Studies in Forensic Psychiatry by Bernard Glueck (best black authors txt) 📕

The cases herein reported have been under my observation now for several years at the Government Hospital for the Insane, and I am indebted for permission to report them to Dr. William A. White, Superintendent of the Hospital.

Case I is a white man, aged 64 on his first admission to the Government Hospital for the Insane, July 9, 1907. This commitment was the direct outcome of a trial for perjury which took place in May, 1906, in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, at which the patient was found guilty. While awaiting sentence he was adjudged insane and sent to this Hospital. The evidence was gathered from the Reports of the Maryland Court of Appeals, dating as far back as 1874, and forms only an incomplete account of the patient’s legal activities, inasmuch as many of his law transactions never reached the higher courts and consequently are not reported. In setting aside 1,296 magistrate’s judgments obtained by the patient and amounting in the aggregate to $127,836 debt and $2,348 costs, the Court states, among other things, as follows:—

“The gross iniquity of this whole transaction, manifest enough upon its face, is abundantly so by proof. The inference is irresistible that the magistrate who issued these judgments merely wrote them out on his docket without summoning witnesses and without the semblance even of an ex parte trial.”

It was further brought out at the perjury trial in 1906 that in 1877 the patient had obtained 619 judgments against the A. E. Company, aggregating approximately $50,000. These were likewise set aside by the higher Court. We thus see that as far back as 1874 this king of litigants had already had set aside by the higher Courts as many as some 1,900 distinct and separate judgments. How many more of those based on the same flimsy tissue of his distorted imagination he actually realized on is not known. As far as can be ascertained, the issue of insanity was never raised, at any rate by the Court, prior to the perjury trial, and it was only when this master litigant, after having been active as a complainant for a great number of years, at last betrayed himself into committing a criminal offense that the issue of insanity was brought up.

A prominent Maryland Judge, who had known X—— for over forty years, had the following to say concerning him:—“I have known X—— for forty years, and he is a general nuisance and menace; he is crazy on getting money, and for years has been manufacturing bogus judgments against citizens of this and Montgomery Counties and the A. E. Company. At one time he held judgments against that Company for a million dollars for an imaginary wrong, all of which were eventually gotten rid of on the ground that they were fraudulent. He also, in some fraudulent way obtained judgments against our County Commissioners, without their knowledge, for $1,500, which were impounded by Judge M—— of the United States Court at B——, where as a then non-resident he brought suit to recover on them. He then went down to Dickinson County, a remote section of Southwestern Virginia, and obtained other judgments for some four or five million dollars against the County and various citizens, which were obtained by perjury and forgery. They were eventually set aside. His brother died in 1907, and I became one of the sureties on the executor’s bond; last year a judgment turned up here against the executor and his sureties for $17,000, which purported to have been given by the Circuit Court for said D—— County. It was a forgery all the way through; even the Seal of the Court to the certificate was a forgery. I wrote the Judge of the Court and he answered very promptly, stating that no such suit had ever been entered and that the judgment was a myth. We succeeded in impounding this judgment. No one up here feels safe when X—— is at large. We have suffered a great deal of trouble and expense in trying to protect ourselves against him, and everybody regards him as being not only insane but also a very dangerous man.”

On admission to the Government Hospital for the Insane, July 9, 1907, he was found to be a fairly well-preserved man for his age, entered freely into conversation, comprehending readily what was said to him and exhibiting no difficulty in elaborating his ideas. He talked in a slow, deliberate and rather mysterious manner and a low tone of voice. The family history as given by him was negative. He himself had the usual diseases of childhood, but, aside from chronic indigestion, had had no severe illness. He gave his occupation as that of physician. In 1862 he enlisted in the Union Army as a nurse and was discharged six months later; claims that in 1865 he graduated in medicine from the University of Maryland, which profession he practiced at W—— until 1881. He then moved to Ohio, because, he says, he could endure no longer the persecution of a good many enemies which he had made on account of his service in the Union Army. In Ohio, he states, he engaged in the manufacture of proprietary medicines and claims to have sold out his business sometime later for $50,000.

Some idea of the patient’s daily conduct may be had from the statements of his landlady, with whom he lived for a considerable time.

