CONVENIENT INSANITY

For once the courts have not been led astray by that ingeneous artifice known as criminal insanity, and have convicted a malefactor who well deserves it. The so-called Lone Wolf's plea of insanity has been rightfully denied, and the court has imposed a just sentence.

Since the days of Harry K. Thaw and long before, insanity has been the criminal's most convenient method of escape from the consequences of his crimes. Those who could afford to pay for a doctor's honor and the facile discriminations of an unscrupulous lawyer have done so in many cases and have then flaunted their immunity before the sympathies of a sentimental public. Loeb and Leopold were the most conspicuous recent examples. In the face of such a growing tendency to escape just punishment it was indeed high time the courts once more justified their function of upholding the law.

It would be foolish to say that criminals are never insane, for their very careers suggest that they have not minds of normal balance. But there is a great difference between temporary derangement and complete mental disorder. Men with the cleverness to commit crimes and then put on sufficient cunning to evade the demands of justice can hardly be adjudged insane in the ordinary sense of the term. The Lone Wolf has tried his wiles and failed. A Daniel sat in judgment over him. Such a decision is important in reestablishing the power of the law.