Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 25.pdf/506

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Index to Periodicals to detect it. Expert evidence should be used much more freely in deciding technical ques tions." See Criminology, Indictments, Juries, Profes sional Ethics, Roman Law, Witchcraft. Criminal Statistics. "A Working Program for an Adequate System of Collecting Criminal Statistics in Illinois." By Arthur James Todd. 4 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 175 (July). "Professor Robinson wrote me recently that from his experience it has been up-hill work to compel the county clerks to send in the returns. There ought, therefore, he says, to be an easy method of enforcing the law concerning the col lection of these statistics. But what this easy method is we shall have to determine by experi ment. Personally, I am inclined to trust rather to the tact and persuasion of the director of our bureau than to any summary penalties for nonreporting which we might deem necessary for strengthening the law." Criminology. "A Prison Psychosis in the Making." (Report of a case.) By William A. White, M.D. 4 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 237 (July). "I would call particular attention to the fact that here a pretty complete psychological analysis has been able to build up an explanation and understanding of the prisoner, not only in her present condition, but with reference to the crime, and that it has been possible to evaluate all of her various statements without recourse to anything outside of herself. In other words the whole picture has been constructed from internal evidence alone, a fact which psychia trists fully appreciate as perfectly possible, but which our legal brothers appear never even to suspect can be done. Witness the constant and repeated questions on cross-examination with reference to alleged delusional states; constant attempts to prove that delusions correspond to facts, with the implied assumption that if they are found to so correspond, then they are not delu sions — a wholly inaccurate method of attack upon the problem, but one which, of course, can be easily understood when we take into considera tion our present methods of legal procedure. "It is certainly open to question whether the ends of justice can best be served by methods which are so accidental as the ability to present a scientific view in a convincing and simple manner to a lay jury, and to be free from the embarrassment of the physician on the witnessstand that the expert is very likely to suffer, especially if badgered by a persistent crossexamination. "After a wide experience I am almost con vinced of the practical impossibility of present ing, at least with any degree of satisfaction to myself, a scientific position from the witnessstand." "Present Day Aims and Methods in Studying the Offender." By William Healy, M.D. 4 Journal (July). of Criminal Law and Criminology 204

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"In general the study of mental quantities and qualities may be spoken of as a differential psychology. In this investigation of roots of criminalism one is looking for those mental states which act as driving forces of conduct. We must include estimation of mental defects, aberrations, obsessions, instabilities, impulsions, irritations, repressions, worries, conflicts, imag eries, grudges and suggestibility. We are bound to become involved in a study of what John Stuart Mill and several German authors call characterology. Of course it is necessary to look farther and record and combat every pos sible condition which aroused the activity of these driving forces. But the most immediate point of contact with causes is to be gained by employment of the knowledge which has been developed, a good deal of it quite recently, in the field of abnormal psychology." "The Causation of Crime." By H. FieldingHall. Atlantic, v. 112, p. 198 (Aug.). "Is the criminal so because he wants to be so? No, and no, and no again. No more wicked fallacy was ever foisted upon a credulous world than this. Nobody at any period of the world ever wished to be criminal. Every one instinctively hates and fears crime, every one is honest by nature; it is inherent in the soul. I have never met a criminal who did not hate his crime even more than his condemners hate it. The apparent exception is when the man does not consider his act a crime; he has killed be cause his victim exasperated him to it; he has robbed society because society made war on him. The offender hates his crime." Defamation. "Libel of Public Officials." By William Beers Crowell. 5 Bench and Bar N. S. 104 (July). "This rule in malicious prosecution actions has been applied by the Court of Appeals in private suits for libel (Ormsby v. Douglass, 37* N. Y. 477, 480), and why should there be a different rule when a public official be attacked? If the libel be outrageous and far beyond reasonable criti cism, then perhaps the question would be for the jury under a charge following the rule laid down in Howarth v. Barlow (113 App. Div. 510, cited and approved in Cook v. Pulitzer Pub. Co., 145 S. W. 480 [Mo.]). "It is submitted that for reasons of public policy the more liberal rule should prevail when a citizen criticizes a public official, and that he should not be made to guarantee the truth of the facts on which the comment is based." Distress. See Real Property. Federal and State Powers. See Treaty Power. General Jurisprudence. See Biography, Legal Education. Government. "The Treaty-Making Power." By (July). Edward C. Eliot. 20 Case and Comment 78 "If the proposition can be successfully main tained that the treaty-making power can have the aid of federal legislation, although that legis