Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1929, Qupperneq 245

TlU;NDA ÁRSÞING
211
ting’ fche alleged murder of which he was
convicted by a duly constituted court of
law.
The question now arises, would that
certificate be sufficient to satisfy that
vanity? As far as I can ascertain there
is no medical examination of Ingólfur
Ingólfsson prior to his trial as to the ques-
■tion of his sanity. There was no examina-
tion after his conviction, and there has
been no examination hy a sanity expert
since his incarceration in Prince Albert,
and further, there is no medical history
available prior to his arrest on fche murder
oharge whioh would assist a sanity ex-
pert in arriving at a conclusion as to
whether his condition was a malignancy or
not, therefore, how can a sanity expert
now go back four years and make a de-f-
inite declaration that he was insane and
mentally unsound at the time of the crime,
when he has none of the material above
stated to guide himself by. T.herefore,
it appears to me that an examination at
this late date would not give the desired
result as it would have done prior to his
trial, or immediately subisjequent there-
to.
I was naturally curious to ascertain as
to if there were any further reasons to
substantiate the statement of the autfaori-
ties as to the alleged insanity of the pris-
oner outside of the ones already stipulated
by rne. I would like to bring to your at-
tention that after a perusal of the avail-
able crime record of the prisoner I have
found that this prisoner was a habitua!
drunkard. In fact it appears frorn the
year 1903 to 1907 that he practically spent
his entire time in one or other of the gaols
of tíhis country, but in studying suoh crime
report I find that there has not been one
conviction for a crime of violenoe, out-
side of the conviction of murder, in some
twenty convictions registered agains't him.
And I ask you, can any mentally sound
person act in such a manner as tfais one
acted, because you rnight remember that
crime reports were not available prior to
the year 1903, and then the police could
not possibly have apprehended the pris-
oner on eaoh occasion that he was en-
gaged in a drinking bout, and it is my
opinion that this is a very strong sign of
mental incapacity and it appears to me
tliat if Ingólfur Ingólfsson committed this
last crime, that such crime was undoubt-
edly oommi'tted in the midst of a drinking
bout, and when persons of his mental ca-
pacity are so engaged they commit actions
whioh they would not otherwise commit
or do while under the influence of liquor.
There is one more point that I desire
to bring to your attention under this
heading of mentality, and that is that.
the ahMiorities at Prince Albert peniten-
tiany consider Ingólfur Ingólfsson to have
the mentality of a child of eight to twelve
years of age and tfaat his brain has natur-
ally not fully developed. He is harmless,
that he has shown no sign of being dan-
gerous towards his fellow men and that
it would do him no good to be confined
in a mental hospi'tal. I have an analogous
situation to bring to vour attention and
wfaidh seerns to state the facts as thev
are applicable to Ingólfur Ingólfsson.
There was a case at Melfort, Sask., just
recently where a man by tfae name of Ol-
son was cfaarged with killing a man and
his housekeeper, and after commi'tting the
deed he placed the bodies in a farmhouse
and poured kerosene over them as well as
liberally sprinkled the house and then put
the house on fire. The house was de-
stroyed but wfaa't remained of the bodies
was found in the embers and he was tried
before a competent court o:f jurisdiction,
found guilty and condemned tí hang An
appeal was taken to the Court of Appeal
in Saskatchewan in relation of the charge
of the judgie to the juqy but the appeal
was dismissed. Olson was examined as
to his mentality by a higfa medical au-
thority, Dr. McNeil, superintendent of
Battleford Mental Hospital at Battle.ford,
and jury was empanelled prior to his
arraignment and trial to go into the ques-
tion of fais sanity but their verdict was
hat he was sane. However, the Court of