moral wrong

In September 1913 the dismembered body of Anna Aumuller was found in the Hudson river. Suspicion pointed to the defendant. He was arrested. He confessed that he had killed the woman by cutting her throat with a knife. He repeated this confession again and again. He attempted to escape the penalty for murder by the plea that he was insane. 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. He confessed to a life of unspeakable excesses and hideous crimes. These were broken by spells of religious ecstacy and exaltation. In one of these moments he believed himself in the visible presence of God. He committed this fearful crime. Two physicians of experience accepted as true his statement that he was overpowered by this delusion. They expressed the opinion that he was insane. Other physicians of experience held the view that his delusion was feigned. His insanity was a sham. The jury accepted this latter view. By their verdict they found him guilty of murder in the first degree. The defendant was condemned to death in February 1914. In July 1914 he made a motion for a new trial on the ground of newly-discovered evidence. In his affidavit upon that motion he tells a most extraordinary tale. He now says that he did not murder Anna Aumuller. His confession of guilt was false. He says that she died from a criminal operation. To conceal the abortion to which he and others were parties he hacked the dead body to pieces. He cast the fragments in the river. His crime he now says was not murder but manslaughter. He tells us why he chose to charge himself with the graver offense. He believed that he could feign insanity successfully. After a brief term in an asylum he would again be set at large. To confess to the abortion would implicate his confederates. It would bring certain punishment to every one. To confess to murder but at the same time feign insanity might permit every one to go free. The compact was then made between himself and his confederates. He would protect them from suspicion. He would play the madman himself. The men and the woman who are said to have been the confederates deny that such a compact was made. In any event the defendant now tells us that he was sane. The tale which he told the physicians was false. The tale of monstrous perversions and delusions was false. He did not hear the divine voice calling him to sacrifice and to slay. He asks that he be given another opportunity to put before a jury the true narrative of the crime. The defendant shifts his ground however. 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. The error is said to have been committed in the definition of the degree of insanity that relieves from responsibility for crime. The learned trial judge said to the jury that wrong in this definition means contrary to the law of the state. 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. This belief was a delusion the result of a defect of reason. 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. The defendant saved his rights by appropriate exceptions. It is of no importance now whether the trial judge charged the jury correctly upon the question of insanity. In the record before us the defendant himself concedes that he is sane. 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. 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.