State v. White, 10254

• Citation: 93 Idaho 153,456 P.2d 797
• Decision Date: 30 June 1969
• Docket Number: No. 10254,10254
• Parties: STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Janet WHITE, Defendant-Respondent.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Idaho

Page 797

456 P.2d 797

93 Idaho 153

STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Janet WHITE, Defendant-Respondent.

No. 10254.

Supreme Court of Idaho.

June 30, 1969.

Allan G. Shepard, Atty.Gen., Mack A. Redford, Deputy Atty.Gen., Boise, for appellant.

Thomas A. Mitchell, Coeur d'Alene, for appellee.

McQUADE, Justice.

On the afternoon of February 18, 1967, Janet White, defendant below, was changing her second child, a three month old infant. As she afterwards told the doctor at the hospital emergency room where the baby was taken, the baby was screaming, "my mind snapped, and I threw her on the floor." Mrs. White then picked the baby up and put it in the crib. An hour later, the baby died from what was later determined to be a large skull fracture on the left side of the head, causing massive blood clot pressure on the brain and the cessation of the life functions. Janet White was charged with and acquitted of the criminal offense of voluntary manslaughter on the defense of insanity. It is from the judgment of acquittal that the State takes this appeal.

The main issue at trial was Mrs. White's sanity at the time of the incident. This issue was explored through the testimony of three doctors: Conlyn Cedarblom, a general practitioner and Mrs. White's obstetrician for her two deliveries; Sol Levy, a specialist in psychiatry and neurology called by the prosecution; and Myrick Pullen, a specialist in psychiatry and Director of Mental Health Division of the Idaho State Department of Health called by the defense. There was little disagreement among these witnesses, though the disagreement which developed was critical and will be detailed after an exposition of the uncontroverted facts.

At the time she killed her second child, Mrs. White was about 19 years old. Her parents were divorced when she was four years old, and she was shifted from one parent to the other. There was heavy drinking in that family, and afterwards her father remarried. Her father and half brother made attempts to seduce her, and her stepmother was hostile to her. She quit school after the tenth grade and married her husband, who is now twenty-two and a logger. They lived in an apparently isolated house trailer. Her second child was born eleven months after the first child, and this aggravated existing post-partum depression. Mrs. White has about average intelligence and has no physical defects.

As to the specific incident, Dr. Cedarblom testified that, at the hospital after the child's death, Mrs. White was very withdrawn, showed no remorse and was abnormally composed. Dr. Levy examined Mrs. White by means of an interview on February 21, 1967, for about one and one-half hours. He stated that she was suffering from general exhaustion and had lacked social and recreational outlets. He stated that she had long suffered from rather severe depression. For this reason she was committed to State Hospital North after a second examination by Dr. Levy on March 2, 1967. Dr. Pullen agreed with Dr. Levy's testimony up to his analysis of the incident and its aftermath.

The disagreement between Drs. Levy and Pullen was as follows. Dr. Levy gave his opinion that Mrs. White's depression after the incident was normal shock reaction and that she did feel remorse at the first interview. Dr. Levy concluded that Mrs. White was not schizophrenic because he found she had good environmental contact and no fancy or daydreaming. He stated that the "snapping" of her mind was a rationalization for the act and doubted whether she went into a psychotic depressive reaction at the time of the incident because it would have had a longer duration. Thus, Dr. Levy testified that at the time of the incident she was capable of distinguishing between right and wrong. However, and very significantly, Dr. Levy admitted on cross-examination that her act of throwing the child on the floor (and other previous acts of spanking the same 2-3 month old infant) were symptoms of emotional illness, and that she was not capable of conforming her conduct to the requirements of the law as a result of this illness.

Dr. Pullen, as director of State Hospital North at that time, treated Mrs. White from March 5, 1967, until September of 1967, when he left for a new post. He conducted five to six interviews and gave various tests. The Wexler-Bellevue intelligence test showed poor ability to engage in abstraction or generalization. The Rorschach test showed "contamination" (defined as the addition of unrealistic elements to otherwise realistic responses to Rorschach stimuli) and "confabulation" (defined as unrecognized replacement of lost memory by fantasy). This test was said to be quite reliable, especially for these two symptoms. Thus, Dr. Pullen reached the conclusion that Mrs. White was suffering from "acute schizophrenic reaction, undifferentiated type of episodic nature." Dr. Pullen gave his opinion that the incident represented a break with reality in response to mental illness, that Mrs. White at the time of the incident had neither the capacity to distinguish right from wrong nor the capacity to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law. Dr. Pullen testified that some remorse is not inconsistent with episodic schizophrenia, that he believed he had an observational advantage over Dr. Levy, that Mrs. White's condition could have become worse after the incident but probably remained the same as it had been, and that mental illness of this type can long exist, surface suddenly, and fade away.

Under the instructions given by District Judge Prather, the jury found Mrs. White not guilty by reason of insanity. The State has appealed by authority of I.C. §§ 19-2804(5) and 19-2808 "for the future guidance of courts only" as to the proper instructions on the insanity defense in Idaho.

The instructions given by the court below relative to the defense of insanity were as follows:

"INSTRUCTION NO. 9

"Insanity as used in these instructions means a mental disease or defect which causes lack of substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of one's conduct or to conform one's conduct to the requirements of law."

"INSTRUCTION NO. 10

"The defendant has interposed insanity as a defense. The law presumes that a defendant is sane. This presumption is rebuttable. Where evidence has been introduced that a defendant suffered a mental disease or defect at the time of the commission of the crime charged, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not have a mental disease or defect or that, despite some mental disease or defect, she had substantial capacity both to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct and to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law."

"INSTRUCTION NO. 11

"The law presumes that all men are sane and responsible for their acts. In this case, the defendant has interposed the defense of insanity. The law does not place upon her the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that she was insane at the time the act charged was committed, but only places the burden upon her to raise in your minds a reasonable doubt as to the sanity of the defendant at the time of the commission of the act alleged in the information. If you have such doubt, then this reasonable doubt must be resolved in her favor and you must acquit her of the crime charged."

"INSTRUCTION NO. 12

"Your are instructed that should you first find the defendant wrongfully killed her child, then the Court instructs you, that the true test and standard of acountability is:

Had the defendant sufficient mental capacity to appreciate the character and quality of her acts?

Did she know and understand that it was in violation of the rights of another and in itself wrong?

Did she know that it was prohibited by the laws of the State and that its commission would entail punishment and penalty upon herself?

Did the defendant have sufficient mental capacity to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law?

"If she had the capacity thus to appreciate the character and comprehend the possible or probable consequences of her acts and to so conform her conduct, she is responsible to the law for the acts thus committed and is to be adjudged accordingly. A person in the possession of substantial mental capacity to know and understand the nature and quality of their acts and to control their conduct who commits a criminal act under the impulse of passion or revenge, which may temporarily dethrone reason, or for the time being control their will, cannot be shielded from the consequences of her act."

These instructions essentially embody the test of criminal responsibility set forth in American Law Institute's Model Penal Code (1962): ¹

"Section 4.01. Mental Disease or Defect Excluding Responsibility.

"(1) A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality [wrongfulness] of his conduct or to conform his conduct [or to conform his conduct] to the requirements of law.

"(2) As used in this Article, the terms 'mental disease or defect' do not include an abnormality manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise anti-social conduct."

This Court had generally adhered to the M'Naghten rule:

"That to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong." ²

This latter rule, usually described as a test of whether an accused had the capacity to distinguish right from wrong at the time of the act, has been followed with only slight variations. ³ Referring to these cases, the State asks that the M'Naghten rule be reaffirmed. Counsel for respondent White contends, however, that...