The Criminal Imbecile

This book is offered to the public in the belief that the three cases herein described are typical of a large proportion of criminal cases and that the analysis and discussion attempted will help to make clear important points which are often misunderstood, points relative to the criminal and to the imbecile.

A clear conception of the nature of the imbecile and of his relation to crime will inevitably result in a most desirable change in our criminal procedure.

It should be noted that we use “imbecile” in the legal sense which includes the moron and often the idiot as scientifically classified. This usage is justified since much of the literature still describes all mental defectives as imbeciles, idiots, or feeble-minded—according to the preference of the writers.

These cases are unique in that they were the first court cases in which the Binet-Simon tests were admitted in evidence, the mental status of these persons under indictment being largely determined by this method.

It happens, also, that these cases well illustrate three phases of the workings of defective minds. Jean Gianini shows the criminal imbecile of high grade and of loquacious type working by himself. Roland Pennington, equally high grade but of a quiet, phlegmatic temperament, shows how a defective mind works under suggestion. Finally, Tronson shows the crude brutality of a somewhat lower grade defective.

In the chapter on Responsibility we have tried to indicate the difference between verbal morality and deep-seated, appreciated, moral principle. A child may have the former but the latter comes only with experience and the age at least of the adolescent.

We would remind the reader that in the confessions and the appendices we have had at hand only stenographic reports.

If this book shall help the lawyer to make a more successful defense of the imbecile criminal, the judge to dispense justice to this much misunderstood class of high grade imbeciles, and society in general to realize its responsibility for the mental defective, it will have fulfilled its mission.

H. H. G.

Research Laboratory of the Training School in Vineland, N. J.

CHAPTER I. THE CASE OF JEAN GIANINI

“We find the defendant in this case not guilty as charged; we acquit the defendant on the ground of criminal imbecility.”

Such was the verdict by the jury of the Supreme Court of Herkimer County, New York, on May 28th, 1914, in the case of the people vs. Jean Gianini, indicted for the murder of Lida Beecher, his former teacher.

The prosecution and, at first at least, the majority of the citizens of the community held that this had been a carefully planned, premeditated, cold-blooded murder of the most atrocious character, committed with a fiendishness seldom seen among human beings. It was, on the other hand, claimed by the defense that the boy was an imbecile, that he had only the intelligence of a ten-year-old child, that he did not know the nature and quality of his act, and that he did not have any true realization of the enormity of his crime. For some reason unaccountable to a great many people, the jury accepted the view of the defense.

Not infrequently have verdicts in murder trials been unacceptable to the populace. In that respect this verdict is not an exceptional one, but from other standpoints it is remarkable. Probably no verdict in modern times has marked so great a step forward in society’s treatment of the wrongdoer. For the first time in history psychological tests of intelligence have been admitted into court and the mentality of the accused established on the basis of these facts.

The value of this verdict cannot be overestimated. It establishes a new standard in criminal procedure.