ecord the
fact, juries are sometimes almost as sceptical in regard to doctors as
they always are in regard to lawyers.

The usual effect of the expert testimony on one side is to neutralize
that on the other, for there is no practical way for the jury to
distinguish between experts, since the foolish ones generally look as
learned as the wise ones. The result is hopeless confusion on the part
of the juryman, an inclination to "throw it all out," and a resort to
other testimony to help him out of his difficulty. Of course he has no
individual way of telling whether the defendant "knew right from wrong,"
whatever that may mean, and so the ultimate test that he applies is
apt to be whether or not the defendant is really "queer," "nutty" or
"bughouse," or some other equally intelligible equivalent far "medically
insane."

The unfortunate consequence is that there is so general and growing a
scepticism about the plea of insanity, entirely apart from its actual
merits, that it is difficult in ordinary cases, whatever the jurors may
think or say in regard to the matter, to secure twelve men who will give
the defence fair consideration at the outset.

This is manifest in frequent expressions from talesmen such as: "I think
the defence of insanity is played out," or "I believe everybody is a
little insane, anyhow" (very popular and regarded by jurymen as witty),
or "Well, I have an idea that when a fellow can't cook up any other
defence he claims to be insane."

The result is a rather paradoxical situation: The attitude of the
ordinary jury in a homicide case, where the defence of insanity is
interposed, is usually at the outset one of distrust, and their impulse
is to brush the claim aside. This tendency is strengthened by the legal
presumption, which the prosecutor invariably calls to their attention,
that the defendant is sane. Every expert who has testified for the
defence in the ordinary "knock down and drag out" homicide case must
have felt with the prisoner's attorneys, that it was "up to them" not so
much to create a doubt of the defendant's sanity as to prove that he was
insane, if they expected consideration from the jury.

Now let us assume that the defence is meritorious and that the
prisoner's experts have created a favorable impression. Let us go even
further and assume that they have generated a reasonable doubt in the
mind of the jury as to the defendant's responsibility at the time he
committed the offence