Criminal Psychology; a manual for judges, practitioners, and students Part 36

O. Mnnigshoff and F. Piesbergen[1] have thrown some light on the profoundness of sleep-why, e. g., a person hears a thing today and not at another time; why one is awakened and another not; why one is apparently deaf to very loud noise, etc. These authorities found that the profundity of sleep culminates in the third quarter of the second hour. Sleep intensifies and grows deeper until the second quarter of the second hour. In the second and third quarters of that hour, the intensification is rapid and significant, and then it decreases just as rapidly, until the second quarter of the third hour. At that point sleep becomes less and less profound until morning, in the second half of the fifth hour. At this moment the intensity of sleep begins again to increase, but in contrast with the first increase is very light and takes a long time. Sleep, then, reaches its culmination in one hour out of five and a half; from that culmination- point it decreases until it reaches the general level of sleep.

Section III. (b) Intoxication.

Apart from the pathological conditions of intoxication, especially the great intolerance toward alcohol,[2] which are the proper subjects for the physician, there is a large group of the stigmata of intoxication which are so various that they require a more accurate study than usual of their causes and effects. As a rule, people are

[1] Zeitschrift f. Biologie, Neue Folge, Band I.

[2] Cf. H. Gross's Archiv. XIII, 177.

satisfied to determine the degree of intoxication by the answers to a few stereotyped questions: Did the man wabble while walking? Was he able to run? Could he talk coherently? Did he know his name? Did he recognize you? Did he show great strength? An affirmative answer to these questions from two witnesses has been enough to convict a man.[1]

As a rule, this conviction is justified, and it is proper to say that if a person is still sufficiently in control of himself to do all these things he must be considered capable of understanding the difference between right and wrong. But this is not always the case. I do not say that irrationality through drink must always obtain when the drunkard is unable to remember what happened while he was drunk. His inability is not determinative, because the circ.u.mstances following a deed have no reflex effect. Even if after the deed a person is ignorant of what he has done it is still possible that he was aware of its nature while committing it, and this possibility is the determinative factor. But the knowledge of what is being done does not in itself make the doer responsible, for if the drunkard beats the policeman he knows that he is fighting somebody; he could not do so without knowing it, and what excuses him is the fact that while he was drunk, he was not aware that he was fighting a policeman, that so far as he is capable of judgment at all, he judges himself to be opposed to some illegal enemy, against whom he must defend himself.

If it be said in opposition that a drunkard is not responsible if he does, when drunk, what he would not do when sober, this again would be an exaggeration. Why, is shown by the many insults, the many revelations of secrets, the many new friendships of slight intoxication. These would not have occurred if the drunkard had been sober, and yet n.o.body would say that they had occurred during a state of irresponsibility.

Hence, we can say only that intoxication excuses when an action either follows directly and solely as the reflex expression of an impulse, or when the drunkard is so confused about the nature of his object that he thinks himself justified in his conduct. Hence, the legal expressions (e. g., "complete drunkenness" of Austrian criminal law, and "unconsciousness" of the German imperial criminal statute book) will in practice be pushed one degree higher up than ordinary usage intends. For complete intoxication or drunkenness into loss of consciousness usually means that condition in which the individual lies stiff on the ground. But in this condition he can not do anything,

[1] H. Gross's Archiv. II, 107.

and is incapable of committing a crime. It must follow that the statutes could not have been thinking of this, but of the condition in which the individual is still active and able to commit crimes by the use of his limbs, but absolutely without the control of those limbs.

If we compare innumerable stories that are told, with verbal reliability, about drunkards, or those that are readable in daily papers, police news, and in legal texts, we find groups in which a drunkard makes his bed on a wintry night on a snow bank, undresses himself, carefully folds his clothes beside him, and runs away at the approach of a policeman, climbs over a fence and runs so fast that he can not be caught. Such a man certainly has not only the use of his organs, but also uses them with comparative correctness in undressing, folding his clothes, and in running away. If now somebody should pa.s.s the drunkard's lair and if he should think that a burglar is in his house and should wound the pa.s.ser-by, who would believe the drunkard when he tells this story?

