Bowker v. State
| Decision Date | 05 July 1962 |
| Docket Number | No. 132,132 |
| Citation | 373 P.2d 500 |
| Parties | Regina Teresa BOWKER, Appellant, v. STATE of Alaska, Appellee. |
| Court | Alaska Supreme Court |
Harold J. Butcher, Anchorage, for appellant.
James C. Merbs, Dist. Atty., Dorothy Awes Haaland, Asst. Dist. Atty., Anchorage, for appellee.
Before NESBETT, C. J., and DIMOND and AREND, Justices.
Regina Bowker shot her husband on April 24, 1959, following marital difficulties. He died as a result of the gunshot wounds three days later. She was indicted and tried for first degree murder, and found guilty by a jury of murder in the second degree. On this appeal Mrs. Bowker (who will hereafter be referred to as the 'defendant') presents several questions for review--the principal one relating to her defense of insanity.
The defendant claimed that when she shot her husband she was insane and didn't know what she was doing. She took the witness stand in her own defense, and testified in considerable detail regarding the factors which caused the alleged temporary insanity--the chief one being the worry and strain caused by her husband's repeated acts of infidelity. In support of this defense a psychiatrist, Dr. Cheatham, was called as a witness. He had seen the defendant for the first time in November 1960, approximately nineteen months after the shooting. He conducted a detailed psychiatric examination which consisted largely of reconstructing the events which led up to the shooting as they were related to him by the defendant, and from this made his evaluation of defendant's personality and mental condition at the time the crime occurred. He testified that at the time of the shooting the defendant was suffering from an 'acute disassociative reaction' 1; that in such mental state she did not have the necessary capacity to formulate a specific intent to kill her husband; that the shooting of the gun was a direct product and consequence of the fact that she was suffering from such mental condition; that she was completely unable to exercise any conscious, willful or deliberate functions; that she was not possessed of sufficient mental capacity to premediate the nature of her actions or behavior; and that this condition, which the witness classified as a 'mental disease', had begun approximately two hours before the shooting and lasted for 'several hours'.
The state did not produce an expert witness to testify that defendant was sane at the time of the criminal act. This brings us to the core of defendant's argument. She claims that since Dr. Cheatham's diagnosis of insanity had not been challenged by other psychiatric authority, the jury was not competent to pass upon her mental condition. Therefore, she argues, the trial court ought to have taken the case from the jury and entered a judgment of acquittal; since a verdict of guilty, which would necessarily involve the determination that defendant was not insane, could not be sustained by the evidence.
Defendant finds support for this proposition in Douglas v. United States, a case decided by the District of Columbia Circuit in 1956. 2 It has been said that under the Douglas opinion----
'* * * the case is left in the hands of the jury only if there is disagreement among the psychiatrists or if the expert testimony supports guilt; if the psychiatrists all agree that the defendant has a 'disease' and the act was its 'product,' then the issue is taken from the jury'. 3
We shall not adopt a rule which would treat medical testimony as conclusive merely because it is not disputed by other medical testimony. The jury should be free to make an independent analysis of the facts on which the expert's opinion rests, and thus exercise their historic function of passing on the credibility of the witness. If we were to follow Douglas and accede to defendant's argument that the jury was not competent to pass on her mental condition because of Dr. Cheatham's testimony, we would be transferring the jury's function to the psychiatrist and substituting a trial by experts for a trial by jury.
It is true, of course, that psychiatric opinion constitutes evidence to be considered by the jury. But it is not binding; the jury has the right to also consider other evidence even though it may be non-expert in character. 4 Here the jury saw and heard the defendant who had testified at length in her own defense. 5 From what she related to them, and her obviously clear recollection of events that took place before, during and after the shooting, the jury had the right to conclude that defendant knew what she was about at the crucial time. The jury also heard from a police officer who testified as to what the defendant told him shortly after the shooting. They had the right to believe that her statements to this witness were rational, that this evidenced a sound mind at the time the crime took place, and that she should therefore be held criminally responsible for what she had done. 6 We agree with the view expressed by Judge Holtzoff in the Fielding case that 'strong reliance should be placed on the common sense and the feeling for substantial justice possessed and applied by the average jury', and that juries generally have 'keen discernment and exercise a sound judgment.' 7 We find from all of the evidence in this case that the issue of defendant's mental condition was properly submitted to the jury, and that its decision should not be disturbed. The trial court did not err in refusing to grant defendant's motion for a judgment of acquittal.
It is appropriate at this point to mention another aspect of this matter. The trial judge had instructed the jury that once some evidence of insanity had been introduced, the presumption of sanity would no longer control and the burden would then be on the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was sane when she shot her husband. It is no longer proper to give that instruction in this jurisdiction. In our recent decision in Chase v. State, decided March 27, 1962, we established the rule that where the defense of insanity is relied upon, the burden is on the defendant to prove insanity by a preponderance of the evidence. 8 On this appeal, however, the result would be the same, whether one or the other of the two rules on degree and burden of proof had been used. Applying the rule adopted by the court below, we find from the evidence that the jury was warranted in concluding, beyond a reasonable doubt, that defendant was sane when she committed the criminal act. Applying the rule which now prevails in Alaska, we cannot say that a jury would have been wrong in determining that defendant had failed to prove her insanity by a preponderance of the evidence. In short, the verdict of guilty, which involved a decision that defendant was not insane, is sustained by the evidence.
A number of points raised on this appeal are based on questions and remarks of the trial judge which defendant claims were prejudicial. The first incident occurred when, during cross-examination by the state, the defendant was asked to demonstrate the shooting. She complied with this request--her counsel making no objection. 9 As she was demonstrating the manner in which she had held the pistol with her finger on the trigger, the district attorney asked what happened when her husband came in the door. She answered 'He came to the door--and I shot him * * *.' The transcript of record then shows that the 'witness collapsed'. The court recessed for fifteen minutes, and upon reconvening the following exchange took place between defendant's counsel and the trial judge:
Defendant argues that the court's remarks regarding a mistrial inferred to the jury that the fainting incident was staged. But the judge clearly stated he was not inferring that. Presumably, defendant's counsel was satisfied with this statement, for he made no objection and did not ask the court for an instruction which might have cleared up any misunderstanding that existed in the minds of the jurors. We find no error here.
Another incident about which defendant complains took place at the conclusion of the cross-examination of the psychiatrist, Dr. Cheatham, and consisted of one question asked by the judge and answered by this witness:
'THE COURT: Doctor, there's a question been going through my mind. Do you base your opinion here on this long hypothetical question Mr. Butcher gave you, incidents that occurred between these two parties during their married life, assuming that she believed everything that happened, that she had reason to believe that he was being unfaithful to her, or she believed he was going to commit her for insanity, or she believed he was going to sell the property out from under her, do all those contribute to your opinion?
'A I would say yes.'
Defendant claims prejudice on the ground that...
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...the trier of fact in resolving the question presented. (See Dusky v. United States, 8 Cir., 295 F.2d 743, 754, 756, 758; Bowker v. State Alaska, 373 P.2d 500, 501-502; State V. Quilling, 363 Mo. 1016, 256 S.W.2d 751, 752-753; State v. Scelfo, 58 N.J.Super. 472, 156 A.2d 714, 716-717; State ......
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