different realities and reactions planned to shoot himself with a pistol, lacked the courage to fulfil his plan, and instead fired a fatal shot against one of the guards coming to arrest him for thefts, that would have rendered him a life sentence. When he was first questioned he admitted that he had aimed to shot somebody. Later he called it an accident. His first story was believed. The court, however, proposed that through mercy he as many others that had been sentenced under the ordinance should be spared the branding. Such mercy was given, and he was also spared the yearly whipping and the hard labour specified in the ordinance.532 These cases suggest that the courts, now and then, and possibly quite regularly assumed that the accused lied about their motives to seek another penalty than the one they should suffer according to the law. If the assumptions of the courts were correct, then the view of Tyge Krogh that lying about the motive was so hard that few would succeed, might not be accurate.533 A similar legislation was adopted for the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein afew days later,December 21st 1767, though,of course, as Kathy Stuart notes, such murders continued to happen, with for example one case in 1832.534 In a proposal for a penal code for Schleswig and Holstein published in 1808 by Christian Ulrich Detlev Eggers ”Mord aus Schwärmerei” is defined as aspecific crime. The punishment for a murder in order to be executed or as a result of ’schwärmerei’ would be prison. An attempted murder instead would send the perpetrator to a mental hospital until certain recovery had arrived. Accomplices driven by the same feelings, would be treated in the same way while others would be given the same sentences as for ordinary crimes.535 532 Collegial-Tidende 1815 p 769 sqq. 533 Krogh 2012 p 155. 534 Stuart 2008 p 442 sq. 535 Eggers 1808 p 139 sq, §§ 673 sqq. The translation ’murder due to feeling’ would be close but not correct. To translate ’schwärmerei’ to English is not easy. It often has a pejorative character. It is hard to imagine anybody using it for themselves. It can be used for an excessive sentiment or for a religious view much based on experiencing feeling. Probably Eggers uses it as related to people whose religious sentiment he did not feel comfortable with. 152
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