1924 illustration by Albert Reid depicting the spirits of presidential assassins John Wilkes Booth and Charles Julius Guiteau. The tagline "they might have gone free with modern procedure" is a reference to the then-popular practice of determining mental illness via family history, informed by eugenic conceptions of heredity and degeneration. According to this logic, these two assassins would not have been executed in "modern times" because psychiatrists would have identified them as "insane" and therefore incapable of understanding the nature of their actions, becoming institutionalized in asylums instead of executed by the state.
"Legislation and Lunacy: We shut the sane man and let-the happy crank wander at large."
Illustration from Puck magazine discussing the contemporary non-specialist perpsective on the implications of the insanity defense - letting criminals get off lightly with an asylum sentance while also allowing the mentally ill to cause trouble in society.
Illustration from the Judge magazine depicting the trial of Charles Julius Guiteau, assassin of President Garfield. The illustration shows how testimony from psychiatrists (the "expert testimony" label on the branding iron) pronounce Guiteau sane and culpable for the murder of Garfield, opening up the path to execution. The illustration erases the dissenting testimony of psychiatrists for the defense, including W.W. Godding, Edward Spitzka, and James Kiernan, who were convinced that Guiteau was not sane.
Note fragment on insanity, possibly written by John K. Porter during the trial of Charles Julius Guiteau. Follows the M'Naghten Rule for determining insanity, whereby the accused needs to have been unable to tell the difference between right and wrong when committing a criminal act in order to be deemed insane under the law.
