Mr Sinclair was by this time unable to conceal his anxiety. He moved to interrupt the judge’s line of questioning, but was immediately silenced.
The Lord Justice-Clerk: ‘And do you have such an explanation?’
‘I do,’ said Mr Thomson.
‘Then I would ask you to share it with the court.’
‘My view is based on inconsistencies and omissions in the account the prisoner repeated both to Mr Sinclair and to myself. Specifically, these inconsistencies regard the injuries inflicted on Flora Mackenzie, which, to my mind, speak of an altogether different motive for the crimes committed. It would be my contention that when the prisoner embarked on his bloody project, his true purpose was not to avenge himself on Mr Mackenzie, but on this gentleman’s daughter, who, as we have heard, rejected his lewd advances towards her. In this account, Roderick Macrae was driven not by a quasi-noble desire to protect his father, but by his sexual urges towards Miss Mackenzie. I would thus contend that the prisoner set out in full knowledge that Mr Mackenzie was not at home and proceeded to violate his daughter in the most depraved way. Then, disturbed in his actions, a struggle ensued resulting in Mr Mackenzie’s death.’
There were a few moments of silence, followed by an outbreak of whispered commentary from the gallery. The judge struck his gavel repeatedly to restore order. Mr Sinclair appeared quite lost.
The Lord Justice-Clerk: ‘And why should one believe this version of events over the one previously given?’
‘Clearly I was not present when these deeds were committed,’ Mr Thomson continued, ‘but the injuries inflicted on Miss Mackenzie are entirely inconsistent with the motive described by the prisoner. Furthermore, when I questioned the prisoner in his cell, it was only at the mention of these injuries that he exhibited any sign of anxiety. A fissure appeared in the persona he had presented to the world.’
The Lord Justice-Clerk then looked to the crestfallen Mr Sinclair to continue his examination. The judge, no doubt conscious of the gravity of the witness’s statements, allowed him some moments to gather his thoughts. After some consultation with his associate, Mr Sinclair continued.
‘Were we to accept such a version of events, would it not speak even more profoundly of a loss of reason than the version that has previously been put forward?’
Mr Thomson gave the advocate a thin smile, aware that he was endeavouring to salvage his case from the implications of his testimony. ‘It may be that in a straightforward case of a sexually motivated attack, one may or may not deem the offender, in his inability to control his base urges, not to be fully responsible for his actions. This case, however, is distinguished not by the nature of the crime itself, but by the dissembling nature of the perpetrator’s statements after the fact. Had he admitted outright to the motives for his attack, he might, as you say, be deemed morally insane, as he would not have known that the acts he had committed were wrong. However, in fabricating an alternative explanation – an explanation which seeks to cloak his actions in a guise of righteousness – the perpetrator betrays his knowledge of the shameful nature of his real objective. It is the concealment of his true motives for these murders which reveals his knowledge that what he did was wrong. Those unfortunate persons who labour under the condition of moral insanity, are entirely unable to distinguish right from wrong. They sincerely believe whatever foul deeds they commit to be justified. In the present case, however, the motive claimed by the accused speaks not only of a desire to obscure the true purpose of his attack, but of an ability to deceive and dissemble which is not present in those whom one would deem insane.’
‘If, however,’ said Mr Sinclair, in a valiant attempt to rescue his case, ‘the version of events given by the accused, in the immediate aftermath of the assault, was accurate, you would judge him to be insane?’
‘I would.’
‘And since neither you nor any other witness was present at the attack, you cannot say with any certainty that the prisoner’s account is any less true than the one you have put forward.’
‘You are quite correct, sir, to point out that I was not present. However, the version of events I have presented accords more accurately with the physical evidence of the case. Had the defendant’s motives been as he has claimed, there would have been no reason to inflict such dreadful injuries on the unfortunate Miss Mackenzie. Even if he had felt the need to subdue her before lying in wait for her father to return, a blow to the head to render her unconscious would have been sufficient. Instead, he chose to wickedly defile her. I do not see any relation in this action to his professed desire to deliver his father from the tribulations he had supposedly endured at the hands of Mr Mackenzie.’
