Hoskins v. Bennett
| Decision Date | 16 November 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 51492,51492 |
| Citation | 256 Iowa 1370,131 N.W.2d 510 |
| Parties | Jack H. HOSKINS, Appellant, v. John E. BENNETT, Warden Iowa State Penitentiary, Appellee. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Jack H. Hoskins, pro se.
Evan Hultman, Atty. Gen. of Iowa, for appellee.
Post conviction remedies sought by those incarcerated in state prisons have become in recent years increasingly a part of litigations with which the courts must deal. The Supreme Court of the United States has by its decisions greatly broadened the scope of the due process and equal rights clauses of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and has changed or cast doubt upon what had been previously considered settled principles of state procedures. Whether we agree with these rulings or not, we are bound by and must follow them. We are repeatedly faced with cases arising, or thought to arise, under various decisions of that court, and we must decide them in accordance with the law as laid down as we understand it.
The present case is before us on an appeal from a denial of a writ of habeas corpus sought by the plaintiff in the Lee District Court. He is held by the warden of the State penitentiary under four convictions in the Lyon District Court. The chronology is this: On January 5, 1958, the plaintiff shot and killed his estranged wife in the pastor's study of their church in Rock Rapids. (It is not denied that he committed this act.) On January 8, 1958, he was charged by county attorney's information with the crime of murder. On January 24 next Don G. DeWaay, an experienced and capable attorney of Rock Rapids, was appointed to represent him. On January 26th the trial court granted on application for an examination to determine the present sanity of the plaintiff, he was sent to the Mental Health Institute at Cherokee, and a report was filed by the authorities there which case doubt upon his sanity at the time of his examination. On March 31, April 1 and 2 the question of his sanity at the time of trial was tried before a jury in the Lyon District Court, and he was found to be insane so that he could not participate in his defense. On April 3, 1958, he was committed to the Insane Ward of the Men's Reformatory at Anamosa 'until he was sane.'
On May 28, 1959, he was determined to be 'mentally restored' and the warden of of the Reformatory notified the sheriff and county attorney of Lyon County of this finding, in accordance with section 783.4 of the code of Iowa, I.C.A. He was then returned to the Lyon County jail, and the murder charged was set for trial at the October term of the Lyon District Court. The letter notifying the authorities of the plaintiff's restored sanity contained a statement that Dr. J. Stomel, the chief psychiatrist of the criminal insane ward, had found him medically and legally sane. This was read into the record at the time of the later hearing on the murder charge.
While in the jail at Rock Rapids awaiting trial, the plaintiff escaped, on August 15, 1959. He was apprehended and returned to the jail on August 26 next. Two other prisoners escaped with him. As a result of this escapade, three other charges were filed against the plaintiff. These were violation of section 711.2, robbery with aggravation, based on the taking of a gun and money from the jailer's wife; violation of section 321.82, larceny of an automobile, used in fleeing from the jail; and violation of section 745.12, assisting a felon to escape, arising from the escape of other prisoners with him.
Mr. DeWaay, who at all times represented the plaintiff on the murder charge, was appointed as his counsel also on the three new charges. Pleas of guilty were entered as to each of these, the court heard evidence as to the offenses, and sentenced the plaintiff to confinement in the State Penitentiary for 25 years under section 711.2; to not to exceed 10 years under section 321.82; and to not to exceed 10 years under section 745.12; these sentences to run consecutively. He was taken to the penitentiary to begin serving these judgments.
On September 28, 1959, the plaintiff was ordered returned for trial on the murder charge. On October 1 next he withdrew his plea of 'Not Guilty by reason of insanity' and entered his plea of guilty to this charge. The court proceeded to take evidence as to the degree of guilt and the proper punishment. It was at this time that the report from the warden of the reformatory showing the plaintiff restored to sanity was introduced. The court found the plaintiff guilty of murder of the second degree, and sentenced him to confinement in the state penitentiary for a term of 99 years. He is currently serving the four sentences.
I. The plaintiff assigns five errors relied upon for reversal. The first two of these raise the same question, and will be considered together. In substance, they contend that the plaintiff, having been found to be insane on March 2, 1958, the presumption of sanity ordinarily indulged was not in effect; but that a presumption of continuing insanity should have been applied, and no plea of guilty should have been received in any of the cases without another trial to determine whether he was mentally competent at that time.
No application for another examination to determine sanity was made at the time of entering any of the pleas of guilty upon which the plaintiff was convicted. But he contends for the presumption of continued insanity, which he thinks required the court to make a further investigation. But this claim fails because under the circumstances shown here the presumption of sanity was again in effect.
At this point section 783.4 becomes important. We quote so much thereof as is material: 'If the accused is committed to the department for the criminal insane, as soon as he becomes mentally restored, the person in charge shall at once give notice to the sheriff and county attorney of the proper county of such fact, and the sheriff, without delay, must receive and hold him in custody until he is brought to trial or judgment, as the case may be, or is legally discharged, * * *.'
The governing rule is stated in 22A C.J.S. Criminal Law § 584, page 348: '* * * nor does prior confinement in a hospital or asylum raise such a presumption (of continuing insanity) where accused has been discharged therefrom as cured.' In Foy v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, 220 Iowa 628, 632, 263 N.W. 14, 15, 16, we said: 'It has been held by this and many other courts that after an adjudication of insanity such condition is presumed to continue, but if a discharge of the patient from confinement follows later, the presumption changes and there is a new presumption that sanity has returned.' To the same effect is Mileham v. Montagne, 148 Iowa 476, 484, 125 N.W. 664, 667.
The department for the criminal insane at the reformatory at Anamosa is a regularly staffed mental hospital. The record shows that the warden, in notifying the Lyon County authorities under section 783.4 of the mental restoration of the plaintiff acted within the meaning of the statute, and in accordance with the findings of the psychiatrists in the mental health department. The presumption of sanity then became effective again. Nothing in Thomas v. Purcell, 252 Iowa 177, 104 N.W.2d 823, controverts this. No suggestion was made to the sentencing court that the plaintiff was not mentally able to participate in his defense and to understand the meaning of his pleas of guilty.
II. The third assignment of error is somewhat related to the first two. By it, the plaintiff attacks the effective assistance rendered him by his counsel. He says that Mr. DeWaay should have again raised the question of his client's sanity at the time he entered each of the pleas of guilty. Mr. DeWaay said that he considered the plaintiff sane at those times. We have pointed out above that there was a presumption of restoration to sanity upon the discharge from the criminal insane department; and in the absence of further indication of a recurrence, it would have bordered on the frivolous for him to ask another inquiry. The plaintiff thinks his jail escape and the commission of the related crimes...
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