Douglas v. United States, 12795

• Decision Date: 09 November 1956
• Docket Number: 12879.,No. 12795,12795
• Citation: 99 US App. DC 232,239 F.2d 52
• Parties: Charles W. DOUGLAS, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee (two cases).
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

99 US App. DC 232, 239 F.2d 52 (1956)

Charles W. DOUGLAS, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee (two cases).

Nos. 12795, 12879.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued February 20, 1956.

Decided November 9, 1956.

Petition for Rehearing Denied December 4, 1956.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Mr. Edward Bennett Williams, Washington, D. C. (appointed by this Court), with whom Miss Agnes A. Neill, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellant.

Mr. Harold H. Greene, Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Messrs. Leo A. Rover, U. S. Atty., at the time record was filed, Lewis A. Carroll and Harold H. Titus, Jr., Asst. U. S. Attys., were on the brief, for appellee.

Before EDGERTON, Chief Judge, and FAHY and WASHINGTON, Circuit Judges.

Petition for Rehearing In Banc Denied December 4, 1956.

FAHY, Circuit Judge.

These appeals question two separate convictions of robbery at two separate trials.¹ Both robberies occurred in the early morning of September 11, 1952. The accused, Douglas, pleaded not guilty in each case and petitioned for a lunacy inquiry under § 24-301, D.C.Code 1951. Such an inquiry was held and on December 19, 1952, he was adjudged to be of unsound mind. On January 16, 1953, he was transferred to St. Elizabeths Hospital. He was discharged from treatment there July 20, 1954, when the Superintendent of the Hospital certified to the District Court that Douglas had "recovered his reason" and was of sound mind.

On September 10, 1954, he was judicially determined "mentally competent and able to understand the proceedings against him and properly to assist in his own defense." He was tried for one of the robberies, case No. 12795, in November, 1954, and for the other, case No. 12879, in May, 1955.

In No. 12795 the robbery occurred at the Ebbitt Hotel in Washington. The night manager testified that about 3:30 a. m. the accused entered the hotel and requested a room. He was informed the hotel was filled and appeared to leave; but he returned with a bellboy in front of him and said, "Let me have the money or I'll kill this guy." The manager placed about $91.00 on the counter. Appellant scooped up the money, put it in his pocket and left. The night manager testified that appellant had a gun in the bellboy's back.

In No. 12879, the robbery occurred at the Court Hotel on Sixth Street, Northwest. Douglas appeared there also at about 3 a. m. asking for a room. During the discussion with the night manager, as the latter testified, Douglas walked around the desk, stuck a revolver into the witness' side and demanded all his money, threatening to kill him. The witness handed over his wallet, asking its return on sentimental grounds. Douglas took the money, approximately $9.00, and left the wallet on the desk. He then ordered the witness into the adjoining parlor, felt for a lock, found none, and pulled the door shut. He left in a few minutes, saying if the witness called the police he would come back and kill him.

The events unquestionably occurred substantially as above outlined. The contention on appeal is principally that evidence of the diseased mental condition of the accused requires us to hold that the trial judges should have directed verdicts of acquittal on the ground of insanity. See § 24-301, D.C.Code 1951, since amended by Pub.L. No. 313, 84th Cong. 1st Sess., August 9, 1955.

The United States first suggests that such a direction would have been unconstitutional because if it had been given then the trial court would have been required to confine accused to St. Elizabeths Hospital pursuant to section 24-301 of the Code, which would have deprived him of an opportunity to obtain an outright acquittal at the hands of the jury. But Douglas was not deprived of the opportunity to be acquitted outright because the cases went to the juries without the direction, and we accordingly need not decide the suggested constitutional question.²

There was evidence in both trials that the accused was of unsound mind when the robberies occurred. The prosecution therefore was under the necessity of establishing to the satisfaction of the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the robberies were not the result of Douglas' insanity. Davis v. United States, 160 U.S. 469, 16 S.Ct. 353, 40 L. Ed. 499. There, in the course of an exhaustive review, the Supreme Court held:

"Strictly speaking, the burden of proof * * * is on the prosecution from the beginning to the end of the trial, and applies to every element necessary to constitute the crime. Giving to the prosecution, where the defense is insanity, the benefit in the way of proof of the presumption in favor of sanity, the vital question, from the time a plea of not guilty is entered until the return of the verdict, is whether, upon all the evidence, by whatever side adduced, guilt is established beyond reasonable doubt. If the whole evidence, including that supplied by the presumption of sanity, does not exclude beyond reasonable doubt the hypothesis of insanity, of which some proof is adduced, the accused is entitled to an acquittal of the specific offense charged." Id., 160 U.S. at pages 487-488, 16 S.Ct. at page 358.

