Hoye v. State

• Decision Date: 05 February 1934
• Docket Number: 31073
• Citation: 169 Miss. 111,152 So. 644
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: HOYE v. STATE

152 So. 644

169 Miss. 111

HOYE v. STATE

No. 31073

Supreme Court of Mississippi

February 5, 1934

Division B

1. CRIMINAL LAW.

Adjudication of accused's insanity by chancery court held competent evidence of his subsequent insanity, but not conclusive thereon.

2. INSANE PERSONS.

When chancery court commits party to insane hospital, it does not pass upon his right to discharge; that being question for hospital authorities (Code 1930, sections 4576, 4583).

3. CRIMINAL LAW.

Lunatic is not responsible for crime committed while so insane as to be unable to distinguish nature and quality of his acts or right from wrong.

4. CRIMINAL LAW.

Accused who can distinguish right from wrong and understand nature of his acts may be put to trial, although insane to an extent.

5. HABEAS CORPUS.

On habeas corpus to recover custody of allegedly insane prisoner, evidence warranted finding that prisoner was sane and that conduct of petitioner, superintendent of hospital for insane, who did not seek to retake prisoner for more than three months, was equivalent to discharge.

6. INSANE PERSONS.

Where prisoner was in custody of circuit court under indictment for felony, circuit court could pass upon question of his sanity despite prior adjudication of insanity by chancery court (Code 1930, section 4576).

HON WM. A. ALCORN, JR., Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of Coahoma county, HON. WM. A. ALCORN JR., Judge.

Habeas corpus by Dr. M. J. L. Hoye, superintendent of the East Mississippi Insane Hospital at Meridian, to recover custody of Roland Eatman. From a judgment dismissing the habeas corpus, petitioner appeals. Affirmed.

Affirmed.

W. W. Venable, of Clarksdale, and C. B. Cameron, of Meridian, for appellant.

By the governing statutes on an inquisition of lunacy the chancery court commits until the lunatic is restored to reason.

Mississippi Code of 1930, sections 4676, 4582, 4583 and 4586; Section 1899, Code Supplement 1933, of the state of Mississippi, being Chapter 280 of the Laws of 1932.

The position taken by the petitioner is that the circuit court cannot hold him on a criminal warrant or to state it otherwise, since the chancery court of Lauderdale county had taken possession and jurisdiction of the body of Roland Eatman as a lunatic this was a jurisdiction exclusive of all other courts seeking to deal with his body.

Mabry v. Hoye, 124 Miss. 144.

An inquisition of lunacy with adjudication of insanity fixes the status of the insane person which is binding on all other courts as far as the custody of his person is concerned.

In re Wright, 74 Kan. 406, 87 P. 460, 89 P. 678; In re Kidd, 40 Kan. 644, 20 P. 526; Howie v. Howie, 128 Miss. 473.

Where a, court takes the body of a person to deal with it within the jurisdiction of that court the jurisdiction over the body is exclusive of every other court and state agency and the court thus having jurisdiction has the right to keep it exclusively until its orders and decrees are carried out and executed with respect to the body of the person.

The proceeding for the discharge of the lunatic should be brought in the court which exercised the original jurisdiction to commit him.

Challoner v. Sherman, 215 F. 867, 242 U.S. 455, 61 L.Ed. 4271; In re Remboldt, 64 Col. 581, 172 P. 1068; Com. v. Redd, 245 S.W. 507; Upton v. Busch, 135 Ky. 102, 121 S.W. 1005; Ferguson v. Ferguson, 128 S.W. 652.

W. D. Conn, Jr., Assistant Attorney-General, for the state.

It is the well established general rule that an adjudication as to mental soundness is evidence of the fact at the time of adjudication, and also of the condition of the subject at a subsequent time on the theory that a condition of mind once shown to exist is presumed to continue, but it is generally held that a finding, either of sanity or insanity, upon an inquisition is merely prima facie evidence and not conclusive as against persons not parties thereto, and may be rebutted by any competent evidence tending to show that the alleged insane person was of sound mind at the time in question.

