Section 95. (e) Passion and Affection.
Passion and affection occasion in our own minds and in those of
witnesses considerable confusion of observations, influence, or even
effect the guilt of the defendant and serve to explain many things
at the moment of examination. The essence of passion or affection,
its definition and influence, its physical and physiological explanation,
is discussed in any psychology. The use of this discussion for the
lawyer's purposes has been little spoken of, and possibly can not
have more said about it. Things that are done with passion show
themselves as such, and require no particular examination in that
respect. What we have to do is to discover what might have happened
without passion, and especially to protect ourselves from being
in person overcome by passion or affection. It is indubitable that
the most "temperamental" of the criminalists are the best, for
phlegm and melancholy do not carry one through an examination.
The lively and the passionate judges are the most effective, but
they also have the defects of their virtues. No one will deny that
it is difficult to maintain a calm demeanor with an impudent denying
criminal, or in the face of some very cruel, unhuman, or terrible
crime. But it is essential to surmount this difficulty. Everyone of
us must recall shameful memories of having, perhaps justly, given
way to passion. Of course the very temperamental Count Gideon
Raday freed his county in a short time from numberless robberies
by immediately hanging the mayor of the town in which the robberies
occurred, but nowadays so much temperament is not permissible.
It is well to recall the painful position of an excellent
presiding justice at a murder trial, who attacked the defendant
passionately, and had to submit to the latter's really justified reprimand.
The only means of avoiding such difficulties is not to begin
quarrelling.
Just as soon as a single word is uttered which is in any way
improper in polite society, everything is lost. The word is the rolling
snow-ball, and how much momentum it may gather depends upon
the nature and the training of the judge. Lonely insults are not
frequent, and a single improper word breaks down the boundaries.
The criminal knows this and often makes use of his knowledge. A
man who has "cussed out" the other fellow is no longer dangerous, he
becomes calm and kind, and feels instinctively the need of repairing
the damage he has committed by "going too far." He then exhibits
an exaggerated geniality and care upon which many criminals count,
and hence intentionally provoke the examiner until he does things
and says things he is sorry for.
The emotions of witnesses, especially of those who have been
harmed by the crime and of those who have seen something terrible
and disgusting, and who still tend to get excited over it, constitute
a great many difficulties. Against the unconditional reliability of
such persons' testimony experienced judges take measures of defence.
The participant of this class is never calm; passion, anxiety, anger,
personal interest, etc., either anticipate or exaggerate trouble. Of
course, we are not speaking of cases in which a wound is considerably
exaggerated, or even invented for the sake of money, but of those
in which people under emotional stress often say unthinkable things
about their enemy, just to get him punished. This, however, is
comparatively rare where the damage has been very great. A man
who has lost his eye, the father of a raped daughter, the victim
impoverished by arson, often behaves very calmly toward the
criminal. He makes no especial accusation, does not exaggerate,
and does not insult. A person, however, whose orchard has suffered
damage, may behave much worse.
It frequently happens that the sufferer and the defendant really
hate each other. Not necessarily because one had broken the other's
head, or robbed him; frequently the ostensible reason for coming to
trial is the result of a long and far-reaching hatred. That this
emotion can go to any length is well known and it is therefore necessary,
though not always easy, to seek it out. Hatred is possible
among peers, or people who are peers in one connection or another.
As a rule, the king will not be able to hate his musketeer, but he
will when they are both passionately in love with the same girl,
for they are peers in love. Similarly, the high-bred lady will hardly
hate her maid, but if she observes the maid's magnificent hair and
believes that it is better than her own, she will hate the maid, for
there is no difference in rank with regard to the love of hair.
Real hate has only three sources: pain, jealousy, or love. Either
the object of hatred has caused his enemy a great irremediable
pain or jealousy, or hatred is, was, or will become love. Some
authorities believe that there is another source of hatred which
becomes apparent when we have done harm to somebody. That
this might show itself as hatred or passion similar to hatred is possible,
but in most cases it will probably be a feeling of deep shame
and regret, which has certain particular characteristics in common
with hatred. If it is really hatred, it is hatred through pain. Hatred
is difficult to hide, and even criminalists of small experience will
overlook it only in exceptional cases. The discovery of envy, which
is less forgiving than hatred, less explosive, much profounder and
much more extensive, is incomparably more difficult. Real hatred,
like exquisite passion, requires temperament, and under circumstances
may evoke sympathy, but friendless envy, any scamp is
capable of. Possibly no other passion endangers and destroys so
many lives, chokes off so much service, makes impossible so many
significant things, and finally, judges so falsely an endless number of
persons. When you remember, moreover, its exaggerated extent,
and the poor-spirited, easy trick of hiding it, its dangerous nature
can not be overestimated. We lawyers are even more imperilled
by it because we do not easily allow people to be praised before us;
we require witnesses, etc., to speak incriminatingly most of the time,
and we cannot easily see whether they are envious.
