Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Examining Harry Thaw’s “Brain-Storm” Defense: APA and ANA Presidents as Expert Witnesses in a 1907 Trial

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Psychiatric Quarterly Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In 1907, Harry K. Thaw, son of a railroad multi-millionaire, stood trial for shooting and killing architect Stanford White during the performance of a Broadway musical. The defense claimed that Thaw had experienced a “brain storm” causing temporary insanity. The brain-storm defense was ridiculed by professional groups, the public and the press. However, the defense experts were all respected leaders in their fields. They included five past or future presidents of the American Psychiatric Association and American Neurological Association. With no standard terminology in 1907, the much-maligned brain-storm diagnosis was in many respects an appropriate term for a sudden, drastic and temporary defect of reasoning having a physical cause. In spite of a strict test for mental nonresponsibility, the jury did not return a murder verdict.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Mooney MM: Evelyn Nesbit and Stanford White: Love and death in the Gilded Age. New York, W. Morrow, 1976

    Google Scholar 

  2. Baker PR: Stanny: The Gilded Life of Stanford White. New York, Macmillan, 1989

    Google Scholar 

  3. Nesbit E: Prodigal Days: The Untold Story. New York, J. Messner, 1934. Reprint, edited by DD Paul, 2004

  4. Mackenzie FA: The Trial of Harry Thaw. London, Geoffrey Bles, 1928. Reprint Holmes Beach FL, Gaunt, 2000

  5. Umphrey MM: Dialogics of legal meaning: spectacular trials, the unwritten law and narratives of criminal responsibility. Law & Society Review 33:393–423, 1999

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Ireland RM: Insanity and the unwritten law. American Journal of Legal History 32:157–172, 1988

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Keedy ER: Irresistible impulse as a defense in the criminal law. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 100:977–979, 1952

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index. Available at http://www.bls.gov/cpi/ Accessed 6/07

  9. Burnham JC: Jelliffe: American Psychoanalyst and Physician: His Correspondence with Sigmund Freud and C.G. Jung. Edited by W. McGuire, Chicago, University of Chicago, 1983

  10. Barton WE: The History and Influence of the American Psychiatric Association. Washington DC, American Psychiatric Association, 1987, p. 111

    Google Scholar 

  11. O’Conner R: Courtroom Warrior: The Combative Career of William Travers Jerome. Boston, Little, Brown and Co., 1963

    Google Scholar 

  12. Pilgrim CW: The care and treatment of the insane in the state of New York. American Journal of Insanity 68:1–13, 1911

    Google Scholar 

  13. Polk’s Medical Register and Directory of North America. Chicago, R.L. Polk Co., 1908

  14. MacDonald CF: The trial, execution, autopsy and mental status of Leon F. Czolgosz, alias Fred Nieman, the assassin of President McKinley. American Journal of Insanity 58:369–386, 1902

    Google Scholar 

  15. Wagner CG: Recent trends in psychiatry. American Journal of Insanity 74:1–14, 1917

    Google Scholar 

  16. New York Times, 2/12/1907, p. 2

  17. New York Times, 3/20/1907, p. 2

  18. Buchanan A: Psychiatric evidence on the ultimate issue. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 34:14–21, 2006

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Finkel NJ: Insanity on Trial. New York, Plenum, 1988

    Google Scholar 

  20. New York Times, 2/13/1907, p. 3

  21. Washington Post, 3/10/1907, p. 3

  22. Oxford English Dictionary. vol 2. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 481

  23. Gould GM: An Illustrated Dictionary of Medicine, Biology and Allied Sciences. Philadelphia, P. Blakiston, Son & Co., 1894, p. 233

    Google Scholar 

  24. Little M: William James and the noun brainstorm. Notes and Queries 39:187, 1992

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. New York Times, 3/15/1907, p. 2

  26. MacDonald CF: The ethical aspects of expert testimony in relation to the plea of insanity as a defense to an indictment for crime. American Journal of Insanity 67:241–55, 1910

    Google Scholar 

  27. New York Times, 3/16/1907, p. 2

  28. Krafft-Ebing R von: Text-Book of Insanity Based on Clinical Observations for Practitioners and Students of Medicine, trans. CG Chaddock. Philadelphia, FA Davis, 1904