It seems that he occupied a room on the top floor, which he would allow no one to enter. If anyone rapped on the door he would open it very slightly and cautiously, conducting conversation through a crack in the door. He led the life of a hermit, living in absolute seclusion, cooking his own meals in his room. After he was removed to the Hospital this room was entered and newspapers were found piled as high as the ceiling; many of the articles in them were underscored, and numerous clippings were pasted on doors and windows as well as on walls; everything was covered with dirt and dust, and the cooking utensils were strewn all over the room. This lady said that during his stay there he was always very suspicious, kept the blinds drawn, and seemed to be constantly afraid that something was going to happen.

Examination of the patient soon after admission revealed a well-organized and very extensive delusional system, which, according to his story, apparently had its inception during the Civil War. It seems that he had caused the apprehension and execution of a Confederate spy, and ever since then, he states, the relatives and friends of this man have been persecuting him. In 1889 he was granted a pension of $25 per month, but he did not think that this was a fair deal inasmuch as he was not a nurse, but a physician, and should receive at least a hundred dollars per month. He states that he came originally to Washington to have this matter straightened out, but on account of his enemies was unsuccessful. His worst persecutions he believed to have been instigated by the A. E. Company because he had judgment against this Company for about $50,000. He stated that this was obtained in a damage suit which he brought against this Company because they wanted to charge him expressage of something like 40¢ on a prepaid package. Following this damage suit, the Express Company’s agents, especially members of the R. family, have been spying on him and persecuting him; he finally sued a member of this R. family and obtained judgment against him in the Circuit Court of Virginia for $9,000. When asked to explain how he figures out these exact amounts of damage, he is ready with a thousand plausible reasons why the amounts were as he gives them. He was finally charged with perjury, found guilty, and while awaiting sentence was adjudged by a jury to be of unsound mind and sent to the Government Hospital for the Insane.

He believes that members of this R. family were behind this because they were afraid that the patient would collect on his judgments, which by this time, amounted to something like $20,000, and which, as he put it, “were good, valid and subsisting, not reversed or otherwise vacated.”

During his sojourn in the Government Hospital for the Insane, he was always very suspicious and seclusive, keeping to his room practically all the time and aloof from the other patients in the ward. He adhered very tenaciously to his delusional system and believed himself fully justified in all his litigious pursuits. With all this he was clear and coherent in conversation, his memory was quite well-preserved, and he had no difficulty in keeping himself fully informed on current events. Aside from the very evident caution and very profound suspicious attitude which he manifested during a conversation, he made no abnormal impression.

In October, 1908, he was paroled by a Justice of the District of Columbia Supreme Court to his brother’s care in Ohio; and patient’s reasons for this parole are interesting: He states that he was told by the District Attorney that he would be paroled if he were to go to Ohio and vote for President Taft. This he says he did, believing he had carried out the terms of his parole, promptly returned to Washington and resumed his former activities. The first thing he did upon his return was to have the following two bills introduced in Congress, both of which are wholly based on his delusional ideas:—

“H. R. Bill xxxx, January 11, 1910. Mr. A. introduced the following bill, which was referred to the Committee on Military Affairs and returned to be printed:—A bill to correct the military record of X——. Be it enacted in the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress Assembled, that the Secretary of War be and is hereby authorized and directed to correct and amend the military record of X——, late assistant surgeon instead of nurse, so as to read: X——, Assistant Surgeon of the United States Army, on the 12th day of April, 1863, and to place the name of X—— upon the retired list of the United States Army as Assistant Surgeon.”

The second bill was as follows:—

“Senate Bill xxx. Referred to the Committee on Claims. A bill for the relief of X——. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress Assembled, that the Secretary of the Treasury be and he is hereby authorized to pay out of any money in the Treasury, not otherwise appropriated, to X——, formerly a resident of W., in the State of Maryland, the sum of $45,600, being the amount of the loss sustained by said X—— in property and business while he was performing important service for the Government in the year 1863, and in recognition of valuable service rendered the United States, and compensation for loss resulting from his causing the arrest of a Confederate Spy, at the opening of the Gettysburg campaign, thereby defeating the Confederate plan to capture the two thousand or more government wagons loaded with the munitions of war of the Union Army, which sum shall be in full of all claims and demands upon the part of said X—— against the Government of the United States by reason of the premises.”

The patient was soon apprehended and returned to the Government Hospital for the Insane, where he