Brown v. State
| Decision Date | 05 November 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 43412,43412 |
| Parties | BROWN v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Thomas R. Moran, Atlanta, for Torrence McAllen Brown.
Lewis R. Slaton, Dist. Atty., Richard E. Hicks, Asst. Dist. Atty., Michael J. Bowers, Atty. Gen., Eddie Snelling, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Atlanta, for the State.
We granted this interlocutory appeal to consider the defendant's claim that the state improperly introduced evidence of the crimes for which he was charged during his competency trial. He relies on Crawford v. State, 240 Ga. 321, 326, 240 S.E.2d 824 (1977), where we held that "whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of the crime charged is not relevant at the trial of the special plea of insanity."
At his competency hearing, the defendant's parents testified that the defendant had suffered from mental problems, including several episodes of attempted suicide since he was 15 years old (At the time of the hearing, he was 20.) and had on three occasions been hospitalized for several months at a time at Georgia Regional Hospital. About a year before the incidents here involved the defendant had been knocked unconscious for about an hour during a boxing match in Florida and in their opinion had not been the same since. They described him as not acting normally, looking wild and glittery-eyed, and talking about little men. They admitted, however, that his condition had improved, and that he had written a letter to his father stating he knew he had been charged with crimes along with his two nephews, but that he was not guilty.
The mother also stated that she had gone with him to the police station on another occasion when he had been charged with rape. She stated that her son contended that the rape report was false but had been made because he could not pay the victims, whom he said were prostitutes.
The state's evidence consisted primarily of expert testimony offered by a psychologist from Central State and a psychiatrist from the Fulton County Jail, both of whom had evaluated the defendant. It was the conclusion of these experts that the suicide episodes were related to adolescent stress reaction and were not symptomatic of mental illness, that there did not appear to be brain damage from the boxing incident, and that his current complaints about the little men were consistent with malingering, i.e., feigning mental illness as a defense to the crimes for which he was charged. They concluded that he was competent to stand trial.
The state also presented as witnesses one of the victims of the crimes with which he is charged and the victim of an alleged similar crime to be introduced against him at trial. Both victims were called to show that the defendant appreciated the charges against him.
The first witness said she saw the defendant on May 15, 1985, when something happened between them. He told her he "had been through it before and he wasn't going to let it happen to him again, getting caught." He also said:
The second witness said she had known the defendant since high school, that on January 27, 1985, something happened, and he stated, "If I go to the law, he will bomb my house because he knew where I lived", and that he was "paying us back for dumping him, and he should kill us because that's what he did to the...
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