"Temporary Sanity" - читать интересную книгу автора (Connors Rose)

Acknowledgments

It really does take a village.

Heartfelt thanks to: Garland Alcock, M.D., for extraordinary insight into the human mind and body; the Chatham Writers’ Guild, for meticulous critiques and rowdy lunches; the first-class staff of the Barnstable Law Library-Martha Elkins, Janet Banks, and Mareda Flood-for endless professional and moral support; Sara Young-you know what you did.

Humble thanks to Susanne Kirk, the mystery world’s premiere editor, and to Nancy Yost, the finest literary agent an author could hope to find.

And to my family, of course, thanks for everything.

1879. I asked Janet, the law librarian, where I might find a thorough discussion of the temporary insanity plea, and she referred me to a case decided in January of 1879.

“That’s too old,” I told her. “I’m looking for a more recent decision, one that explains why we preserve the defense, one that addresses the current philosophy supporting it.”

Janet climbed the ladder, then, to the top shelf, and pulled out a book so decrepit that portions of its dark brown binding fell in flakes to the library floor as she descended. She opened the yellowed pages to a case already flagged with a sheet of folded notepad paper. Apparently, she’d been asked this question before.

She flipped through the first portion of the decision, then pointed to the center of a page and handed the fragile book to me. “Mr. Justice Paxson gave it a lot of thought,” she said. “Read.” And so I did.

We are obliged by the force of authority to say to you that there is such a disease known to the law as homicidal insanity.

What it is, or in what it consists, no lawyer or judge has ever yet been able to explain with precision.

Janet was heading back to her desk when I looked up, but she paused to cast a meaningful glance over her shoulder. I got the message. A hundred and twenty-five years have passed. And nothing’s changed.