However freely one man may speak against another, we may
assume that he is telling the truth, or at worst, that he has a false
notion of the matter, or was badly instructed, but we rarely think
that his envy dictates it all. This idea occurs to us when he is to
praise the other man. Then he exhibits a cautious, tentative, narrowing
attitude, so that even a person of little experience infers envy.
And here the much-discussed fact manifests itself, that real envy
requires a certain equality. By way of example the petty shopkeeper
is cited as envying his more fortunate competitor, but not the
great merchant whose ships go round the world. The feeling of the
private toward his general, the peasant toward his landlord, is not
really envy, it is desire to be like him. It is anger that the other is
better off, but inasmuch as the emotion lacks that effective capacity
which we require for envy, we can not call it envy. It becomes envy
when something by way of intrigue or evil communication, etc.,
has been undertaken against the envied person. Thus the mere
feeling is confessed at once. People say, "How I
envy him this trip,
his magnificent health, his gorgeous automobile, etc." They do not
say: "I have enviously spoken evil of him, or done this or that
against him." Yet it is in the latter form that the actual passion of
envy expresses itself.
The capacity of the envious for false representation makes them
particularly dangerous in the court-room. If we want to discover
anything about an individual we naturally inquire of his colleagues,
his relatives, etc. But it is just among these that envy rules. If
you inquire of people without influence you learn nothing from them,
since they do not understand the matter; if you ask professional
people they speak enviously or selfishly, and that constitutes our
dilemma. Our attention may be called to envy by the speaker's
hesitation, his reserved manner of answering. This is the same in
all classes, and is valuable because it may warn us against very
bad misunderstandings.
As a rule, nothing can be said about passion as a source of crime.
We may assume that passion passes through three periods. The
first is characterized by the general or partial recurrence of older
images; in the second, the new idea employs its dominating place
negatively or positively with respect to the older one,—the passion
culminates; and in the third, the forcibly-disturbed emotional
equilibrium is restored. Most emotions are accompanied by well-known
physical phenomena. Some have been thoroughly studied,
e. g., the juristically important emotion of fear. In fear, breathing is
irregular, inspiration is frequently broken, a series of short breaths
is followed by one or more deep ones, inspiration is short, expiration
is prolonged, one or the other is sobbing. All these phenomena are
only a single consequence of the increase of respiratory changes. The
irregularity of the latter causes coughing, then a disturbance of
speech, which is induced by the irregular action of the muscles of the
jaw, and in part by the acceleration of the breathing. In the stages
of echoing fear, yawning occurs, and the distention of the pupils
may be noticed as the emotion develops. This is what we often
see when a denying defendant finds himself confounded by evidence,
etc.
The most remarkable and in no way explicable fact is, that these
phenomena do not occur in innocent people. One might think that
the fear of being innocently convicted would cause an expression
of dread, anger, etc., but it does not cause an expression of real
terror. I have no other than empirical evidence of the fact, so that
many more observations are required before any fresh inferences
are deduced therefrom anent a man's guilt or innocence. We must
never forget that under such circumstances passions and emotions
often change into their opposites according to rule. Parsimony
becomes extravagance, and conversely; love becomes hate. Many
a man becomes altogether too foolhardy because of despairing
fear. So it may happen that terror may become petrifying coldness,
and then not one of the typical marks of terror appears. But it
betrays itself just as certainly by its icy indifference as by its own
proper traits. Just as passions transmute into their opposites,
so they carry a significant company of subordinate characteristics.
Thus, dread or fear is accompanied by disorderly impertinence,
sensuality by cruelty. The latter connection is of great importance
to us, for it frequently eliminates difficulties in the explanation of
crime. That cruelty and lasciviousness have the same root has long
been known. The very ecstasy of adventurous and passionate love
is frequently connected with a certain cruel tendency. Women are,
as a rule, more ferocious than men.
[1]
It is asserted that a woman
in love is constantly desiring her man. If this be true, the foregoing
statement is sufficiently explained. In one sense the connection
between sexual passion and cruelty is bound up with that unsatiability
which is characteristic of several passions. It is best to be
observed in passions for property, especially such as involve the
sense-perception of money. It is quite correct to speak of the overwhelming,
devilish power of gold, of the sensual desire to roll in
gold, of the irresistible ring of coins, etc. And it is also correctly
held that money has the same definite influence on man as blood
on preying animals. We all know innumerable examples of quite
decent people who were led to serious crimes by the mere sight of
a large sum of money. Knowledge of this tendency may, on occasion,
lead to clues, and even to the personality of the criminal.
[[ id="n95.1"]]
A. Eulenberg: Sexuale Neuropathie. Leipzig 1895.