And see Tatum v. United States, 88 U.S. App.D.C. 386, 190 F.2d 612. Restating the matter within the rule prevailing in this jurisdiction since Durham v. United States, 94 U.S.App.D.C. 228, 214 F.2d 862, 45 A.L.R.2d 1430, in order to justify a conviction the proof, considered with the presumption of sanity, must exclude beyond a reasonable doubt the hypothesis that the conduct indicted was the product of a diseased mind.³

We outline the evidence relevant to this question. In No. 12795 two of the psychiatrists who testified, Drs. Perretti and Gilbert, had examined the accused in December, 1952, at the request of Chief Judge Laws. This was about three months after the robbery. Dr. Perretti concluded that Douglas was of unsound mind, suffering from a psychosis, symptoms of which he described. He said that although it could not definitely be established how long the mental illness would take to reach the state he found he believed it went back as far as September.

Dr. Gilbert testified he examined the accused on December 6 and 13, 1952, and was of opinion he was of unsound mind suffering from dementia praecox, based on symptoms he described and on information Douglas supplied about his past life. In his opinion the accused had been suffering from a mental disorder or a mental disease at least for several years.

On cross-examination Dr. Gilbert was asked whether the disease or disorder he found in December caused the crime, and answered, "It contributed largely to it, I would say, by reason of the serious nature of the disease." Dr. Perretti was not asked to express an opinion on causation of the robbery.

Douglas' sister testified he had attempted suicide on three or possibly four occasions, suffered from severe headaches during which he pulled his hair and struck his head against the wall, had threatened her with physical violence for no apparent reason, and that she had become so concerned about his condition that she had called another brother home from his service base and had written a letter to the Veterans Administration requesting mental treatment for accused a few months before the crime, but no such treatment was received.⁴ Appellant's brother corroborated the sister's testimony along these lines. A roomer in her apartment in 1951 testified that Douglas suffered severe headaches during which he would moan and say, "By ______, they are killing me."

The prosecution called Dr. Epstein, one of the phychiatrists responsible for the treatment of the accused at St. Elizabeths Hospital where he remained from January 16, 1953,⁵ until July 1954. The official hospital diagnosis, with which the doctor agreed, was that he was afflicted with schizophrenia reaction, paranoid type. He said that he might have seen Douglas weekly; at times the interviews might last thirty minutes, at times an hour, and at times much less. He said that as far as possible seeing the patient's family is among the practices of the physicians at the hospital, and that another physician at the hospital saw the mother of Douglas and made a notation of what the mother related. Asked whether Douglas was suffering from mental disease or disorder which would have caused the commission of a crime on or about September 11, 1952, he said he could say rather definitely that he was likely a disturbed person in the sense that there was information from his mother he had attempted to take his life, but as to the presence and severity of the illness, or the characteristics it showed at the time, "that is something I could not do"; that with certain illnesses "we can be extremely definite. We can say it was lifelong. We can say it occurred following a certain accident and give a rather definite date. In this particular illness we are unable to do this. * * * So when asked how long Mr. Douglas was sick before the time I saw him about 4 months after September 11, 1952 in a disease which has a very variable picture" he would be quite unable to say.

The Government relies on the testimony of the night manager and bellboy at the Ebbitt Hotel where the robbery in No. 12795 occurred, and testimony of the arresting officers. This covered the conduct of Douglas in connection with and after the robbery, including statements made soon after. The Government argues that this testimony disclosed to the jury normal conduct.

In No. 12879, the expert opinion evidence consisted only of the testimony of Dr. Gilbert, who said as before that he had examined Douglas at the jail December 6 and December 13, 1952, as a result of which he arrived at the opinion that he was of unsound mind, suffering from the most common type of mental disorder — dementia praecox. The symptoms of hallucinations he found were based upon what Douglas himself told the witness. The doctor went into some detail. He ...