Palmer v. State, 50

• Decision Date: 19 December 1957
• Docket Number: No. 50,50
• Citation: 137 A.2d 119,215 Md. 142
• Parties: James PALMER v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 142

215 Md. 142

137 A.2d 119

James PALMER v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 50.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Dec. 19, 1957.

Joseph G. Finnerty, Baltimore, and William L. Jacob, Towson, for appellant.

Joseph S. Kaufman, Asst. Atty. Gen. (C. Ferdinand Sybert, Atty. Gen., Frank H. Newell, 3rd, State's Atty., and Douglas G. Bottom, Asst. State's Atty., Baltimore County, Towson, on the brief), for appellee.

Before BRUNE, C. J., and COLLINS, ^* HENDERSON, HAMMOND and PRESCOTT, JJ.

BRUNE, Chief Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Circuit Court for Baltimore County rendered by Judge Smith sitting without a jury, on March 22, 1957, that the appellant, James Palmer, was a defective delinquent and ordering that he be committed to Patuxent Institution for an indefinite period, subject to the further order of the Court.

On April 18, 1955, James Palmer was arrested and charged with housebreaking. On April 22, 1955, he pleaded guilty, and Judge Gontrum sentenced him to the State Reformatory for Males for a term not to exceed five years with the recommendation that he be sent to Patuxent Institution for examination to ascertain whether he was a defective delinquent under the provisions of Article 31B, Section 5, of the Maryland Code (1951). This recommendation was carried out and on March 13, 1957, the Director of Patuxent Institution, Dr. Harold M. Boslow, forwarded to the Circuit Court for Baltimore County a written report and a letter recommending that the appellant be committed to Patuxent Institution on an indeterminate basis as a defective delinquent. In accordance with Article 31B, Section 8, which gives the defendant the right to have the matter tried before a jury and which specifies that he be represented by counsel and have the right to produce witnesses and present evidence, a trial was held before Judge Smith sitting in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, a jury trial being waived which resulted in the judgment appealed from.

Appellant's appeal is based on the contention that 'the State neither by testimony nor evidence has shown that the Appellant comes within the definition of a defective delinquent as defined in Section 5 of Article 31B.'

Article 31B, Section 5, reads as follows:

'For the purposes of this Article, a defective delinquent shall be defined as an individual who, by the demonstration of persistent aggravated antisocial or criminal behavior, evidences a propensity toward criminal activity, and who is found to have either such intellectual deficiency or emotional unbalance, or both, as to clearly demonstrate an actual danger to society so as to require confinement and treatment under an indeterminate sentence, subject to being released only if the intellectual deficiency and/or the emotional unbalance is so relieved as to make it reasonably safe for society to terminate the confinement and treatment.'

It is further provided in Article 31B, Section 9(b) that if the Court finds the defendant to be a defective delinquent as defined in Section 5, the Court shall order him committed to the institution for an indeterminate period.

The appellant was born in Pennsylvania on December 3, 1933, and moved to the Baltimore area in 1941. He was committed to St. Mary's Industrial School because of truancy in 1945. In 1947 he was paroled and within one month violated his parole by stealing money, and was recommitted to St. Mary's. In 1948, because of repeated escapes, he was transferred to the Maryland Training School, and released shortly thereafter. In 1949 he broke into a Knights of Columbus Hall and stole money from slot machines, for which he was sentenced to the Maryland Training School where he remained until October, 1950. At this time he was released, but was soon recommitted after he pleaded guilty to six offenses involving breaking into various places at night and stealing money from the premises. In 1954 he was released once again, but by April, 1955 he had again become entangled with the law, this time for stealing automobiles. In connection with this activity he broke into a building to get the keys to one or more cars parked outside on a used car lot. Following his plea of guilty to the charge of housebreaking and his sentence therefor, Judge Gontrum recommended that he be examined in order to determine if he was a defective delinquent who should be committed to Patuxent Institution.

In view of this record appellant does not seriously contend that he does not come within that part of the statutory definition of the defective delinquent which describes 'an individual who, by the demonstration of persistent aggravated anti-social or criminal behavior, evidences a propensity toward criminal activity'. He does assert, however, that the language immediately following is clearly inapplicable to him and that hence he is not a defective delinquent. The statute continues: 'and who is found to have either such intellectual deficiency or emotional unbalance, or both, as to clearly demonstrate an actual danger to society * * *.' Both sides concede that appellant does not suffer with an 'intellectual deficiency'. I.Q. tests indicate that his level of intelligence is average. Therefore, the question narrows down to whether or not the appellant has been shown to have such 'emotional unbalance' as is specified in the statute.

What is meant by the phrase 'emotional unbalance'? Research Report No. 29, Maryland Legislative Council, submitted in 1950, consisting of an analysis of the proposed new defective delinquent law (the present Article 31B) is helpful in this regard. At page 1 of this Report the author, G. Kenneth Reiblich, states that he was asked to study the need for legislation providing for the confinement and treatment of certain criminals 'who although they would not be insane under the current test of criminal insanity, would be so mentally and/or emotionally deficient as to suggest (and perhaps require) confinement separated from other criminals and treatment for such indefinite period as necessary for a cure.' At a subsequent point in this Report (p. 26) there appears a section under the title 'Opinion of Leading Maryland Psychiatrists and Psychologists'. ¹ Here, after discussing the persons who because of an intellectual deficiency coupled with anti-social behavior were a serious danger to society, the other category of dangerous persons was described:

'The problem is more important and more difficult with those criminals who have deficient emotional balance and control--the so-called psychopaths. These are not merely the habitual offenders, but the individuals who, on the basis of their seriously distorted emotional make-up, persist in carrying out serious depredations against society.'

It seems reasonably clear that by the use of the phrase 'emotional unbalance' the legislative intent was to refer to those people known medically as psychopaths, or as psychopathic personalities. These persons were described in Guttmacher and Weihofen, Psychiatry and the Law (1952) as

'a group of mentally abnormal individuals who on clinical examination do not fit into the categories of psychoneurosis, psychosis, or intellectual deficiency. These patients are generally without complaints; they do not exhibit abnormally pronounced mood disturbances, nor do they present the distortions of thought which become so manifestly evident in delusions and hallucinations. Furthermore, they are not intellectually retarded. Yet they are constantly in difficulty because of their abnormalities of behavior. They are unable to conform to the standards of their social group, and they are tragic failures in establishing lasting and satisfying inter-personal relationships. * * * [The] incapacity to conduct oneself 'with decency and propriety in the business of life' is the outstanding characteristic of the true psychopath.' (p. 86).

See also Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity, 1955, on the subject of the psychopathic personality. Appellant agrees that the language 'emotional unbalance' was intended to refer to persons of a psychopathic nature, but he equates the term 'psychopathic' with the term 'psychotic' and argues that since there is evidence in the record showing that appellant was not psychotic (i.e. one having a psychosis) it must necessarily follow that he was not psychopathic. 'Psychotic' is defined in Webster's New International Dictionary, 2d Ed., as 'of or pert. to psychosis, caused by or affected by psychosis; insane'.

Psychosis is defined as 'mental disease; any serious mental derangement;--a purely psychiatric term, without the legal implications of the word insanity. See insanity'.

It will be noted that the description of the psychopath taken from Psychiatry and the Law, supra,...