Jewell v. Com.
| Decision Date | 11 March 1977 |
| Parties | James JEWELL, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
Thomas D. Shumate, Peter J. Flaherty, III, Shumate, Shumate & Flaherty, Richmond, for appellant.
Robert F. Stephens, Atty. Gen., Robert W. Hensley, Asst. Atty. Gen., Frankfort, for appellee.
James Jewell appeals from a judgment entered pursuant to a jury verdict finding him guilty of murder and fixing his sentence at 20 years' imprisonment. KRS 507.020, 532.060(2)(a). He claims errors in the following three particulars:
(1) Rejection of evidence pertinent to his affirmative defense of insanity under KRS 504.020;
(2) Reception of evidence relating to his intoxication in terms of the presumptions enacted in KRS 189.520; and
(3) Refusal to instruct on the defense of intoxication under KRS 501.080(1).
The victim of the killing was Taylor Jewell, appellant's father. He was shot in the chest with a .20-gauge shotgun while seated in a chair on the front porch of his home reading his mail. The only other persons present were James and his sister Violet, who is described in the evidence as having been institutionalized for a mental problem and was unable or unwilling to describe the fatal event. The incriminating evidence was provided by James himself through statements made on the scene and afterward to the various investigating officers. According to their testimony, he first said that he had had to shoot his father in self-defense. Later on, in jail, he said that he wanted the car and some money to go and get himself some more beer but his father kept refusing him and he just had to kill him.
James was a single man 48 years old and had lived at home with his parents all of his life. His mother had passed away some two years before the tragedy. He had a crippled leg and had been taking medicines prescribed for a nervous condition over the course of 15 or 18 years. Though he had no formal education, he had learned to sign checks, bought his medicines at the drug store, and was licensed to drive an automobile.
On the day of the shooting Sheriff Hershell Lynch arrived on the scene at 1:30 P.M., about 10 minutes after he had received word of it. He described James as "pretty well drunk at the scene," but said that his talk was "very distinguishable, he answered all the questions," and that he appeared to know where he was and what had happened. Deputy Sheriff Julian Harris who arrived a little later, testified that James was drunk when taken to jail.
James also made a statement to District Detective Robert Davidson while he was in custody waiting to be taken to jail. According to Davidson, "he was drunk while he was telling me this."
At 5:46 P.M. on the same day, some 4 1/2 hours after the shooting, James took a breathalyzer test administered by Floyd McIntosh, a detective for the Kentucky State Police. According to McIntosh, James was still drunk at that time. The test indicated a blood-alcohol content of 0.11%. Over objection by the appellant, Detective McIntosh was permitted to explain that for purposes of driving an automobile a content of 0.10% is equated with being under the influence of intoxicating beverages. He went on to say that among the many breathalyzer examinations he had given there had been one score of 0.32% and that person had been able to walk. Asked whether James was "real bad drunk on this occasion," he answered as follows:
During cross-examination Detective McIntosh estimated that James "could have sobered up anywhere from 0.04% to 0.08%" between 1:30 P.M. and 5:30 P.M., which means, of course, that he could very well have had a blood-alcohol content close to 0.20% at the time of the shooting.
On the day following his arrest, when he was no longer under the influence of alcohol, James again told Detectives Davidson and McIntosh that the shooting had resulted from an argument in which his father would not let him have some money and the use of the automobile.
It appears from the record that while he was in jail James got into such a mental state that he had to be sent to the Lakeland psychiatric institution. From there he was transferred by order of the trial court to the River Region Hospital in Louisville. Meanwhile, in a KRS 202.135 1 involuntary hospitalization proceeding held by the Jefferson Circuit Court on October 31, 1975, he was found to be mentally ill and was ordered to accept treatment at the forensic medicine facility in Louisville for an indeterminate period of time.
The next step in the instant proceeding was an order of the trial court entered on May 18, 1976, noting that James had been confined in the Kentucky State Hospital for hospitalization and treatment and had now been declared ready for release, and directing that he be remanded to jail. He was tried for murder on June 23, 1976.