In the street there is frequent opportunity of observing some of the arrests of drunkards who fight with fists and feet and teeth, and often have to be taken to the police station in a wheel-barrow. Now if the man has had the misfortune of recognizing the policeman in his first opposition, and of giving his own name properly, we say that he has "shown definite signs of responsibility," and we sentence him. But in most cases it was merely the instantaneous illumination of his cindery mind (which was, perhaps, stimulated to the recognition of the policeman and the p.r.o.nunciation of his name by the latter's rather bearish remarks) which then dies away as swiftly as it rose, and is followed by instinctive self-defense. Anybody who has frequently observed how utterly senseless is the battle of a drunkard with the overwhelming power of three or four or more people, and how he continues to struggle, even when wholly or completely conquered, must feel convinced that such a man is no longer responsible.

In the same way we must never forget that the prosecution of some very habitual activity is in no sense evidence of responsibility. Especially when some action has very fine-drawn limits, and the actor knows that a false grip will result in questionable consequences, the habitual movement will be made instinctively. The soldier will properly carry out his obligations of service, the coachman drive home, unharness, and look after the horses, even the locomotive engineer will complete his difficult task without a break-then, however, they fall and sleep their drunkenness off. Now, if something intervenes unexpectedly during the performance of this ha-

bitual activity, especially some opposition, some superfluous cajolement, correction, or similar thing, the intoxicated actor is thrown completely out of gear, and can not be restored to it, nor is he able properly to oppose this obstacle. Hence he acts against it reflexly, and in most cases explosively.

It may be perceived that such a drunkard works unconsciously having been thrown out of gear by some sudden remark, he is unable to complete what he is trying to do, and this develops a despairing expression of emotion for which he is decidedly not responsible. A countless number of popular maxims indicate the popular opinion that it is best to get out of the way of a drunkard, never to help him, because he can best look after himself. The public seems to know this very well, theoretically, but in practice no wife applies this theory when her drunken husband comes home; in practice the policeman looks after the drunkard, in practice the peasant and the master quarrel with the drunken servant and the apprentice,-and then everybody wonders when suddenly superiors are hurt, maimed, and otherwise opposed.

The best evidence for the certain but very definite routine in which the drunkard moves, is the example cited by Combe[1] concerning the porter who, while drunk, had wrongly delivered a packet. Later on he could not think where he had brought it, but as by chance he got drunk again, he fetched the packet, and brought it to its proper destination. This process indicates that the "in vino veritas" depends not merely on speech, but on action, and that this coming to the surface of what is really thought is the reason for so many insults offered during intoxication. Such phenomena are best studied at the beginning of narcosis, in which all the conditions of intoxication come together in a much briefer period of time, and hence appear much more clearly. How involuntarily the inmost thought breaks through under such circ.u.mstances, is shown by an occurrence in a surgical clinic. An old peasant was to have been subjected to a not dangerous but rare operation. The famous surgeon of the University had one student after another make a diagnosis, and asked one student after another what kind of an operation he would perform. The peasant misunderstood it altogether, and as he was half stupefied he cried out involuntarily: "The old donkey is asking one loafer after another what to do. n.o.body knows anything, and yet they are going to operate on me."

[1] Andrew Combe: Observations on Mental Derangement. Edinburgh 1841.

Things that are thought are expressed just as involuntarily during intoxication, and thus the insults, etc., are accomplished.

What is never believed, but yet may be true, is the defence of a prisoner that intoxication led him to steal. I know of a talented, kindly, and thoroughly honorable young man, who during slight intoxication steals everything he can lay his hands on. His drunkenness is so light that he can remove with complete skill his comrades' cigarette cases, pocket handkerchiefs, and worst of all, their latchkeys. At the same time, he is still drunk enough to have great difficulty in remembering, the next day, who the owners of these things are. Now suppose a thief told such a story in court!

I cite from the excellent account of Hoffbauer,[1] the development of intoxication: "At first the consumption of liquor intensifies the feeling of physical health, or increases that health. It appears to have a proportionately similar effect upon the powers of the mind. Ideas move easily, expression is smoother and more adequate. The condition and emotional att.i.tude are such that one might very well always wish for one's self and one's friends. Until this point no intoxication is visible. The flow of ideas only increases and becomes more intense. Excellent, appropriate notions occur to one, but there is effort to restrain the irregular flow of thought. This state is visible in the effort which must be used to carry on any rather involved story. The ideas flow too rapidly to be easily ordered according to the requirements of the story. At this point the beginning of intoxication is already perceptible. In its development the flow of ideas becomes continually stronger, the senses lose their ordinary sharpness, and as these fail the imagination grows stronger. The drinker's language is now, at least in particular expressions and turns of speech, more voluminous and poetical, and rather louder than is natural. The former indicates an intensification of imaginative power, and the latter a dulling of the senses which becomes more and more obvious in the development of the intoxication. For the drinker speaks louder because he hears his words less clearly than before, and judges the hearing of his auditors by his own, although the vividness and the more rapid flow of ideas induced by intoxication have a share in this. Soon the dulling of the senses becomes still more obvious. For example, it is seen that a person who is so drunk that he confuses otherwise well-known companions, even if only for a minute, thinks he puts his gla.s.s softly on the table,

