Hill v. State, 48985

• Decision Date: 16 November 1976
• Docket Number: No. 48985,48985
• Parties: Billy Dale HILL v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 1382

339 So.2d 1382

Billy Dale HILL v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 48985.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Nov. 16, 1976.

As Modified On Denial of Rehearing Dec. 7, 1976.

Lawrence Chandler, Calhoun City, Ottis B. Crocker, Jr., Bruce, James L. Robertson, Greenville, for appellant.

A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen. by Ben H. Walley, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

Before PATTERSON, P.J., and ROBERTSON and BROOM, JJ.

BROOM, Justice, for the Court:

Capital murder under Mississippi Code Annotated section 97-3-19(2)(e) (Supp.1976) was the offense for which Hill was convicted in the Circuit Court of Calhoun County. He appeals from the conviction and death sentence imposed upon him. The indictment charged that on September 5, 1974, he murdered Mrs. Minnie Hamilton while engaged in the commission of the crime of rape. Chief issues relate to: (1) how the trial court is to decide if a defendant is competent to stand trial, (2) how to determine criminal responsibility at the trial on the merits when the defendant pleads insanity, and (3) jury instructions. Upon the record before us, the case must be reversed.

The trial court having determined that Hill was an indigent, on September 25, 1974, appointed Ottis B. Crocker, Jr., of Bruce, Mississippi, and Lawrence Chandler of Calhoun City, Mississippi, to defend Hill. Through his court-appointed attorneys, the defendant filed numerous pre-trial motions, including a motion that he be transferred to the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield for psychiatric examination. After a hearing, the motion was overruled and a full trial was had on October 10 and 11, 1974. The jury returned a verdict of 'Guilty as charged,' and the court sentenced the defendant to death in the gas chamber.

Before the trial of the defendant, because the state did not resist the motion 'that the Court order him transferred to the State Mental Hospital at Whitfield, Mississippi where he may be examined by psychiatrists on the question of his sanity,' the circuit court on September 27, 1974, found that the motion was well taken and should be sustained.

However, the court, instead of ordering the defendant to be transferred to the Mississippi State Mental Hospital at Whitfield for psychiatric examination, as requested in the motion, merely ordered Hill to be examined by Dr. Charles H. Hubbert, a psychiatrist employed by Region II Mental Health Clinic in Oxford, Mississippi. On September 28, 1974, Dr. Hubbert orally examined the defendant for one hour and fifteen minutes. As to tests administered, Dr. Hubbert testified:

I did not do extensive psychological testing which I don't do as a rule anyway. However, I did do one little drawing test which the psychologists use in their testing and that accompanies my report.

Dr. Hubbert did not know the defendant nor had he ever examined or observed him except on this one occasion. He did not talk to any members of the defendant's family, nor did he get any previous history of the defendant's behavior, except what he elicited from the defendant himself in this one hour and fifteen minute interview.

On October 2, 1974, the court heard testimony of Ottis B. Crocker, Jr., court-appointed attorney, as to his complete inability to communicate with the defendant and his opinion that the defendant was not capable of helping his attorneys prepare a rational defense to the charge against him.

Tommy Hill, Jr., brother of the defendant, and Dorothy Conner, aunt of the defendant, testified as to the defendant's aberrant behavior and conduct.

Sheriff Richard E. Mooneyham, Mrs. Edna Byars, jailor at Pittsboro where defendant was confined, and Mrs. June Mooneyham, wife of the sheriff of Calhoun County, who took down the confession of the defendant, all testified that, in their opinion, the defendant knew the difference between right and wrong.

Dr. Hubbert's written report, which consisted of four single-spaced typed pages, was filed and considered at this hearing. Dr. Hubbert, in his report, stated that in his opinion the defendant knew the difference between right and wrong. Dr. Hubbert closed his written report with this conclusion and recommendation:

'Discussion: Based on my interview with the defendant, I find no psychiatric illness. This conclusion does not imply that the defendant has not had difficulties with his behavior. Concerning the defendant's criminal responsibility, I have concluded that he was able to know what he was doing at the time of the crime, and he was able to distinguish between right and wrong with reference to that act. To elaborate further, he was able to know what he was doing at that time and appreciated his behavior then. The defendant is capable of conferring with his attorneys, and he is competent to stand trial.

