Demos v. State
| Decision Date | 30 March 1976 |
| Docket Number | 1 Div. 664 |
| Parties | Christopher J. DEMOS v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals |
Lloyd E. Taylor, Fairhope, for appellant.
William J. Baxley, Atty. Gen., and Ellis D. Hanan, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree of his wife.
The evidence is undisputed that he killed his wife with a butcher knife. His stepdaughter, a thirteen-year-old girl, was an eyewitness against him. He pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. There was no evidence of insanity. There was abundant evidence that at the time of the crime he was under the influence of toluene, which he had recently voluntarily inhaled and to which he had become addicted.
We see no basis for a conclusion, and there is no contention to the contrary by appellant, that it was not well within the province of the jury to find that, notwithstanding the influence of the drug upon him, he knew what he was doing and had the mental capacity to form the intent to kill his wife.
The bases for appellant's insistence on reversal arise out of action of the trial court prior to the commencement of the trial. Appellant's contentions are related to one another but are in three distinct parts:
1. That the trial court should have gone further than it did to determine whether there was reasonable ground to doubt the sanity of defendant for the purpose of trial;
2. That a constitutional right of defendant as to counsel was violated;
3. That the trial court erroneously overruled defendant's motion for a continuance of the trial.
Our review of the record convinces us that nothing was brought to the attention of the trial judge to cause him to have reasonable ground to doubt the sanity of defendant at the time or during the trial of the case. Defendant's appointed counsel, designated by name by order of the court, and the other, his partner, actively assisting him at times, urged the court to grant defendant's motion for a psychiatric examination of defendant, which was denied. In the course of the efforts of the attorneys for defendant to obtain a psychiatric examination, they made known to the court that there were records in the state of Ohio they would like to have, showing that defendant had received psychiatric treatment there when he was about fifteen years old. Their contention was supported by testimony of defendant's mother. However, none of this testimony was to the effect that defendant had ever manifested any tendencies to insanity other than at such times as he was inhaling or sniffing the fumes of glue. His mother testified that she talked with a psychiatrist in Ohio and that:
The mother further testified that defendant had been confined in a mental hospital in Toledo, Ohio. On cross-examination she said:
'. . . (T)hat every time he was on glue he was bad or had problems, and that every time he wasn't he was all right.',
that he was normal, 'except he was an extra sensitive person and got emotional real easy.' She testified that he had been charged with a series of criminal acts (assault and battery, assault with a deadly weapon, child abuse, assault with a knife, and armed robbery) and that on each occasion he was under the influence of glue, that when he was not on glue 'he was all right.' Upon further interrogation of her by the State, she said that she had records in her possession indicating that the psychiatrist in Ohio who had observed him stated that he 'knew the difference between right and wrong' and that he 'was able to maintain his own defense in that particular instance.'
In our opinion, we do not have here a case wherein there was reasonable ground for doubting the sanity of the defendant at the time of trial or his mental competency to stand trial. Unlike Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 86 S.Ct. 836, 15 L.Ed.2d 815, another uxorcide case in which defendant's mother testified for him, there was no substantially irrational behavior attributable to defendant in this case other than while he was under the influence of fumes from glue. He had not obtained any during the period of his confinement, after his arrest the night of the homicide, and according to evidence in addition to that shown above, he was entirely normal. The trial court justifiably concluded that there was no reasonable ground to doubt his sanity or his competency to stand trial.
In reliance upon Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562, appellant argues that he had 'an absolute right to terminate the services of appointed counsel and that the denial by the Court of his request to do so was error.' This case bears little...
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Demos v. State, 1 Div. 919
...in the state penitentiary. The appellant thereafter appealed to this court, and the judgment was affirmed. Demos v. State, 57 Ala.App. 588, 329 So.2d 646 (1976). A petition for certiorari was not filed with the Alabama Supreme Then, on July 1, 1981, the appellant filed a petition for writ o......
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Hillyer v. State
...do we find any abuse of discretion by the trial court below. Sowells v. State, Ala.Cr.App., 339 So.2d 1090 (1976); Demos v. State, 57 Ala.App. 588, 329 So.2d 646 (1976). See: United States v. Uptain, 531 F.2d 1281 (5th Cir. 1976). Without more than appears in the instant record, there was n......