State v. Strasburg

Citations

• 60 Wash. 106
• 110 P. 1020
• 1910 Wash. LEXIS 1016

Syllabus

<p>Insane Persons — Criminal Law — Intent. Under the common law, intent was necessary to constitute a criminal act, and hence an insane person incapable of forming a criminal intent was not responsible for crime.</p> <p>Jury — Right to Jury Trial. Const., art. 1, § 21, providing that the right to trial by jury shall remain inviolate, means that the right, as it existed in the territory when the constitution was adopted, shall continue unimpaired and inviolate.</p> <p>Insane Persons — Criminal Law — Question of Pact. The question of the insanity of the accused at the time of the commission of the act charged is one of fact.</p> <p>Constitutional Law — Due Process — Criminal Law — Right to Jury Trial. The “due process clause” of the constitution taken in connection with art. 1, § 21, providing that the right to trial by jury shall remain inviolate, means that there can be no due process depriving one of life or liberty upon a criminal charge without a trial by jury as the right existed in the territory at the time of the adoption of the constitution, upon all questions of fact, and this includes the substantive fact of the sanity of the accused at the time Of the act charged; hence Rem. & Bal. Code, § 2259, providing that insanity shall be no defense to crime, and that no evidence thereof shall be admitted, is void.</p> <p>Criminal Law — Intent—Insanity. The power of the legislature to eliminate the element of intent in defining crime cannot be exercised to the extent of preventing an accused from invoking the defense of insanity at the time the act was committed and excluding evidence thereof.</p> <p>Same — “Punishment.” The theory that “punishment” for crime is not within the present-day humanitarian conception of the proper treatment of criminals, and is contrary to the spirit of modern law, cannot uphold a statute authorizing the restraint of the criminal insane, where the act provides that such person be “punished” by imprisonment.</p> <p>Criminal Law — Insanity—