M'Elroy's Case
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
ERROR to the Common Pleas of Allegheny county. This was a commission of lunacy taken out against Samuel M’Elroy and a traverse of the inquisition.
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ERROR to the Common Pleas of Allegheny county. This was a commission of lunacy taken out against Samuel M’Elroy and a traverse of the inquisition. On the trial the counsel for the traverser presented the following points for the court’s instruction to the jury: 1. That the fact of Samuel M’Elroy being under a delusion upon some particular subjects, (if such be the case), is not sufficient to authorize the jury in finding him of unsound mind within the meaning of the Act of Assembly and Constitution of the State. 2. That the fact of Samuel M’Elroy being under such delusions in relation to some…
1Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
Huston, J.
There are cases in which deliberate opinions of great lawyers, or even the dicta of such men, seem to impose a restraint to investigation on certain subjects; and if these have been often cited as authority down to near our own time, the difficulty to be surmounted appears greater. Lord Coke, from his situation in life, had probably little intercourse with what occurs often to those who mingle much in society, and possibly, I may say probably, had never seen or never examined an idiot lunatic, or one non compos mentis, in his life; and though…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- In re BeaumontSupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1836
3Cited by7 opinions
- Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance v. GroomSupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1878
- Commonwealth ex rel. Euchenberg v. SchneiderSupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1868
- Haggerty v. HaggertySuperior Court of Pennsylvania · 1910
- Commonwealth v. DavidsonSupreme Court of Pennsylvania · 1920
- Hinchman v. RichiePhiladelphia Court of Nisi Prius · 1849
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