Larrabee

The defendant was tried and convicted of murder, the jury fixing the penalty at imprisonment for life. He prosecutes this appeal from the judgment. The killing was admitted. The defense was insanity.

*159 Appellant claims that the atrocity of the murder, the lack of motive for the crime, together with the other evidence in the case, established insanity by a clear preponderance. But if circumstances of inhumanity and barbarity were to be held sufficient to prove the irresponsibility of the perpetrator of a homicide, it would be but an invitation to the evil-minded to increase the number of their victims, and to make their crimes blacker, more horrible, and more infamous. Such circumstances may be evidence of insanity, but they may equally owe their existence to the promptings of a brutal and malignant spirit.

In the present case no lack of motive ■ appears. A jealous rage seems to have been the moving cause. Defendant cut the throat of his mistress, who, after tricking and deceiving him, and wheedling him out of his money, carried this and her favors to the arms of another' lover.

Upon the general question of insanity, the evidence of experts was, as usual, conflicting, and the…