    Google Scholar 

  29. New York Times, 3/19/1907, pp. 1–2

  30. New York Times, 3/20/1907, p.2

  31. Ackerman RH: Graeme M. Hammond and the ANA. Annals of Neurology 32:224, 1992

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  32. New York Times, 10/31/44, p. 19

  33. Parsons FW: Charles W. Pilgrim. American Journal of Insanity 91:234–37, 1934

  34. White WA: William Alanson White: The Autobiography of a Purpose. New York, Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1938

    Google Scholar 

  35. Campbell RJ: Psychiatric Dictionary. New York, Oxford University, 1996, p. 579

    Google Scholar 

  36. Langford G: The Murder of Stanford White. New York, Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1962, p. 196

    Google Scholar 

  37. Ray I: A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity. Boston, Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1838, pp. 186–234

    Google Scholar 

  38. Woodward SB: Homicidal impulse. American Journal of Insanity 1:323–26, 1845

    Google Scholar 

  39. Zilboorg G: Legal aspects of psychiatry, in One Hundred Years of American Psychiatry. Edited by JK Hall. New York, Columbia University, 1944, p. 551

  40. Spiegel AD, Spiegel MS: Not guilty by reason of paroxysmal insanity: the “mad” doctor vs. “common sense” doctors in an 1865 trial. Psychiatric Quarterly 62:51–66, 1991

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  41. Chapin JB: The insanity defense for crime. American Journal of Insanity 66:71–82, 1909

    Google Scholar 

  42. Dain N: Concepts of Insanity in the United States, 1789–1865. New Brunswick NJ, Rutgers University, 1964

    Google Scholar 

  43. Rutter HC: Manual of Insanity with Especial Reference to Criminal Responsibility. Columbus OH, Midland, 1905

    Google Scholar 

  44. Defense of insanity in criminal cases and medical expert testimony (editorial). American Lawyer 15:309, 1907

  45. Somerville HM: A judicial view. American Lawyer 15:309–310, 1907

    Google Scholar 

  46. Cobb IS: Exit Laughing. Garden City NY, Garden City, 1942, p. 230

  47. Hamilton AM: An expert’s view. American Lawyer 15:311, 1907

    Google Scholar 

  48. Shorter E: A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac. New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1997, pp. 106–107

    Google Scholar 

  49. White WA: Outlines of Psychiatry. Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series No. 1. New York, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Co., 1907

  50. Meyer A: Movement for a change in statistics. Seventeenth Annual Report of the State Commission in Lunacy, Sept. 30, 1905, in Winters EE, editor: The Collected Papers of Adolf Meyer, vol. 2. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1952, pp.144–45

  51. American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 1st ed. Washington DC, American Psychiatric Association, 1952

  52. White WA: Expert testimony and the alienist. New York Medical Journal 88:150–54, 1908

    Google Scholar 

  53. Evans BD: Court testimony of alienists. American Journal of Insanity 66:83–109, 1909

    Google Scholar 

  54. Perlin ML: Law and Mental Disability. Charlottesville, Michie, 1995, p. 577

    Google Scholar 

  55. Dershowitz AM: The Abuse Excuse. Boston, Little Brown and Co., 1994

    Google Scholar 

  56. Wertham F: The catathymic crisis. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 37: 974–78, 1937

    Google Scholar 

  57. Menninger K: The Vital Balance, New York, Viking Press, 1963, pp. 226–229

    Google Scholar 

  58. American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd ed. Washington DC, American Psychiatric Association, 1980

    Google Scholar 

  59. New York Times, 1/24/1908, p. 2

  60. New York Times, 1/28/1908, p. 3

  61. New York Times, 1/29/1908, p. 5

  62. New York Times, 6/13/24, p. 17

  63. New York Times, 2/23/47, p. 53

  64. Los Angeles Herald, 1/3/26, p. 1

  65. Lessard S: The Architect of Desire: Beauty and Danger in the Stanford White Family. New York, Delta, 1996, p. 304

    Google Scholar 

  66. New York Times, 1/19/67, p. 1

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

    Emil R. Pinta

Authors
  1. Emil R. Pinta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Emil R. Pinta.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Pinta, E.R. Examining Harry Thaw’s “Brain-Storm” Defense: APA and ANA Presidents as Expert Witnesses in a 1907 Trial. Psychiatr Q 79, 83–89 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-007-9054-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-007-9054-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation