216 N.Y. 324, 110 N.E. 945 (N.Y. 1915)
In September 1913 the dismembered body of Anna Aumuller was found in the Hudson river.1 Suspicion pointed to the defendant.2 He was arrested.3 He confessed that he had killed the woman by cutting her throat with a knife.4 He repeated this confession again and again.5 He attempted to escape the penalty for murder by the plea that he was insane.6 He told the physicians who examined him that he had heard the voice of God calling upon him to kill the woman as a sacrifice and atonement.7 He confessed to a life of unspeakable excesses and hideous crimes.8 These were broken by spells of religious ecstacy and exaltation.9 In one of these moments he believed himself in the visible presence of God.10 He committed this fearful crime.11 Two physicians of experience accepted as true his statement that he was overpowered by this delusion.12 They expressed the opinion that he was insane.13 Other physicians of experience held the view that his delusion was feigned.14 His insanity was a sham.15 The jury accepted this latter view.16 By their verdict they found him guilty of murder in the first degree.17
The defendant was condemned to death in February 1914.18 In July 1914 he made a motion for a new trial on the ground of newly-discovered evidence.19 In his affidavit upon that motion he tells a most extraordinary tale.20 He now says that he did not murder Anna Aumuller.21 His confession of guilt was false.22 He says that she died from a criminal operation.23 To conceal the abortion to which he and others were parties he hacked the dead body to pieces.24 He cast the fragments in the river.25 His crime he now says was not murder but manslaughter.26 He tells us why he chose to charge himself with the graver offense.27 He believed that he could feign insanity successfully.28 After a brief term in an asylum he would again be set at large.29 To confess to the abortion would implicate his confederates.30 It would bring certain punishment to every one.31 To confess to murder but at the same time feign insanity might permit every one to go free.32 The compact was then made between himself and his confederates.33 He would protect them from suspicion.34 He would play the madman himself.35 The men and the woman who are said to have been the confederates deny that such a compact was made.36 In any event the defendant now tells us that he was sane.37 The tale which he told the physicians was false.38 The tale of monstrous perversions and delusions was false.39 He did not hear the divine voice calling him to sacrifice and to slay.40 He asks that he be given another opportunity to put before a jury the true narrative of the crime.41
The defendant shifts his ground however.42 He insists that even though his motion for a new trial was properly denied we must none the less reverse the judgment for error in the charge.43 The error is said to have been committed in the definition of the degree of insanity that relieves from responsibility for crime.44 The learned trial judge said to the jury that wrong in this definition means contrary to the law of the state.45 The jury was instructed in pointed and impressive terms that even if the defendant believed in good faith that God had appeared to him and commanded the sacrifice of Anna Aumuller.46 This belief was a delusion the result of a defect of reason.47 The defendant must none the less answer to the law if he knew the nature and quality of the act and knew that it was wrong in the sense that it was forbidden by the law of the state.48 The defendant saved his rights by appropriate exceptions.49
It is of no importance now whether the trial judge charged the jury correctly upon the question of insanity.50 In the record before us the defendant himself concedes that he is sane.51 Everything which he said to the contrary was a fraud upon the court.52 It is of no importance now whether the defendant would be relieved of guilt if his diseased mind had revealed the divine presence to his eyes and the divine command to his ears.53 He tells us that he never saw the vision and never heard the command.54 He concedes therefore that the issue of his sanity was correctly determined by the jury.55
Whether the defendant was entitled to a new trial based on his July 1914 affidavit presenting a new account of the crime?56
The statute provides that a new trial may be granted when it is made to appear by affidavit that upon another trial the defendant can produce evidence such as if before received would probably have changed the verdict.57 Such evidence has been discovered since the trial.58 It is not cumulative.59 The failure to produce it on the trial was not owing to want of diligence under Code Crim. Pro. § 465 subd. 7.60 The power to order a new trial in criminal causes is created and measured by the statute.61 This is established in precedents such as People ex rel. Jerome v. Court of Gen'l Sessions.62 A criminal may not experiment with one defense and then when it fails invoke the aid of the law to experiment with another defense held in reserve.63