‘But you must admit that another interpretation of the prisoner’s actions is possible?’
‘Other interpretations may be possible, but they do not properly account for the facts of the case.’
At this point Mr Sinclair resumed his seat and it was necessary for the Lord Justice-Clerk to ask if he had concluded his questioning. The Crown declined the opportunity to examine the witness and Mr Thomson was excused. The court was adjourned until the afternoon, when the closing statements would be put to the jury.
The Crown summation did not last more than an hour and was delivered by Mr Gifford with ‘an air of complacency, which some jury members might have felt quite alienating’. The Solicitor-General asked that the jury attend only to the facts of the case. Roderick Macrae had carried out his acts in a pre-meditated manner – evidenced by the fact that he had gone armed to the Mackenzie home – and killed three blameless individuals in a ‘frenzied act of the utmost brutality’.
‘Mr Sinclair will try to pull the wool over your eyes,’ he said. ‘He will attempt to portray his client as an imbecile, given to talking to himself and hearing voices in his head.’ He reminded them that ‘while the prisoner might occasionally have been given to eccentric behaviour, not a single witness – excepting Aeneas Mackenzie – has been willing to testify that he was insane. And Mr Mackenzie’s opinion, for what it was worth, appeared to be based on no more than an understandable dislike of the prisoner and the fact that he sometimes laughed inappropriately. I would put it to you, gentlemen, that if that were all that was required as a diagnosis of insanity, we would all be in the asylum. Instead, I would suggest that far greater weight be placed on the evidence of Mrs Carmina Murchison, who testified that when she conversed with Roderick Macrae only minutes before he committed his crime, he was, in her words, “perfectly rational”.’
‘We have listened,’ he continued, ‘to an entertaining dialogue between Mr Thomson and Mr Sinclair regarding the motives for these crimes and their implications as to the state of mind of the accused. Nonetheless, fascinating as their discussion undoubtedly was, they are dancing on the head of a pin.’
He then re-counted the various incidents which had occurred between Mr Mackenzie and the prisoner’s father, culminating in the eviction of the Macrae family from their home. ‘It was this that provided the motive for the defendant’s actions; the motive but not the justification. We have heard also that the defendant harboured some romantic feelings towards Flora Mackenzie, feelings he expressed in the grossest manner, and perhaps his rejection by her contributed to the enmity he felt towards the Mackenzie family. It may be true that we do not know – that we cannot know – the true motives for this attack, but, gentlemen, it matters not.’
Mr Gifford then took pause before delivering his final remarks. ‘I would remind you of the facts: Roderick Macrae went fore-armed to the house of Mr Mackenzie with the intention to kill, and kill he did. The prisoner himself, as we have heard from numerous witnesses, has made no attempt to exonerate himself from blame and nor should you. And if you harbour any doubts as to his sanity, we have heard from not one but two experienced specialists, both far more qualified than you or I to pass judgement on this matter. We heard first from Dr Hector Munro, a man of great ex
perience in dealing with the criminal population and with demonstrable knowledge of the signs of insanity. His verdict: not only is Roderick Macrae fully in possession of his reason, he is “among the most articulate and intelligent prisoners” the doctor has examined.
‘We have been privileged to hear also from Mr James Bruce Thomson, who you must bear in mind was the defence’s own witness; a man whose expertise in this field is indisputable. And his conclusion? That Roderick Macrae is fully in possession of his reason and no more than a wicked and dissembling individual.
‘Finally, we have the declaration of the prisoner himself, offered under no duress: “I am of sound mind.” Gentlemen, the only person in this court-room who believes – or professes to believe – the prisoner to be insane is my colleague, Mr Sinclair. But this belief flies in the face of the evidence presented to the court.’
The jury, Mr Gifford concluded, would be derelict in their duty if they returned any verdict other than guilty of each of three charges before them.
