CHAPTER IV.

 

CAPACITY AND RESPONSIBILITY FOR OFFENSES.

 

CONTENTS.

 

SECTION 1.  Infant under seven years of age.

2.     Infant from seven to fourteen.

3.     An idiot.

4.     An insane person.

5.     Compulsion.

 

1.  An infant, under seven years of age, shall be deemed incompetent to commit an offense.

 

2. Between the ages of seven and fourteen years, competency to commit any alleged offense, and the fact that the accused acted with intelligence and understanding of the nature of the act, shall be determined by the evidence of the case, without any general presumption for or against the same.

 

3. Any person who, by reason of his idiocy or mental imbecility, is not competent to discern the nature and criminality of an act done by him, shall not be held criminally responsible for such act.

 

4. Any person acting under mental derangement, rendering him incompetent to discern the nature and criminality of an act done by him, shall not be subject to punishment therefor: Provided, however, that if any such person, while capable of discerning the nature and criminality of any act, entertained the intent to do the same, and subsequently does it in pursuance and execution of such intent, he shall be held responsible therefor, though the same be done in such state of mental derangement; and so also if any person voluntarily or heedlessly induce the mental derangement by intoxication or otherwise.

 

5.  No person shall be held criminally responsible for any act, to the doing of which he is compelled by force which he cannot resist, or from which he cannot escape: Provided, however, that no compulsion shall be presumed without evidence; and no one shall be able to justify himself against a charge of his doing an injury to another, by showing the threat or imminent danger of an equal or less injury to himself.