The Warden and the Inmate

An inmate of a state prison killed the prison's warden by stabbing him in the neck with a knife. The prosecution relied on a killing without provocation, with a deadly weapon, attended by violence and cruelty, and charged him with wilful murder. The defence did not dispute the killing; insanity was its sole ground. It argued he was suffering from partial insanity — melancholy accompanied by delusion — and that he acted under a false but sincere belief that the warden meant to shut him up and destroy his life. Superintendents of several asylums testified that the evidence pointed strongly to that form of insanity, though they had not examined him when the killing happened.