Bethea v. United Stated

• Decision Date: 27 September 1976
• Docket Number: No. 8460.,8460.
• Parties: Eddle BETHEA, Jr., Appellant, UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

Page 64

365 A.2d 64

Eddle BETHEA, Jr., Appellant,

UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 8460.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued May 6, 1975.

Decided September 27, 1976.

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Joel M. Finkelstein, Washington, D.C., with whom J. Steven Lempel, Washington, D.C. was on the brief, both appointed by the court, for appellant.

Jonathan B. Marks, Asst. U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C., with whom Earl J. Silbert, U.S. Atty. and John A. Terry, Albert H. Turkus, and Richard L. Cys, Asst. U.S. Attys., Washington, D.C., were on the brief, for appellee.

Before NEBEKER, YEAGLEY and HARRIS, Associate Judges.

HARRIS, Associate Judge:

This is an appeal from a conviction of first-degree murder in which the defense of insanity was unsuccessful. Appellant contends that the trial court erred (1) in refusing to instruct the jury according to both the American Law Institute's standard for an insanity defense and the principle of "diminished capacity"¹ as adopted (the latter by dicta) in United States v. Brawner, 153 U.S.App.D.C. 1, 471 F.2d 969 (1972) (en banc), and (2) in refusing to charge the jury that the government had the burden of proving appellant's sanity beyond a reasonable doubt. While we adopt a variation of the ALI standard for prospective application of the District of Columbis Court system, we conclude that the disputed instructions were not erroneous, and accordingly affirm.

I. THE FACTS

On June 29, 1973, appellant took a bus to his estranged wife's office. Following an argument there, he shot her five times at close range. Soon thereafter, he was apprehended without significant resistance in an adjoining office. He was charged in a single-count indictment with first-degree murder. D.C.Code 1973, § 22-2401. Pursuant to a pretrial motion by the government, he was ordered to undergo psychiatric examination at Saint Elizabeths Hospital.² The hospital's staff concluded (1) that appellant was suffering from "no mental disorder", (2) that he was competent to stand trial, and (3) that the examination had yielded negative results under both the Durham and the Brawner tests for criminal exculpability.³

Appellant's defense was based on the related assertions that at the time of the shooting his mental condition was such as to amount to insanity, or, in any event, to preclude a finding of the degree of mens rea required for the offense.⁴ He did not take the stand, but relied upon the testimony of both lay and expert witnesses to explain his condition and the circumstances leading up to and at the time of the incident. The lay witnesses testified that appellant's behavior on that day appeared somewhat irrational.⁵ Dr. Jesse Rubin, a private psychiatrist (who had spent less than three hours with appellant and whose knowledge of the facts was limited to appelant's version thereof), testified that appellant had been under severe emotional stress and suffered from what the doctor diagnosed as a "hysterical neurosis of a dissociative type."⁶

The government sought to rebut the claim of insanity with the testimony of several experts and certain acquaintances and relatives of Eddie and the late Barbara Bethea. Their testimony suggested a more mundane explanation for appellant's behavior. The couple's marital relationship had deteriorated throughout 1972, and even after the separation they continued to have stormy and occasionally violent arguments concerning appellant's financial support of his wife and his suspicions of her infidelity. Drs. Thomas Polley and Robert Robertson challenged Dr. Rubin's diagnosis of "hysterical dissociative reaction", and testified that in any event appellant had not been suffering from any mental disorder which would have significantly impaired his capacity for self-control.⁷

Appellant unsuccessfully moved for a judgment of acquittal both at the close of the government's case and after all of the evidence was in. The court, however, did agree that the jury should be instructed on the lesser-included offenses of second-degree murder and manslaughter.⁸ Appellant requested that the charge to the jury be framed in accordance with the principles of United States v. Brawner, supra.⁹ That request was denied on the ground that Brawner had been released subsequent to the effective date of the Court Reorganization Act,¹⁰ and therefore the Durham-McDonald standard¹¹ remained the law for the District of Columbia courts. See M.A.P. v. Ryan, D.C.App., 285 A.2d 310 (1971). The court accordingly based its jury instructions on the earlier principles, and further charged, pursuant to D.C. Code 1973, § 24-301(j), that the accused had the burden of establishing by a preponderance of the evidence his asserted exculpating mental abnormality. Appellant duly objected to those instructions. After less than three hours of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty of first-degree murder.

