Hawie v. State

• Citation: 88 So. 167,125 Miss. 589
• Decision Date: 02 May 1921
• Docket Number: 21518
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: HAWIE v. STATE

88 So. 167

125 Miss. 589

HAWIE v. STATE

No. 21518

Supreme Court of Mississippi

May 2, 1921

1. CRIMINAL LAW. Procedure, when insanity of defendant suggested, stated.

If, at the arraignment of a defendant charged with the commission of a crime, it is suggested or appears to the court that he may be insane, the question of his sanity vel non should he inquired into and determined, and, if he should be found to be then insane, his trial should not be proceeded with unless and until he recovers his sanity.

2. CRIMINAL LAW. Test of sanity is whether defendant can make rational defense.

The test of a defendant's sanity in an inquiry to determine whether he shall be put on trial in a criminal case is whether he can then make a rational defense.

HON. A J. MCLAURIN, Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of Newton county, HON. A. J. MCLAURIN Judge.

George Hawie was convicted of murder, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Reversed and remanded.

Burch & Enoch, for appellant.

As a general rule, but with a few exceptions, the fact that the appellant was adjudicated insane as of date January, 1919, is a conclusive presumption of his insanity since that date; but it is a rule without any exception that such a finding is a rebuttable presumption. The state made not effort to rebut this presumption.

"If the previous inquiry found incompetency of the very kind and in respect to the very same capacities now again in controversy, the prior adjudication may be both admissible and conclusive." 3 Witthaus & Becker, Forensic Medicine (2 Ed.), p. 525; O'Reilly v. Sweeney, 54 Misc 408, 105 N.Y.S. 1033; Foran v. Healey (Kan.), 85 P 751, and Soules v. Robinson (Ind.), 62 N.E. 999.

"This is the case when there has been an adjudication of incompetency to transact the ordinary affairs of life, and a committee has been appointed, therefore the incompetent is, by force of the adjudication as evidence, conclusively proven incapable of transacting such ordinary affairs of lift as the making of contracts of sales, and the like." Whitthaus & Becker, supra.

Every authority and every argument advanced by the appellee in its brief is either made in total disregard of the fact that the appellant had been adjudicated insane prior to the time that he was tried, or upon the assumption that the trial court submitted to the jury both the issue of the appellant's guilt and his sanity at the time of his trial. There is no sort of foundation to support the argument that the issue of this appellant's sanity was submitted to the jury that tried him. To the contrary, the jury was repeatedly instructed that if they believed that the defendant had sufficient intellect to know right from wrong at the time of the homicide, it was their duty to convict him and the only reference made to the defendant's present sanity at all, was in an instruction asked for by and granted to the defendant in which said instruction merely stated that in case the jury should acquit him on the grounds of insanity, that the jury should further certify as to whether he had since recovered, or was still dangerous and should be confined in an asylum.

In other words, the jury was not to consider the mental condition of the appellant at all, except in case they should acquit him on the grounds of insanity at the time of the homicide, and then they were only considering his sanity in the light of preventing him from doing further harm to society, and not in the light as to whether he was mentally capable of making his defense.

On the first day of April, 1921, the appellant was declared by a jury to be insane to the extent that he was incapable of conducting his defense or of so advising with others that they might make his defense for him and the jury at the time of rendering this verdict had in mind a trial had under the same indictment, upon which the trial here under consideration was had. It is conceded by the learned attorney for the appellee that a state of mind once found is presumed to continue until it is disproved. If a jury just four months and nine days prior to the trial here under consideration declared this appellant insane to that extent that he should not be tried for crime, and this presumption of his mental condition followed him down to the time of the trial here under consideration, why should we consume time in talking about partial insanity and general insanity when the degree of appellant's insanity was fixed by the jury?

When the appellant filed his application for the writ of error coram nobis before the same judge who tried this case, setting up in the said application that he was insane at the time of his trial in January, 1919, a demurrer was interposed by the state to the said application, which said demurrer was sustained by the court upon the idea that even though the appellant was insane, and that the allegations set forth in the application were true, that that court was without power to give any relief. An appeal was taken from the sustaining of this demurrer and this court told the trial court in that cause that, in its opinion, if the defendant was insane at the time he was tried in January, 1919, to the extent that he could not make a defense, if any he had, that the judgment sentencing him to death should be set aside, and they directed that the defendant be given a hearing on the question of his sanity at said time. An issue was made up and a jury found that the defendant was in truth and in fact insane to the said extent, at the said trial. But notwithstanding this, the trial court with these proceedings spread upon the records, forced the appellant to trial without making any sort of test of his sanity at that time. This court held in Ricketts v. Jolliff, 62 Miss. 440.

"Sanity is presumed until the contrary appears, and the burden of proof is on the party alleging insanity to prove it; but where a person is shown to have been generally or habitually insane at any particular period; that condition is presumed to continue, and whoever relies on a lucid interval to support a contract subsequently made with such a lunatic must prove it and show sanity and competency at the time the contract is made."

A trial court has, and should have, some discretion as to when and how a person's sanity is to be tested on the eve of a trial; otherwise, every person charged with crime could raise the question of his sanity and arbitrarily force the court into the trial of this separate issue by merely alleging that he was insane, but we say the court had no discretion in instituting a proceeding to find insanity in the mind of this appellant, as that fact had already been determined by the same court, and that determination was of record in that court at the very time appellant was forced to trial. We, therefore say, that the court should have instituted a proceeding to determine whether the appellant had recovered his sanity since the said adjudication before they put him to trial, and that when the court failed to institute such a proceeding and forced the appellant to trial, it cannot be denied that his mental condition was such that he was incapable of making his defense because of insanity, and that the death sentence was imposed upon him at a time when, confessedly, he was wholly incapable of understanding the nature of the proceeding against him.

Frank Roberson, Attorney-General, by H. Cassedy Holden, Assistant Attorney-General, for the state.

The trial court has a discretion under Code 1907, section 7178, as to granting defendant's motion to execute an inquisition as to his sanity at the time of the trial. Granberry v. State, 63 So. 975, 184 Ala. 5; Duncan v. State. 162 S.W. 573, 110 Ark. 523; People v. Fountain, 150 P. 341, 170 Cal. 460; People v. Kirby, 114 P. 792, 15 Cal.App. 264.

(Ill., 1914.) Cr. Code, 285, while not expressly declaring that no one can be tried for a crime while insane, does not change the common-law while to that effect, nor does it change the common-law practice, which vested in the court a discretion to determine whether the issue of insanity should be tried before accused was tried for his crime. People v. Favrilovich, 106 N.E. 521, 265 Ill. 11.

(Iowa, 1906.) A finding of his insanity of defendant in proceedings under Code, sections 5540-5543, collateral to a prosecution, thereby suspending the prosecution, is not conclusive that when defendant was a week later committed to the insane asylum he was insane, and so does not render inadmissible, on the question of his insanity as the time of the commission of the offense, testimony that when received into the asylum he was not insane. State v. Grendahl, 109 N.W. 121, 131 Iowa 602.

(N. M., 1910.) If, during the trial, the judge concludes that there is reason to doubt accused's sanity at that time, the question of sanity should be submitted to the jury along with the principal issue, requiring a special verdict on such point. Territory v. Kennedy, 110 P. 854, 15 N. M. 556.

(N. Y. Sup., 1909.) Where accused pleaded insanity, determination by a commission, appointed before trial, that he was sufficiently sane to understand the nature of the charges against him and conduct his defense in a rational manner, was not an adjudication as to his then condition People v. Lamb, 118 N.Y.S. 389.

(1844.) To sustain...