James testified in his own behalf at the trial and denied having shot his father. He also stoutly denied having been drunk. At the same time, however, he insisted that he had no recollection whatever of the events in question, as illustrated by the following excerpts from his testimony:
On direct examination:
Q. Do you know who did it?
A. No, I was so crazy I didn't know a thing until they got me in Louisville hospital.
Q. Do you know about how many days that was after your father was killed?
A. No, I don't.
Q. There is testimony to the effect you told the officers you and your Daddy got in argument over the keys to the car and your right to drive the car, do you recall anything of that nature?
A. No.
Q. There is also testimony you told the officers you shot your Daddy for the reason that he was about to kill you or in self defense, do you remember that?
A. When they come I was crazy and that is the truth.
Q. Wait . . .
A. I was crazy, I didn't know nothing.
Q. You have no recollection of shooting your Daddy?
A. No.
Q. Did you have any quarrel with him over money?
A. I had money, no.
Q. Did you have a quarrel with your Daddy over him spending your money?
A. I never killed him.
Q. You don't think you killed your Daddy?
A. No.
Q. They brought you to jail and said you was drunk when they saw you up there shortly after the shooting and they brought you to jail do you remember talking to the officers in the jail?
A. No, I was crazy; I didn't know nothing that is the truth.
Q. When did you first come to your senses or know anything?
A. When they took me to Louisville they give me that there glucose and went to giving me some nerve pills and I went to getting better.
Q. You did not know anything until you got to Louisville?
A. No, not nothing.
Q. You mean you came to your senses in the Louisville General hospital is that right?
A. Yeah.
Q. If you had been at your self, in your right senses would you have shot your father?
A. No sir, I wouldn't. I didn't shoot him.
Q. Did you have any malice or ill feeling toward your Daddy?
A. No.
Q. And then were you later taken to the insane asylum at Danville, Kentucky?
A. Yeah.
Q. You remember being taken there do you?
A. Yeah.
Q. And you remember how long you stayed there?
A. I stayed there about seventy-five days.
On cross-examination:
Q. Mr. Jewell, would you pull that microphone down just a little more and look at the jury and talk right up, I believe it is your testimony that you don't remember anything that happened on September 13, 1975, is that right?
A. Don't remember nothing.
Q. You don't remember killing your father?
A. I don't know what happened.
Q. You don't remember whether you was drunk or sober?
A. I wasn't drunk; they said I was drunk, but I wasn't.
Q. You remember not being drunk?
A. I wasn't drunk; they swore a lie.
Q. Did you get on a drunk?
A. No, I never got on no drunk.
Q. In September, 1975?
A. No sir.
Q. How do you know you never if you can't remember?
A. I know I never got on no drunk when they said I was drunk they told a damn lie; I will tell them that.
Q. Now let me ask you this, if you can't remember anything how do you know you weren't drunk?
A. I wasn't drunk; I was crazy; that is the reason they took me to Louisville to the crazy hospital to try to get straightened out.
Q. You could have been drinking as well as crazy?
A. I was crazy. That is a God damn lie.
We come now to the assignments of error.
KRS 504.020 provides that a defendant, after giving the notice required by KRS 504.050, may prove in exculpation that when he committed the act in question he was afflicted with a mental disease or defect that deprived him of substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of the act or, if he did appreciate it, to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. Essentially, this is the defense of insanity set forth in Terry v. Commonwealth, Ky., 371 S.W.2d 862, 865 (1963), and as explained in that opinion, fundamentally it is a refinement of the old M'Naghten and "irresistible impulse" tests. In the M'Naghten aspect it confines "right" and "wrong" to a legal vis-a-vis moral sense. Id., at 371 S.W.2d 865.
Counsel sought to prove the insanity of James through lay testimony by his brother and sister and a certified copy of the October 31, 1975, judgment of the Jefferson Circuit Court finding him to be mentally ill. All of this evidence was ruled inadmissible.
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