When Mr Sinclair rose to make his closing remarks to the jury, it was not with the air of a beaten man. He had, wrote Mr Philby, ‘rallied commendably from his humiliation at the hands of his own witness, and if there is an award for those who most zealously defend lost causes it should be awarded to the doughty advocate’.
‘Gentlemen, as my learned colleague has stated, the facts of this tragic case are not in question,’ he began, resting his hand on the partition of the jurymen’s benches. ‘The defence does not dispute that the unfortunate victims died at the hand of the prisoner. What is at issue here are not the bare facts of the case, but the contents of a man’s mind. I would aver that there are not three victims in this case, but four; the fourth being the wretched individual who has sat before you these three days. And who is this individual? A young man of a mere seventeen years; a hard-working crofter with a deep attachment and loyalty to his family. We have heard how deeply changed he was by the tragic death of his beloved mother, and how since that time his family have existed under a cloak of gloom. We have heard from the prisoner’s own father, the father to whom he is so devoted, that he regularly beat him with his fists. We have heard from his neighbours, Carmina and Kenneth Murchison, that he was in the habit of conducting animated conversations with himself, conversations which ceased whenever a third party drew near, a fact which perhaps speaks of the disturbing nature of the thoughts to which he was giving voice. Mr Murchison testified that the prisoner appeared to “exist in a world of his own”. Mr Aeneas Mackenzie was more forthright. Roderick Macrae, he testified, was regarded as the village idiot; an imbecile; an individual whose behaviour was often incongruous with his surroundings. I suspect that if other witnesses have been more reluctant to brand the prisoner insane, this is due only to the tolerance and good nature of the residents of Culduie. Mr Mackenzie in his blunt way was only giving voice to what everyone thought. We have heard too how Roderick Macrae was given to violent swings of mood and eccentric behaviour. By any measure, he was not of sound mind. And when Lachlan Mackenzie, in his newly acquired role of village constable, took to abusing his power to persecute – for there can be no other word to describe his actions – to persecute Roderick’s family, this disturbed young man was pushed beyond the edge of reason. At the very end of his tether, Roderick set out to kill Lachlan Mackenzie and in carrying out this terrible project, claimed the lives of two innocent bystanders.
‘These were dreadful acts, of that there is no question. But it is what happened in the aftermath of these acts which speaks to the state of Roderick Macrae’s mind. Did he behave as you or I would behave? As any sane person would? Did he attempt to flee, or to deny responsibility for the acts he had committed? He did not. He quite calmly gave himself up to capture and openly admitted what he had done. He expressed no remorse. And at no point since has he wavered from this stance.
‘Gentlemen, you must ask yourselves why he behaved in this way. The answer can only be that in his own mind he did not believe – he does not believe – he had done anything wrong. In the mind of Roderick Macrae the acts he committed were a just and unavoidable reaction to the harassment of his family. Of course, in this he is wrong. Every man and woman in this court,’ – he here gestured grandly around the room – ‘can see that what he did was wrong. But Roderick Macrae cannot. And herein lies the crux of the case. Roderick Macrae no longer knew right from wrong. In order for a crime to be committed there must be a physical act – which is not here in dispute – but there must also be a mental act. The perpetrator of the act must know that what he was doing was wrong. And Roderick Macrae did not know.
‘Now, you will have listened intently, as you should, to the evidence of the learned Mr Thomson. He speculated – I shall not shy away from it – that the true object of Roderick Macrae’s assault was not Lachlan Mackenzie, but his daughter, Flora. But I would put it to you, I would put it to you strongly, that Mr Thomson’s opinion of this detail of the case is nothing more than speculation. What would it entail to believe that he is correct? It would require us to believe that in the immediate aftermath of his assault – in the very moments after the commission of three bloody murders – Roderick was able to fabricate a falsified explanation for what he had done. It is inconceivable that any sane person could have the self-possession to do such a thing.’