[1] J. C. Hoffbauer: Die Psychologie in ihren Hauptanwendungen auf die Rechtspflege. Halle 1823.

although it falls to the ground. And then there are still other forms of physical helplessness to be perceived. From his speech it may be judged that the connection between his ideas has significantly decreased: although still very vivid, they are now like luminous sparks that appear and disappear. This vividness of ideas, or their rapid flow, gives the inebriate's desires an unmanageable intensity which reason can no longer control. He follows them instantaneously if some accident does not turn him aside. His physical helplessness becomes now obvious in stammering, in a wabbly gait, etc., until finally he falls into a deep sleep in which physical and intellectual repair begin.

"If the conditions of intoxication were to be divided into periods, we should have the following: In the first period of intoxication ideas have only an extraordinary degree of vividness. The rule of the understanding over actions is not altogether suppressed, so that the drunken fellow is fully conscious of his external relations and is aware of what is going on within and about him. But the rapid flow of ideas hinders careful reflection and leads to an intensified excitability, particularly to those emotional expressions which are characterized by the more rapid flow; This is due to the familiar psychological law according to which one emotional condition leads into another as it is more like that other in tone. Anger and merriment, hence, show themselves more and more among uneducated people who are not habituated to the limitation of their emotional expression by reference to the forms of the world of fashion. Without this control, every stimulation intensifies the emotion, since every natural expression adds to its vividness. The irritability taken in itself is at this stage less dominant, inasmuch as the drinker is at the same time satisfied with himself, and the self-satisfaction makes the irritability endurable. Only some accidental circ.u.mstance can intensify and spread this irritability. Such circ.u.mstances intensify the drunkard s liveliness and lead to the outbreak of merriment approximating upon hilarity, then to a verbal quarrel, which need not yet be a real quarrel and may be conducted in all friendship. It seems that in most cases the irritability is excited through the fact that the drunkard's self-satisfaction speedily lapses, or that he is disturbed in doing things about which he is conceited. Now so long as the intoxication does not exceed this stage, its effects and the outbreaks of its pa.s.sions may be suppressed. The drinker is here still self-possessed and is not likely to lose control of himself unless he is progressively excited thereto.

"In the next period of intoxication, the drunkard still has his senses, although, all in all, they are considerably weaker than usual, and he is somewhat beside himself. Memory and understanding have quite left him. Hence, he acts as if the present moment were the only one, the idea of the consequences of his actions having no effect upon him because he no longer sees the connection between the two. And since his whole past has disappeared from his mind he can not consider his more remote circ.u.mstances. He acts, therefore, as he might if the memories of his circ.u.mstances and ideas of the consequences of his actions did not control his conduct, and lead him to rule himself. The slightest excitation may awaken all his strongest pa.s.sion which then carry him away. Again, the slightest excuse may turn him from what he has in mind. In this condition he is much more dangerous to himself and others because he is impelled not only by the irresistible force of his pa.s.sions, but because, also, he rarely knows what he is doing and must be considered a pure fool.

"In the last period, the drunkard has so lost his senses that he has no more idea of his external environment."

With regard to particular conditions, it may be held that the quant.i.ty of drink is indifferent. Apart from the fact that we know nothing about the quant.i.ty of alcohol a man has taken when we hear merely about so and so many liters of wine or so and so much brandy, the influence of quant.i.ties is individual, and no general rule whatever can be laid down. As a matter of fact, there are young and powerful men who may become quite foolish on half a gla.s.s of wine, especially when they are angry, frightened, or otherwise excited, and there are weak old people who can carry unbelievable quant.i.ties. In short, the question of quant.i.ty is altogether foolish. The appearance and const.i.tution of an individual offers as little ground for inference as quant.i.ty. The knowledge of a man's regular att.i.tude toward the consumption of alcohol is a safer guide. h.e.l.lenbach a.s.serts that wine has always the same influence on the same individual; one always becomes more loquacious, another more silent, a third more sad, a fourth merrier. And up to a certain limit this is true, but there is always the question of what the limit is, inasmuch as many individuals pa.s.s through different emotional conditions at different stages. It often happens that a person in the first stage who wants to "embrace the world and kiss everybody," may change his mood and become dangerous. Thus, anybody who has seen him several times in the first stage may make the mistake of believing that he

can not pa.s.s it. In this direction explanations must be made very carefully if they are not to be false and deceptive.

