U.S. v. Byrd

• Citation: 834 F.2d 145
• Decision Date: 25 November 1987
• Docket Number: No. 87-1237,87-1237
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Larry Charles BYRD, Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

Page 145

834 F.2d 145

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Larry Charles BYRD, Appellant.

No. 87-1237.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Oct. 12, 1987.

Decided Nov. 25, 1987.

David R. Freeman, Federal Public Defender, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant.

Dean R. Hoag, Asst. U.S. Atty., St. Louis, Mo., for appellee.

Before FAGG, Circuit Judge, BRIGHT, Senior Circuit Judge, and MAGILL, Circuit Judge.

BRIGHT, Senior Circuit Judge.

The Government charged defendant/appellant Larry Charles Byrd in a single-count indictment with robbery of a federally insured bank in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2113(a). A jury found him guilty and the district court ¹ sentenced him to ten years in prison pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Sec. 4205(b)(2). On appeal, Byrd argues that the Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984 is unconstitutional as applied to his case. He also asserts that the Government received an unfair advantage in closing argument by having a last word in rebuttal on the insanity defense, while the defendant carries the burden of proving his affirmative defense of insanity. We reject these contentions and affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

On February 9, 1986, Byrd voluntarily admitted himself to the detoxification unit at the St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. During his admission, he received tranquilizers to prevent delirium tremens and seizures. On the morning of February 10, 1986, Mr. Byrd left the hospital, purchased and consumed some alcohol, then drove to Sikeston, Missouri. ² While in Sikeston, Byrd robbed the First National Bank of Sikeston of $4,600. Witnesses at the scene stated that Byrd smelled of alcohol, but that he did not have any problem in speaking or walking. After Byrd left the bank, police officers apprehended him approximately two blocks away.

At trial, a psychiatrist testifying in Byrd's behalf concluded that Byrd suffered from a condition known as "pathological idiosyncratic intoxication", and that such a condition would have been exacerbated by the effect of both the tranquilizer and alcohol in the bloodstream. The psychiatrist concluded that the combination of the drug and alcohol induced in Byrd an amnesiac state at the time of the robbery. ³

The jury rejected Byrd's insanity defense and found him guilty of bank robbery. The district court sentenced him to ten years in prison. This appeal followed.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Insanity Defense

The Insanity Defense Reform Act provides that "[t]he defendant has the burden of proving the defense of insanity by clear and convincing evidence." 18 U.S.C. Sec. 17(b) (the insanity defense initially codified at section 20 now carries the above section number, see Act of Nov. 10, 1986, Pub.L. No. 99-646 Sec. 34(a), 100 Stat. 3599).

Byrd does not now argue that his intoxication constitutes a "severe mental disease or defect." See id. Sec. 17(a). Rather, he asserts that the statute, by placing upon him the burden of proving insanity, deprives him of due process of law as guaranteed by the fifth amendment. The crime of robbery includes the element of willfulness. In Byrd's view, the Government should be forced to disprove his insanity because willfulness cannot be proven independently of sanity. Byrd argues that shifting the burden of proving insanity to him effectively gave him the burden of disproving an element of the crime. See Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975) (statute requiring defendant to prove heat of passion in order to rebut presumption of malice aforethought, thereby reducing crime from murder to manslaughter, is unconstitutional because it forces the defendant to disprove an essential element of the crime of murder); In Re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970) (prosecution must prove all essential elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt).

Byrd's reliance on Mullaney is misplaced. In Mullaney, the statute placed on the defendant the burden of disproving an essential element of a crime. In the instant case, the crime of robbery does not list sanity among its elements. Willfulness constitutes the only element going to mens rea in the crime charged to Byrd. Consequently, the burden of proving insanity properly resides with the defendant, who may raise the issue for the first time as an affirmative defense.

This court recently determined this same issue in United States v. Amos, 803 F.2d 419 (8th Cir.1986). In Amos, this court rejected defendant's argument that requiring him to prove insanity unconstitutionally shifted to him the burden of disproving an essential element of the government's case. In part, the decision rested on the United States Supreme Court determination that placing the burden of proving insanity on the defendant is not inconsistent with the requirement that the government prove each element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. See Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 97 S.Ct. 2319, 53 L.Ed.2d 281 (1977) (contrasting the statute in Mullaney, which unconstitutionally required the defendant to prove an element of the government's charge, and insanity which, as an affirmative defense, is not an element of the government's case).

Willfulness is not coterminous with the legal concept of insanity. Willfulness presumes some degree of sanity in common parlance. However, the affirmative defense of insanity has its own special meaning distinct from the use of the words "sanity" and "insanity" in everyday life. Indeed, as we stated in Amos, "[a]lthough the accused's sanity is an ingredient of the requisite mens rea, 'the existence or nonexistence of legal insanity bears no necessary relationship to the existence or nonexistence of the required mental elements of the crime.' " Amos, 803 F.2d at 421 (quoting Mullaney, 421 U.S. at 706, 95 S.Ct. at 1893, 44 L.Ed.2d at 523 (Rehnquist, J., concurring)).

This court's decision in Amos is dispositive of Byrd's claim and requires that we reject it.

B. Final Argument

In the alternative, Byrd asserts that if the shift of the burden of proof is...