People v. Howell

• Decision Date: 23 October 1978
• Docket Number: No. 28072,28072
• Citation: 196 Colo. 408,586 P.2d 27
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Appellee, v. Darrell HOWELL, Appellant.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 27

586 P.2d 27

196 Colo. 408

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Appellee, v. Darrell HOWELL, Appellant.

No. 28072.

Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.

Oct. 23, 1978.

J. D. MacFarlane, Atty. Gen., David W. Robbins, Deputy Atty. Gen., Edward G. Donovan, Sol. Gen., J. Stephen Phillips, Chief, Criminal Appeals, Appellate Section, Steven Gold, Asst. Attys. Gen., Denver, for appellee.

John A. Purvis, Acting Colo. State Public Defender, Denver, Steven K. Jacobson, Deputy State Public Defender, Pueblo, for appellant.

CARRIGAN, Justice.

This appeal arises from a special proceeding before a Pueblo district court jury which determined that the appellant Howell was not eligible for release from commitment to the Colorado State Hospital. Sections 16-8-115 and 16-8-120, C.R.S.1973. Appellant here claims that the statutory standard governing eligibility for conditional release, ¹ as applied to him, violated his right to due process of law. We do not agree.

Appellant was first committed to the Colorado State Hospital on March 11, 1971. That commitment resulted from a finding that he was not guilty by reason of insanity after he had been charged with murdering a bartender in Jefferson County. In March, 1973, he was again found not guilty by reason of insanity in a first-degree murder case arising from the killing of a Colorado State Hospital employee. After the latter finding, he was confined at the Colorado State Penitentiary as a state hospital patient. Except for a brief time when he was returned to the state hospital, he remained in the maximum security section of the penitentiary and was still being held there at the time of the March, 1977, release hearing which gave rise to this appeal.

In August, 1975, the appellant filed a motion for a release evaluation and hearing under section 16-8-115, C.R.S.1973. Pursuant to court order, a psychiatric examination was conducted. The superintendent of the Colorado State Hospital, basing his opinion on Howell's record and the psychiatrist's report, recommended that Howell not be discharged because he continued to suffer from a mental disease "likely to cause him to be dangerous . . . to himself to others or to the community in the reasonably foreseeable future." ²

Upon Howell's request, an independent psychiatrist was appointed to examine him. As a result of that examination in January, 1976, this second psychiatrist concluded that, although Howell was not legally insane, he should not be discharged from the hospital for he was imminently dangerous to himself and others.

In January, 1977, another release examination was conducted by the Disposition Committee of the State Hospital's Forensic Psychiatry Division. This committee unanimously agreed that Howell still represented a danger to himself and others. They recommended that he be retained under criminal commitment.

A trial to decide eligibility for release was commenced in March, 1977, resulting in the jury's finding that Howell should not be discharged. Howell, the only witness testifying in support of his motion, stated that he believed he was no longer violent and could control himself in the future. In contrast, seven psychiatrists, four psychologists and three social workers all testified that he was dangerous. He was uniformly diagnosed as having a sociopathic personality with chronic antisocial aggressive tendencies. This type of behavior pattern was evidenced by impulsive, violent reactions to stressful situations, difficulty in learning from experience, and an absence of feelings of remorse.

Howell's past behavior was the most important factor upon which the predictions of future dangerousness and the diagnosis of sociopathic personality disorder were predicated. His history is replete with antisocial, dangerous conduct.

Howell admitted during the course of an interview with a state hospital physician that, at age thirteen, upon seeing another boy embracing his girlfriend, he had beaten the boy with a baseball bat and left him in a field to die. Howell also recounted to this physician that he had shot another man four to five times. Moreover, he admitted that he had shot his common law wife in each leg after discovering her infidelity.

From 1951 through 1967, Howell had been convicted of six aggravated robberies and two assaults with deadly weapons. He had served time in the Colorado State Reformatory and the Colorado State Penitentiary for these convictions.

In 1970 Howell had walked into a crowded bar, ordered a drink and then shot the bartender-owner five times. Earlier the bartender had pressed assault charges against Howell, and had refused to withdraw them despite Howell's threats to return and "settle things" if the charges were not dropped. For this killing Howell was charged with first-degree murder but was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to the Colorado State Hospital.

In his first two years at the state hospital, Howell reportedly threatened hospital employees and assaulted another hospital patient. Consequently he was removed from the open ward and placed in the hospital's maximum security ward.

In October, 1972, Howell cornered two hospital employees and threatened them with a knife. A third employee, Baldwin, intervened. Howell slashed Baldwin's throat, killing him. Howell was again charged with first-degree murder and, in 1973, was again found not guilty by reason of insanity. Recommitted to the state hospital, he was transferred to the maximum security division of the state penitentiary for "safe-keeping."

From 1973 to 1976, Howell's aggressive behavior continued. It was reported that he had threatened to kill hospital employees, and he indicated that he would decapitate one of the prison guards at his first opportunity. He was allegedly involved, with other inmates, in throwing glass at the guards. Howell admitted to a therapist that he had a list of people marked for vengeance including several hospital employees and a district court judge. Although another person was tried and convicted for the murder of a penitentiary inmate, Howell claimed that he had stabbed this inmate to death because the victim had placed his name on a petition without his consent.

Another factor considered in the medical diagnosis and opinion of imminent dangerousness was Howell's "affect," that is, the inappropriateness of his responses to factual circumstances. Howell's expressions of feelings often were inconsistent with what he was saying. For example, Howell expressed verbally that he had changed, but in one psychologist's opinion, the feeling that normally should accompany such a statement was absent. At the January, 1977, examination Howell stated he was sorry for the death of Baldwin, the hospital employee, yet he was smiling as he made that statement. Howell's "affect" remained basically unchanged throughout his commitment.

The third factor contributing to the unanimous opinion that Howell would be dangerous in the reasonably foreseeable future was the fact that a sociopathic personality disorder is usually a lifelong, chronic problem with successful treatment having...