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[1954
Article] [Strecker]
[Gault]
[Acheson]
[Bazelon]
EDWARD A. STRECKER, M.D.
111 NORTH-FORTY-NINTH STREET
PHILADELPHIA 39, PA
December
Twenty-eighth
1951
Dear
Mr. Fearey:
I read with very much
interest your excellent paper on the problem of delinquency.
It is not at all "startingly radical" but is quite in keeping
with the modern trend in these matters. It
is true that it is still a minority opinion, but it is gaining great strength.
Personally, I think that the old M'Naghton Rule is on the way out.
You might be interested in sending for a brilliant dissenting opinion by
Chief Justice Biggs and Judges McLaughlin and Staley in the U. S. Court of
Appeals for the Third Circuit, which can be addressed at Wilmington, Delaware.
[Smith v. Balch]
This dissenting
opinion by three Judges is going to make medico-psychiatric history.
Also, you will be interested in knowing that soon there will be before
the Legislature of the State of Pennsylvania a Bill which will provide for two
verdicts in homicide cases, one the verdict of guilty or not guilty, and then if
guilty, there will be a separate verdict of death or life imprisonment which
will be based on the entire life history of the accused and will bring out such
things as you mention in your paper. You
might want to include some of these new developments in your paper.
For details you might want to communicate with Dr. Philip Roche.
Dr. Roche and I have been working for years to weaken the hold of the old
M'Naghton Rule, which is now 108 years old and which bases everything on the
ability to distinguish between right and wrong, and does not at all recognize
degrees of responsibility. It would
seem incredible that any intelligent person could escape understanding in view
of the great advances made in the science of psychiatry.
My regards to you,
Sincerely yours,
S/
E.A. Strecker
Edward A. Strecker,
M.D.
Mr.
Robert A. Fearey
5422 Broad Branch Rd., N.W.
Washington, D.C.
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