14 R. C. L. 621; 32 C. J. 647, section 228.

Where the defense is insanity, total or partial, the test of the defendant's criminal responsibility is his ability, at the time he committed the act, to realize and appreciate the nature and quality thereof, his ability to distinguish right and wrong.

Grissom v. State, 62 Miss. 169; Smith v. State, 95 Miss. 786, 49 So. 945, 27 L. R. A. (N. S.) 461, Ann. Cas. 1912A, 23; Nelson v. State, 129 Miss. 288, 92 So. 66.

A proceeding in lunacy is not like a guardianship or a disbarment, in that the jurisdiction of the court first acquiring jurisdiction is continuing.

Section 363, Mississippi Code of 1930.

A trial judge, sitting in habeas corpus proceedings, is the tryer of the facts as well as the law, and his finding on conflicting evidence will not be disturbed, unless his finding is manifestly and clearly contrary to the weight of the evidence.

Cofer v. Sheriff, 131 So. 421, 160 Miss. 53; Parker v. Tullos, 150 Miss. 680, 116 So. 531; Stokes v. Terrell, 154 Miss. 230, 122 So. 470; Lee v. Sheriff, 165 Miss. 756, 144 So. 240.

And if the finding of the trial judge can be sustained by any view of the evidence, his finding will be upheld.

Stokes v. Terrell, 154 Miss. 230, 122 So. 470; Lee v. Sheriff, 165 Miss. 756, 144 So. 240.

Argued orally by C. B. Cameron, for appellant, and by W. D. Conn, Jr., for the state.

OPINION

Ethridge, P. J.

Dr. M. J. L. Hoye, superintendent of the East Mississippi Insane Hospital at Meridian, sued out a writ of habeas corpus seeking to recover the custody of Roland Eatman, an alleged escape from said East Mississippi Insane Hospital, and who was in jail in Clarksdale, Coahoma county, Mississippi, under an indictment charging him with a felony. It was alleged by Dr. Hoye that Eatman had been adjudged to be insane, and ordered to be confined in said East Mississippi Insane Hospital by the chancery court of Lauderdale county, in 1927, and that he escaped from said institution in April, 1928, and that the petitioner had not discharged Eatman; that he is still insane; and that petitioner is entitled to the custody of Eatman. Dr. Hoye testified as a witness, saying that, while Eatman was suffering from psychopathic delinquency, and given to criminal tendencies, and not being able to resist temptation to commit crime, he was not properly an insane person, and that he was not properly a subject for the penitentiary either, but as the state had no provision for caring for such persons, it is necessary that they be restrained, and that Eatman should be awarded to his custody. The hospital records show a notation that Eatman was discharged in March, 1928, but Dr. Hoye testified that he had never discharged him, and that from time to time during the period of escape and the suing out of the writ, he (Dr. Hoye) knew where Eatman was, but made no effort to retake him, and that no warrant was issued for that purpose until just prior to the suing out of the writ of habeas corpus, when, at the instance of an attorney employed by the father of Roland Eatman, said warrant was issued. Dr. Hoye further testified that Eatman was very troublesome and nobody wanted him.

It is shown by the evidence in the case that Eatman had escaped from the hospital at Jackson, Mississippi, having been transferred from Meridian, and went into Louisiana; committed a crime there, and was confined to the state institution for the insane in Louisiana, but that he was afterwards adjudged to be sane and was discharged from the Louisiana institution. It appears that he was reconsigned to the Hospital for the Insane at Jackson, Mississippi, some time prior to the suing out of the writ of habeas corpus, and was kept under medical observation there, and on an inquiry before the medical staff of said institution, he was discharged and a certificate of his discharge and his sanity was certified to the sheriff of Coahoma county, at Clarksdale. The assistant superintendent of the Hospital for the Insane at Jackson, Mississippi, who is also chief of the medical staff there, and is an expert psychiatrist, testified that Eatman is not insane; that he knew the nature and consequences of his acts, but claimed that he could not resist committing crime; that Eatman was disposed to crime and did not restrain...