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Provision as to criminal habitual drunkards in Scotland.
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23.—(1) Where in Scotland a person is convicted on indictment of an offence punishable with imprisonment or penal servitude, if the court is satisfied from the evidence that the offence was committed under the influence of drink or that drunkenness was a contributing cause of the offence, and the offender admits that he is or is found by the jury to be a habitual drunkard, the court may, in addition to or in substitution for any other sentence, order that he be detained for a term not exceeding three years in any State inebriate reformatory or in any certified inebriate reformatory the managers of which are willing to receive him.
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(2) In the proceedings under an indictment in pursuance of this section, where at the first diet the accused has pleaded not guilty, at the second diet the jury shall in the first instance be sworn and the accused shall then be tried on so much only of the indictment as charges the said offence, and if he is found guilty, the same jury shall, unless the accused admits that he is a habitual drunkard, be re-sworn to inquire whether he is a habitual drunkard. Where at the first diet the accused pleads guilty of the offence, but denies that he is a habitual drunkard, the plea shall be recorded, and at the second diet the jury shall be sworn to inquire whether he is a habitual drunkard.
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