II. THE INSANITY STANDARD AND THE DOCTRINE OF M.A.P. v. RYAN

Appellant's first claim of error is the trial court's refusal to abandon the Durham-McDonald formulation of the insanity standard in favor of the ALI test which had been adopted by the Brawner court. The trial court concluded that under the principles enunciated in M.A.P. v. Ryan, supra, Durham-McDonald remained the controlling rule for the District of Columbia court system, and that it was not at liberty to substitute the Brawner test. We agree.

In M.A.P. v. Ryan we addressed the issue of the impact of the Court Reorganization Act upon the relationship between our court system and the purely federal tribunals which share the same geographical jurisdiction. The Act declared this court to be the "highest court [in] the District of Columbia", and eliminated the prior power of the United States Court of Appeals to review our judgments. D.C.Code 1973, § 11-102. Consistent with that grant of jurisprudential independence, in M.A.P. v. Ryan we declined to follow a decision by the circuit court which had been issued after the effective date of the statutory reorganization.¹² While we declared that post-reorganization decisions by the circuit court would be "entitled to great respect", we explained (285 A.2d at 312):

[W]e are not bound by the decisions of the United States Court of Appeals rendered after [February 1, 1971]. With respect to decisions of the United States Court of Appeals rendered prior to February 1, 1971, we recognize that they, like the decisions of this court, constitute the case law of the District of Columbia. As a matter of internal policy, we have adopted the rule that no division of this court will overrule a prior decision of this court or refuse to follow a decision of the United States Court of Appeals rendered prior to February 1, 1971, and that such result can only be accomplished by this court en banc. [Footnote omitted.]

M.A.P. v. Ryan thus compelled the trial court's conclusion that it was not bound by the circuit court's decision in United States v. Brawner, supra. It apparently is appellant's position, however, that because the Brawner court abandoned its earlier decision in Durham, that pronouncement effectively removed Durham from the rolls as stare decisis, and thus left the trial court free to adopt the Brawner test prior to consideration of the question by this court. We disagree.

Neither M.A.P. v. Ryan nor its progeny has examined the question of what, if any, precedential effect may be ascribed to those decisions of the circuit court which it overturns subsequent to court reorganization. Cf. In re Hodges, D.C. App., 325 A.2d 605 (1974). The problem of such "derelict" precedent falls between the separate principles of M.A.P. v. Ryan which (1) accord binding effect to pre-February 1971 decisions, and (2) give "great respect" to those decisions announced after February 1, 1971. We conclude that consistent with the policy considerations underlying the statutory provisions, the principles of M.A.P. v. Ryan should be supplemented by the corollary rule that regardless of their fate at the hands of the circuit court after February 1, 1971, decisions rendered by that court prior to such date remain valid and binding case law in the District of Columbia court system until such time as they may be modified or set aside by this court. Cf. Hughes v. United States, D.C.App., 308 A. 2d 238, 242 n. 12 (1973).

The flaw in appellant's argument is that if Brawner is to be read as eliminating Durham as stare decisis, the circuit court would be afforded a negativing authority which would be inconsistent with the spirit and letter of the Court Reorganization Act and contrary to the principles enunciated in M.A.P. v. Ryan. Unquestionably the power to say what the law is not is as significant as the authority to declare what the law is. In our system of jurisprudence, which so greatly values the doctrine of stare decisis, the ability to shape and control the precedential foundations of the law is essential to the independence of a particular judicial structure. We therefore reject the notion that the respect to be accorded by us to decisions issued by the circuit court after February 1, 1971, may be stretched to include a principle of deference to that court's determinations that its own earlier decisions shall no longer be of any precedential value.

Moreover, the need for preserving the controlling nature of cases such as Durham is supported by the institutional impact of a contrary conclusion. A rule which would deny binding authority to post-reorganization decisions of the circuit court, while recognizing that tribunal's authority to eliminate pre-1971 precedents, would pose a very real threat to the stability of our judicial system. Thus, a trial court not bound by the later cases yet unrestrained by the principles of the derelict precedent would be deprived of guidance, and its judges would be free to adopt variant and inconsistent rules. Similarly, to allow...