(After stating the foregoing facts.)
1. Upon the trial of this case the defendant’s counsel sought to-introduce evidence to the effect that the defendant, from the time of his childhood, had been of feeble intellect and weak intelligence; his counsel stating to the court, however, that it was not contended, upon the part of the defense that the defendant was either an idiot or an insane person, or that he labored, at the time of the homicide, under any form of delusional insanity. Upon motion' ofcounsel for the State, the court repelled the testimony; and properly so, we think. The court could not have admitted it without, either disregarding of violating a well-established rule controlling-the admission of evidence of the character indicated. In Stud-still's case, 7 Ga. 3, the court held that it was not competent to-prove that the defendant was of weak mind, where it was admitted, that he was neither an idiot, nor a lunatic, nor an insane person.. The standard of responsibility upon the part of one charged with the commission of a criminal act has been fixed by law. “A person shall be considered of sound mind who is neither an idiot, a. lunatic, nor afflicted by insanity, or who has arrived at the age of' fourteen years, or before that age if such person know the distinction between good and evil.” Penal Code, §33; Loyd v. State, 45 Ga. 57; Taylor v. State, 105 Ga. 777. The standard fixed by law,, whether the defense be insanity, or weakness of mind amounting to insanity, or idiocy, is thus laid down in Roberts v. State, 3 Ga. 310, “If a man has reason sufficient to distinguish between right, and wrong in relation to a particular act about to be committed,, he is criminally responsible. An exception to this rule, however,.
2. One ground of the motion is based upon the fact that the court failed to charge the jury “upon the law of cooling time.” Eo request to charge upon this subject was preferred by counsel ■for defendant. The judge, in his general instructions to the jury, gave the section of the Penal Code embodying the law of voluntary manslaughter (§65). This section contains the broad, general ■principle of the law of “cooling time,” and even if the facts authorized a more specific instruction upon that question, the failure (to .give it, in the absence of a written request, was not error.
3. As a part of his instructions to the jury, the court charged as follows: “If you find that the wife was unchaste, or otherwise a bad woman, that would not of itself amount to a legal justification •of the homicide, nor would it, in the absence of a sudden heat of ■passion, resulting from adequate cause, be sufficient to reduce the .homicide below the grade of murder.” Error is assigned upon the giving of the above charge, upon the grounds: “(a) There was mo evidence in the record to justify this charge, as all evidence of
4. Counsel for the accused, during his argument, commenced reading to the jury a portion of the decision in the case of Flanagan v. State, 103 Ga. 619, and was stopped by the court; and it is insisted that the court committed error in holding that counsel could not read from that case to the jury. It does not seem to us, however, that in this ruling the court appears to have abused its discretion, — no evidence whatever having been introduced to which the doctrine laid down in that case upon the subject of delusional insanity was in any way pertinent or applicable. While it is true that, under the practice in this State, counsel are allowed to argue to the jury the law as well as the facts, and should be allowed great latitude in the selection and presentation of those cases which in their judgment will assist the court and jury in a proper application of the law to the case as made by the evidence and the statement of the defendant, it is also true that the court exercises a discretion in such matters which this court will not interfere with, where it is not abused. And this does not appear to have been done in the present instance.
Judgment affirmed.