion and a moment's premeditated design to take human life. But if he has been a drunkard for years and falls into delirium tremens in consequence, why, forsooth, that is a "disease that excuses the poor man from any liability to punishment for taking his neighbor's or his keeper's life! We would like to see this monstrous inconsistency corrected by statute, to abolish this premium put on drunkenness, and to make of no effect the common plea, "so drunk he didn't know what be was about." Society now prac tically says to the citizen, " Get drunk only occasion ally, or perhaps quite unintentionally, and we will punish you for offences against the law; but if you will only get drunk often enough and deep enough, and do it with design or recklessly, so that you become crazy by reason of this vicious indulgence, and we will let you off altogether."
An Artistic Lawyer. —We have recently chron icled some literary ventures on the part of lawyers, American and English, and now there comes to our notice, through the"London Law Journal, "an account of artistic as well as literary efforts on the part of a leading London barrister, Mr. Lockwood, Q. C. The " Journal " says : — "The little sketch in this week's ' Punch ' signed ' F. L.,' and entitled * Cold but In-vig-orating,' is from the facile pen of Mr. Lockwood, Q.C. Some further specimens of his skill as a draughtsman will, we understand, appear in the Christmas number of the ' Idler.' Members of the Bar will shortly have an opportunity of hearing the lecture on 'The Law and the Lawyers in Pickwick,' which Mr. Lockwood delivered at York more than a year ago. The At torney-General has induced him to repeat it for the benefit of the Hackney Reform Club." We fear that some abominable pun lurks in the title of that sketch. It has been rumored that the learned barrister indulges his facile pencil in court at the expense of his brethren and everybody else, and we have even entertained the hope that he could be persuaded to make a tour in this country and repeat his Pickwick lecture. Perhaps Sir Richard Webster would consent to accompany him and sing a song or two, as he is rumored to be an accomplished singer, and possibly the Lord Chancellor would also favor us