Mr Sinclair paused, placing a finger to his lips and casting his eyes towards the ceiling, as if he was himself in the process of thinking this question through, before continuing.
‘One might contend that the accused had concocted this story in advance of his actions, that he went to the Mackenzie home to kill Flora, but intended afterwards to claim that he had gone there with the purpose of killing her father. But there is a fatal flaw in this narrative: Roderick did not know and could not know that Lachlan Mackenzie would return home and disturb him in his actions. To give credence to Mr Thomson’s version of events requires the most convoluted thinking, and, I would aver, a complete disregard for logic. Instead, all the evidence presented here in court points to the fact that the prisoner intended to kill Lachlan Mackenzie, an act which, in his own disturbed mind, was just and righteous. The fact that in the commission of this deed, he also took the lives of Flora Mackenzie and Donald Mackenzie, a mere child, speaks eloquently of the alienation of reason he experienced. Mr Thomson quite correctly drew your attention to the horrible injuries inflicted on the person of Flora Mackenzie, but I would ask you, are these the actions of an individual in possession of his reason? Quite clearly, gentlemen, they are not. And if one accepts the view – the view to which all the evidence points – that Roderick Macrae killed Lachlan Mackenzie out of an irresistible urge to avenge himself for the ills done to his family, then you must agree with Mr Thomson that Roderick Macrae was not in possession of his reason, that he was suffering from “mania without delirium” or “moral insanity” and thus cannot be deemed to be responsible in law for his actions.
‘It is for this reason that I ask you to return a verdict of not guilty in this case. There is an onerous responsibility on your shoulders. But you must act in accordance with the law and not be swayed by any reasonable and human feelings of revulsion towards these dreadful acts. At the time of the commission of these crimes Roderick Macrae was suffering from an absolute alienation of reason and, for this reason, he must be acquitted.’
It was, wrote Mr Philby, ‘a bravura performance, delivered with great aplomb. No one present could doubt that the prisoner had received the ablest and most rigorous defence and that the finest spirit of justice is thriving beyond the boundaries of Scotland’s metropolitan hubs.’ As he resumed his seat, Mr Sinclair dabbed his brow with a handkerchief and received a clap on the shoulder from his assistant. From across the aisle, Mr Gifford offered a low bow of his head intended to convey his professional appreciation.
The Lord Justice-Clerk allowed a few moments of hubbub, before he brought the court to order. He commenced to charge th
e jury at three o’clock and spoke for some two hours. ‘His summation,’ wrote Mr Philby, ‘was a model of even-handedness and a credit to the Scotch legal system.’ After the customary introductory remarks and praising counsel for the manner in which they had conducted the case, he explained to the jury that ‘in order to return a verdict of guilty, in regard to any of the three charges contained in this indictment, there are four things of which you must be satisfied upon the evidence. In the first place, that the deceased died by the blows and injuries described; in the second place, that these blows were wilfully administered for the purpose of destroying life; third, that it was the prisoner in the dock who so administered these blows; and, if you are satisfied on these points, in the fourth place, that the prisoner was in possession of his reason at the time when he committed these acts. If the evidence is defective in any one of these particulars, the prisoner is entitled to an acquittal; but if, on the other hand, you are satisfied of these four things, there remains nothing for you but the stern and painful duty of conviction.’
There was, of course, little dispute over the first three points, but as was his duty in law, the Lord Justice-Clerk proceeded to recount over the next hour or so, the evidence first of the medical witnesses, then of those villagers who had seen or spoken to the accused in the aftermath of the crimes.
He then turned to the Special Defence of Insanity. ‘The test you must apply,’ he said, ‘is that a person may be found to be insane, if at the time of the act, or acts, he was labouring under such a defect of reason or from a disease of the mind, that he did not know the nature and quality of the acts he was committing, or that he did not know what he was doing was wrong. It is not for you, or for I, gentlemen, to question the validity or not of these guidelines. These are the rules in law and this is the assessment which you must make in this case.’¶¶¶
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