JB/098/010/002

Click Here To Edit

C

Of Exemptions from punishment Reasons

Question III

Why Insanity subsequent to the act is
not made a ground of total exemption?

Reasons

1. Because it is not inefficacious as in the former
case. A man who at a given time may be
under temptation to committ an offence, will
not be the less forcibly acted on by the fear
of punishment, on account of the possibility
there is that some subsequent period he may
become insensible to the force of such a motive.

2. Because punishment in this case is not
absolutely needless. Insanity may be counterfeited:
and if a person upon being deemed
insane would were to be secure of absolute impunity
there would always in offences of great magnitude be a danger of a man's
committing the offence upon the presumption
of his being able in case of detection and the event of his being detected prosecuted,
to save himself by this artifice. He
would indeed have undergo the inconvenience of being treated
like one who had lost his senses: but then, after
a certain time, he might pretend to have
recover'd them.

As to chronical punishment, there is the less objection
to it, inasmuch as a strict confinement would be necessary although it were merely in a precautionary view, and although punishment were out of the question: in

---page break---

Identifier: | JB/098/010/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 98.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	098	Main Headings	penal code
Folio number	010	Info in main headings field	of exemptions from punishment reasons
Image	002	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	4
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f1 / f2 / f3 / f4
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	[[watermarks::r williams [britannia with shield motif]]]
Marginals		Paper Producer	c. hamilton
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	31618
Box Contents