No. The defense now offered by the defendant was not discovered since the trial.64 It was known to him on his own showing from the beginning.65 He chose to withhold it because he had faith in his ability to deceive the courts of justice.66 Even if the entire tale is true the courts are powerless to help him.67
A criminal may not experiment with one defense and then when it fails him invoke the aid of the law which he has flouted to experiment with another defense held in reserve for that emergency. The statute withholds that power from the court if it were otherwise disposed to exercise it under Code Crim. Pro. § 465 subd. 7.68 The remedy available to a criminal who finds himself enmeshed in a trap of his own making is not in the processes of courts or the machinery of law but by appeal to the clemency of the Governor.69 The defendant's tale supplies a plausible explanation of some mysteries of the tragedy yet even if true it does not authorize judicial relief.70 The motion for a new trial was properly denied on this ground.71
The defendant was not entitled to a new trial based on the July 1914 affidavit.72
Whether the trial judge's instruction that the word 'wrong' in the statutory insanity test means contrary to the law of the state was erroneous?73
The rule of the statute is that a person is not excused from criminal liability as an idiot imbecile lunatic or insane person except upon proof that at the time of committing the alleged criminal act he was laboring under such a defect of reason as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or not to know that the act was wrong under Penal Law § 1120.74 The word wrong in the statutory definition is not to receive so narrow a construction as to mean only contrary to the law of the state.75 Knowledge that an act is wrong is conceived of as moral wrong especially where there is an insane delusion that God has issued a command as derived from M'Naghten's Case and subsequent applications in New York and other jurisdictions.76
Yes. The trend of the decisions is that the word wrong imports a moral wrong.77 The interpretation placed upon the statute by the trial judge may be tested by its consequences.78 A mother kills her infant child to whom she has been devotedly attached.79
She knows the nature and quality of the act.80 She knows that the law condemns it but she is inspired by an insane delusion that God has appeared to her and ordained the sacrifice.81 It seems a mockery to say that within the meaning of the statute she knows that the act is wrong.82 If the definition propounded by the trial judge is right it would be the duty of a jury to hold her responsible for the crime.83
We hold therefore that there are times and circumstances in which the word wrong as used in the statutory test of responsibility ought not to be limited to legal wrong.84 Knowledge that an act is forbidden by law will in most cases permit the inference of knowledge that according to the accepted standards of mankind it is also condemned as an offense against good morals.85 If however there is an insane delusion that God has appeared to the defendant and ordained the commission of a crime it cannot be said of the offender that he knows the act to be wrong.86
The trial judge's instruction that wrong means contrary to the law of the state was erroneous.87
Whether any error in the insanity instruction required reversal of the conviction?88
Even though there was error in the charge the error does not require reversal of the judgment of conviction where the defendant himself concedes that he is sane and that everything which he said to the contrary was a fraud upon the court. The principle is fundamental that no man shall be permitted to profit by his own wrong.89 It enters by implication into all contracts and all laws as in Riggs v. Palmer.90 The refusal to give ear to a claim of error which is conceded to have no relation to anything except a fraudulent defense does not need the sanction of express statute as the power is implied in the very function of courts of justice.91
No. It is of no importance now whether the trial judge charged the jury correctly upon the question of insanity because in the record before us the defendant himself concedes that he is sane and that everything which he said to the contrary was a fraud upon the court. It is of no importance now whether the defendant would be relieved of guilt if his diseased mind had revealed the divine presence to his eyes and the divine command to his ears because he tells us that he never saw the vision and never heard the command. He concedes therefore that the issue of his sanity was correctly determined by the jury. The law does not force its ministers of justice to abet a criminal project to set the law at naught.92
This court is a court of review and cannot of course go beyond the record but the confession that the defense of insanity was fabricated is part of the record.93 The defendant has forfeited the right to avail himself of the error in the charge.94 There is nothing to show that he is mentally incompetent to conduct the appeal to advise with counsel or to understand the meaning and the consequences of his own affidavit.95
Any error in the insanity instruction did not require reversal of the conviction.96