Mabry v. Hoye
| Decision Date | 14 February 1921 |
| Docket Number | 21537 |
| Citation | 124 Miss. 144,87 So. 4 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | MABRY v. HOYE |
1. INSANE PERSONS. Chancery has full jurisdiction under statute over persons of unsound mind.
By section 532, Code of 1906 (section 289, Hemingway's Code), the chancery court is given full jurisdiction over cases of idiocy, lunacy, and persons of unsound mind.
2. INSANE PERSONS. Chancery has statutory jurisdiction of writs of lunacy.
Sections 3219-3224, Code of 1906 (sections 5561-5566, Hemingway's Code), confer upon the chancery courts jurisdiction of writs of lunacy, and make provision for the lunacy proceedings and the commitment of an adjudged lunatic to an insane hospital and his confinement therein.
3. INSANE PERSONS. Superintendent of insane hospital entitled to custody of adjudged lunatic.
The superintendent of an insane hospital is entitled to the custody of an adjudged lunatic or insane person committed by order of court to the hospital.
4. INSANE PERSONS. Sheriff held not entitled to custody of adjudged lunatic from insane hospital on capias under indictment.
The sheriff of a county cannot recover the custody of an adjudged lunatic committed to an insane hospital, from the custody of the superintendent of the hospital upon a capias forr the arrest of the lunatic who has been indicted for murder after his commitment to the hospital.
Appeal from circuit court of Lauderdale county, HON. W. E. BASKIN Special Judge.
Habeas corpus by W. C. Mabry, Sheriff of Newton County, against M J. L. Hoye, Superintendent of East Mississippi Insane Hospital, to obtain the custody of J. N. Horne, an insane person. Petition dismissed, and petitioner appeals. Affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
D. M Anderson, for appellant.
Now, of course, it is elementary learning that insanity will either exempt a person charged with crime from being tried, or, in the trial, rebut the charge of guilt; that an insane person cannot even plead to an indictment; that if he was insane when he committed the alleged crime he cannot be convicted; and, that if he becomes insane after conviction and before punishment, he cannot be legally punished. But just here I would respectfully call the court's attention to the fact that insanity is a relative term and that there are many tests of insanity known to our law.
First, there is the test of present insanity as practiced in the criminal law which implies a disability to employ, control, and discharge counsel. Bishop's Criminal Procedure, Vol. 3, paragraph 66. In the case of Freeman v. People, a New York case and a leading case on present insanity as a defense, the question was raised as to whether the prisoner was sufficiently sane to take his trial, and the court gave this as the test of the matter. "The question is whether the prisoner had sufficient understanding to comprehend the nature of his trial so as to make a proper defense to the charge." Freeman v. People, 4 Denio 9, 47 Am. Dec. 216.
Second, there is the right and wrong test applied where insanity as of the time of the commission of the alleged crime is pleaded as a defense. Did the prisoner have sufficient mental capacity at the time of the commission of the alleged crime to know and understand that he was doing wrong? If the affirmative is found by the jury trying the case then the prisoner is not sufficiently insane as to be exempt from punishment, and he is found guilty if this is the only defense. I believe that it is unnecessary, under this heading, to cite any authorities it being so well known that this is not only the test in Mississippi but generally throughout the United States, and wherever the common law prevails.
Thirdly, there is the test of insanity provided by section 3219, and the two following sections, of the Code of 1906. In my opinion a person may have been adjudged a lunatic or insane under the provisions of the above sections of the Code and still be legally amenable to the laws of this state, and subject to be tried, convicted, and punished for their violation. The legal test under these statutes under which J. N. Horne was adjudged a lunatic or insane was whether he was insane or a lunatic at the time of the trial and in need of special treatment. If he was insane to any degree and in need of special treatment to any degree then the jury of freeholders could so find him by their verdict. He may have been insane measured by the terms of these statutes, and he has been so found, and still have mental capacity sufficient to conduct his trial under the tests of the law. Or he may have been insane at the time of the trial, but sane at the time of the commission of the crime with which he stands charged in Newton County, or, still he may have been legally sane at the time he committed the crime alleged in the indictment, and may be sane sufficiently to take his trial when he is arraigned and tried on the indictment. The tests are entirely different as to present insanity, insanity at the time of the commission of the alleged offense, and the insanity such as the jury of freeholders found Horne afflicted with under the de lunatico proceedings.
Our laws contemplate that when a bill of indictment is returned into court charging any person with the commission of a crime that this person shall be tried according to the laws of the land under this indictment; that he shall be tried in the court to which the indictment was returned, and shall make his defense, if any he has, in this court, where all the issues that may be presented and raised shall be determined. On the question of guilt or innocence raised by the trial of the defendant under the indictment the defendant can show whatever defense he may have but it must be shown in the court trying the issue, and not in some other forum.
Was J. N. Horne insane at the time he is alleged to have committed the murder? If he was it is purely matter of defense to be shown on the trial of the issue of his guilt or innocence. Will he be insane when he is arraigned at the bar of the court of Newton county? If he is insane at that time, then this too is purely matter of defense to be determined by the trial court. If the court below was right in remanding J. N. Horne to the custody of Dr. Hoye, the appellee, as against the claim of Mabry to his custody, then it may be said a person can plead his defense of insanity to a charge of murder in a habeas corpus proceeding. In the case of Ex Parte Collier, 12 So. 597, Chief Justice CAMPBELL said: "The matter which the petitioner desired to litigate is matter of defense on trial of the charge on which he was arrested, and held by the sheriff, and was not available on the habeas corpus."
The appellee in the court below offered nothing to resist the demand of appellant for the custody of Horne except the insanity of Horne. This insanity, being purely matter of defense on the issue of guilty or innocent of the crime charged, was wholly irrelevant and incompetent on the issue raised by appellant's demand for his custody by virtue of the capias in his hands.
I most respectfully submit that the court below erred in remanding Horne to the custody of Dr. Hoye, and that this case should be reversed and judgment here awarding the custody of Horne to appellant, Mabry.
McBeath & Miller, for appellee.
We have diligently searched for a similar case to the one at bar, and we have been unable to find a single case where a man who had been adjudged a lunatic by a court of competent jurisdiction and affirmed by the supreme court and who had committed a crime during that disability had ever been brought before a court of co-ordinate jurisdiction for trial on an indictment during the continuance of said disability.
It is abhorrent to all principles of law and humanity that a man incompetent to plead should be tried or punished. In the case of Freeman v. People, 47 Amer. Dec. 216, the court so clearly treats these facts, that we quote at length from it:
"If a man," says Sir William Blackstone,
If after he be tried and found guilty, he loses his senses before judgment, judgment shall not be pronounced; and if, after judgment, he becomes of non-sane memory execution shall be stayed; for peradventure, says the humanity of the English Law, had the prisoner...
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Hoye v. State
...recognize right from wrong, applying the same rule as to irresistible impulses. The appellant relies largely upon the case of Mabry v. Hoye, 124 Miss. 144, 87 So. 4, in which was held that where a person escapes from the state insane hospital, commits a crime, is recaptured and reconfined i......
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... ... gives to the chancery court full jurisdiction over cases of ... idiocy, lunacy and persons of unsound mind ... Mabry ... v. Hoye, 87 So. 4 ... We ... think the effect and the only effect that could be given to ... the matter now under consideration is ... ...
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