It is important, also, to know how a man drinks. It is known that a small quant.i.ty of wine can intoxicate if it is soaked up with bread which is repeatedly dipped into the wine. Wine drunk in the cellar works with similar vigor if one laughs, is merry, is vexed, while drinking, or if a large variety of drinks is taken, or if they are taken on an empty stomach. For the various effects of alcohol, and for its effects on the same person under different conditions, see Mnsterberg's "Beitrage zur Experimentellen Psychologie," Heft IV.

The effect of alcohol on memory is remarkable in so far as it often happens that many people lose their memory only with respect to a single very narrow sphere. Many are able to remember everything except their names, others everything except their residence, still others everything except the fact that they are married, and yet others every person except their friends (though they know all the policemen), and the last cla.s.s are mistaken about their own ident.i.ty. These things are believed like many another thing, when told by a friend, but never under any circ.u.mstances when the defendant tells them in the court room.

Section 112. (c) Suggestion.

The problems of hypnotism and suggestion are too old to permit the mere mention of a few books, and are too new to permit the interpretation of the enormous literature. In my "Manual for Examining Judges," I have already indicated the relation of the subject to criminal law, and the proper att.i.tude of criminalists to it. Here we have only to bear in mind the problem of characteristic suggestion; the influence of the judge on the witnesses, the witnesses upon each other, the conditions upon the witnesses. And this influence, not through persuasion, imagination, citation, but through those still unexplained remote effects which may be best compared with "determining." Suggestion is as widespread as language. We receive suggestions through the stories of friends, through the examples of strangers, through our physical condition, through our food, through our small and large experiences. Our simplest actions may be due to suggestion and the whole world may appear subject to the suggestion of a single individual. As Emerson says somewhere, nature carries out a task by creating a genius for its accomplishment; if you follow the genius you will see what the world cares about.

This multiple use of the word "suggestion" has destroyed its early intent. That made it equivalent to the term "suggestive question." The older criminalists had a notion of the truth, and have rigorously limited the putting of suggestive questions. At the same time, Mittermaier knew that the questioner was frequently unable to avoid them and that many questions had to suggest their answers. If, for example, a man wants to know whether A had made a certain statement in the course of a long conversation, he must ask, for good or evil, "Has A said that ... ?"

Mittermaier's att.i.tude toward the problem shows that he had already seen twenty-five years ago that suggestive questions of this sort are the most harmless, and that the difficulty really lies in the fact that witnesses, experts, and judges are subject, especially in great and important cases, to the influence of public opinion, of newspapers, of their own experiences, and finally, of their own fancies, and hence give testimony and give judgments in a way less guided by the truth than by these influences.

This difficulty has been made clear by the Berchthold murder- trial in Mnchen, in which the excellent psychiatrists Schrenck- Notzing and Grashey had their hands full in answering and avoiding questions about witnesses under the influence of suggestion.[1] The development of this trial showed us the enormous influence of suggestion on witnesses, and again, how contradictory are the opinions concerning the determination of its value-whether it is to be determined by the physician or by the judge, and finally, how little we know about suggestion anyway. Everything is a.s.signed to suggestion. In spite of the great literature we still have too little material, too few observations, and no scientifically certain inferences. Tempting as it is to study the influence of suggestion upon our criminalistic work, it is best to wait and to give our attention mainly to observation, study, and the collection of material.[2]

[1] Schrenck-Notzing: ber Suggestion u. Errinerungsf

[2] 51. Dessoir Bibliographie des modernen Hypnotismus. Berlin 1890.

W. Hirsch: Die Mensehliche Verantwortlie it u. die moderne Suggestionslehre.

Berlin 1896.

L. Drucker: Die Suggestion u. Ihre forense Bedeutung. Vienna 1S93.

A. Cramer. Gerichtliche Psychiatrie. Jena 1897.

Berillon Les faux temoignages suggrs. Rev. de l'hypnot. VI, 203.

C. de Lagrave: L'autosuggestion naturelle. Rev de I hypnot. XIV, 257.

B. Sidis: The Psychology of Suggestion.

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