Camp v. State
| Decision Date | 06 February 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 3222,3222 |
| Citation | 149 So.2d 367 |
| Parties | Rodney Lee CAMP, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Rodney Lee Camp, in pro. per.
Richard W. Ervin, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, Robert R. Crittenden, Asst. Atty. Gen., Lakeland, for appellee.
Appellant, defendant below, was by the jury found guilty of the crime of breaking and entering a dwelling house with intent to commit rape; and he was sentenced by the court to serve a term of from six months to fifteen years in the Florida State Correctional Institution. Appealing, he advances as the sole point for consideration the proposition that, under his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, the evidence established that, at the time of commission of the crime, he was unable to distinguish right from wrong.
On the night in question appellant, who had been drinking, left the house for the purpose of finding a woman. He had previously been attracted to a 69 year old woman who lived alone. Recalling this, he proceeded by automobile to her house at about 1:30 a. m., gained entrance through a window, breaking out a screen. He thereupon heard his intended victim gasp and then start screaming. In the process of trying to restrain her, he choked and struck her in the eye with his fist, attempting meanwhile to force her to bed and trying also to lift her nightgown. A neighbor, having heard the screams, approached the house, calling out. Appellant fled precipitously, breaking a panel from the back door in the course of his escape from the scene. Testimony given by the arresting officer was to the effect that appellant appeared to be very nervous and had been drinking. As a result of the incident, the woman assaulted was in the hospital for four days.
Witnesses testifying for the State included the woman who had been attacked, the neighbor who came to her rescue, and the investigating officers. The only evidence offered by appellant was the testimony of one of the court-appointed psychiatrists. A confession which had been executed by appellant was admitted into evidence and read to the jury without objection. Through this narrative, appellant not only confirmed, essentially, the above events which have been related, but he told of a succession of past experiences wherein he had repeatedly committed acts against and with various girls and women of a revolting and sordid nature, including unnatural sex acts. Appellant himself did not testify at the trial.
After appellant's attorney had filed notice of intention to defend on the basis of insanity, two psychiatrists were appointed by the trial court to examine appellant for the purpose of determining his mental condition. Through letters by each of these psychiatrists, the opinions were evinced, respectively, that appellant was competent to assist his counsel in his own defense at the trial and that appellant was mentally competent. The trial judge himself examined appellant prior to trial and entered an order adjudging that '* * * appellant is sane within the meaning of the law; that he does know right from wrong; that he does possess normal faculties which will enable him to assist his counsel in the trial of said cause, and to be conscious and aware of the procedures in Court.'
The psychiatrist who testified on appellant's behalf, giving his opinion as to appellant's mental condition, made from the witness stand certain observations which we shall summarize. His testimony, in its pertinent phases, sets out that '* * * he was a sick man emotionally,' based on what appellant told him and his own past experience in evaluating such situations. He felt that appellant He also stated, '* * * exactly when this started I truthfully can't say when, what point.' Concluding the direct phase of his examination, from which the above excerpts were taken, the witness volunteered, 'The thing I would like to add, when this state occurred where he didn't know right from wrong, I don't know really * * * but he definitely was psychotic at the time this was terminated * * *'. Under cross-examination, the effect of his testimony was that appellant's condition was paranoiac schizophrenia with a lot of sexual psychopathology, that he f...
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Alvord v. Wainwright
...M'Naghten test: whether the defendant understood the nature of the act and that it was wrong at the time of the offense. Camp v. State, 149 So.2d 367 (Fla.App.1963). Michigan applied both the M'Naghten and irresistible impulse tests: whether the defendant could control his actions at the ti......
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Zamora v. State, 77-2566
...cannot distinguish right from wrong pursuant to the M'Naghten Rule. Bradshaw v. State, 353 So.2d 188 (Fla. 2d DCA 1977); Camp v. State, 149 So.2d 367 (Fla. 2d DCA 1963). Based upon the law of insanity, as established in this state, the trial judge correctly limited the evidence of insanity ......
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Walsh v. State, 1D99-1529.
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Hixon v. State, 4151
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