i6
THE GREEN BAG
from Guy Fawkes, it arrives at the same end indirectly. It does not hesitate to intimidate one of several persons accused of felony, by threats of punishment or bribes of immunity, in order to obtain confessions which shall in criminate those whom he, who is tormented, is bound by every instinct of decency to protect. Nor is this all. Although for one man to "imagine" another's death, unless that other be the King, has never been a crime, it is criminal for two or more to "imagine" a murder in unison, although no step be taken to effect the homicide and no harm ensue. The same is true of the imagina tion of any other crime. The offense of conspiracy consists in thinking in forbidden ways, just as heresy consisted in thinking in forbidden ways, and this power of pure thought to be a crime in itself, to turn what would otherwise be innocent into guilt which the State will punish, pervades the whole law. A striking illustration of this proposition is offered by the modern conception of motive as controlling the animus, and therefore the guilt or innocence of an act. Under the later Tudors, when the English gentry demanded the execution of those suspected of crimes of violence, almost without permitting a defense, the courts elaborated a doctrine of intent to effect the object. They laid it down that the human being must not only be presumed to foresee the natural consequences of his acts, but must be presumed to know the law, and, con sequently, however innocently he may commit a deed which the law denounces as a crime, if, when he did the deed, his inten tion was to do that thing, knowing what he was doing, he was guilty. For instance, suppose a woman knowing that her child was starving took from the person of an other property to the value of more than twelve pence, intending to deprive the owner of the property by using it to feed the child, suppose that when she took the prop
erty she honestly believed that the law con doned the offense in view of the exigency, she would none the less have been held to have committed a felony, having the ani mus furandi, and would have been hanged. The modern jurist, who deals with very powerful takers, tends towards another view of this problem of the animus. Sup pose a wealthy man to be one of a wealthy board of directors of a wealthy institution, which holds in trust vast sums of money for rich and poor alike. Suppose this man enters into transactions beyond the scope of his agency, knowing them to be beyond the scope of his agency and therefore ultra vires, suppose that to conduct these transactions he pays fifty thousand dollars of his own money on behalf of the institution, and sub sequently that he reimburses himself, in combination with others, from trust funds which he knows were not intended to be used for that purpose when they were con fided to him. On indictment for larceny or embezzlement such a man is permitted to demonstrate his innocence as matter of law, by showing that throughout these trans actions he was actuated by a good motive, and that he honestly believed that, in the eye of the law, the end he contemplated justified the means he used. Thus, though his intent was to take what did not belong to him, his motive being good, his animus be came innocent. People v. Perkins, N.Y. Sup. Ct. 113 App. Div. 329. Conversely, an evil motive may convert what would otherwise be an innocent act into a crime. In Milwaukee four newspapers competed for advertising. One of these, published by the Journal Company, raised its rates. The other three then argeed that whosoever, in future, should pay the Journal Company these rates, should pay the same to them, and that whosoever should decline to pay these rates, should be al lowed to continue advertising with them upon the old terms. Upon information brought under a Wisconsin statute, for combining maliciously to injure the Journal