'The preceding paragraph of statements, of course, constitute my professional opinion of the defendant based on my psychiatric interview and observations. However, I recommend that other opinion be rendered concerning the defendant's criminal responsibility and that psychological testing and possibly an electroen-cephalogram be done as a part of this other opinion. Ideally, this could be accomplished through one of the state hospitals.' (Emphasis added).

In spite of Dr. Hubbert's recommendation that the defendant undergo further psychiatric examination preferably at a state hospital, the trial court overruled the renewed motion to transfer the defendant to Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield.

Assignments of error 7 and 8 were:

'The Court erred in refusing to permit Defendant to be examined by competent psychiatrists and psychologist in the Mississippi State Hospital in Whitfield, Mississippi to determine whether he was competent to stand trial.'

'The trial court erred in refusing to permit examination of the Defendant at the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield, to determine whether he was criminally responsible for his actions on September 4-5, 1974.'

The overruling of the motion to transfer the defendant to Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield for psychiatric and psychological examination constituted reversible error. Upon the record as it now appears, before the defendant is again tried, he should either be (1) sent to Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield for a careful and thorough examination, or (2) otherwise afforded appropriate and adequate determination of his sanity, and mental competency to conduct a rational defense pursuant to Mississippi Code Annotated § 99-13-11 (1972). Stevenson v. State, 325 So.2d 113, 117 (Miss.1975); Robinson v. State, 223 Miss. 70, 77 So.2d 265 (1955); McGinnis v. State,241 Miss. 883, 133 So.2d 399 (1961). While considerable discretion is to be vested in trial judges applying § 99-13-11, in the present case the examination by the psychiatrist was inadequate as demonstrated by the fact that the examining psychiatrist himself testified that further examination of the defendant was needed.

This 18-year-old defendant was charged with the commission of a horrible and heinous crime, the crime of murdering an 87-year-old woman by stabbing her five times while committing the crime of rape. Her home had been broken into and her completely nude body was found early the next day in a pool of blood. The defendant could suffer death for this crime; yet the only psychological and psychiatric examination that was made of this defendant was an hour and fifteen minute interview by a psychiatrist who did not know the defendant and had never examined or observed him before.

As has been done many times in prior criminal cases where the issue of the defendant's sanity is raised, we are urged to abandon the M'Naghten Rule as to the determination of criminal responsibility. In place of the M'Naghten Rule, we are asked to accept and adopt the rule set forth in 4.01 of the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code (1962). That section would relieve a defendant of responsibility for criminal conduct:

. . . if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality (wrongfulness) of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law.

Such a rule in effect would provide for the acquittal of those who commit criminal acts and assert that they did such act or acts because of so-called uncontrollable urges or irresistible impulses. Though the M'Naghten Rule may not be a perfect means to test criminal responsibility, as this Court (including this writer) has said before, it is the safest of the rules proposed. M'Naghten better protects society's needs than the American Law Institute's proposed rule, supra, which the court has examined in earlier cases and found to be unsatisfactory. In making our decision we have carefully read and considered the views expressed in United States v. Freeman, 357 F.2d 606 (2d Cir. 1966), and do not consider it persuasive. Language in that opinion which says of M'Naghten that 'the expert is thereby compelled to test guilt or innocence by a concept which bears little relationship to reality' is simply not an expression of logic. Though M'Naghten may have had 'Victorian origins' as said in Freeman, supra, we reject the thesis that it is not 'grounded in reason' though admittedly the subjective aspects of sanity or insanity present difficult problems.

In Assignment of Error No. 26, the defendant contends that the trial court erred when it refused to grant these instructions:

INSTRUCTION FOR DEFENDANT NO. 11

The court instructs the jury for the defendant that if you acquit the defendant on the ground of insanity and you should find that the defendant has not since been restored to reason and that he is dangerous to the community, then the following will be the form of your verdict:

'We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty on the grounds of insanity, and certify that he is dangerous and has not been restored to reason.'

INSTRUCTION FOR DEFENDANT NO. 12

The court instructs the...