In an interesting article about the publication of the new book, “Auburn Murder Stories,” detective Thomas Burger stated that the William Freeman murder trial was the first time “the insanity defense was ever used at trial, by anybody.” On the contrary, the concept of the insanity defense has existed since ancient Greece and Rome.

Following the publication of a popular book by James Cowles Prichard in 1835 dealing with the concept of “moral insanity,” several notorious American murder trials in the late 1830s and early 1840's featured the insanity defense. Such trials were major events and were splashed across the front page of newspapers. Edgar Allen Poe's story “The Tell Tale Heart,” published in 1843, brought considerable attention to the insanity defense. Poe himself had reported on the Philadelphia trial of James Wood, found not guilty by reason of insanity for the murder of his daughter in 1840.

The insanity defense was also used successfully by many men who were operating under the unwritten law that an outraged husband, father, or brother could justifiably kill the “libertine” who had seduced his wife, daughter, or sister. In a famous Philadelphia murder trial in 1843, Singleton Mercer was judged not guilty by reason of insanity for killing the man who had raped his sister. The jury deliberated for less than an hour.

The myth that the Freeman trial was the first use of the insanity defense is widespread, but it has no basis in fact. William H. Seward himself had used the insanity defense prior to the Freeman trial. Seward unsuccessfully argued that Henry Wyatt had been so badly abused in Auburn State Prison that he was insane at the time he murdered another inmate in 1845.

Eileen McHugh

Auburn

Auburn City Historian