People v. Adams

• Decision Date: 22 January 1970
• Citation: 257 N.E.2d 610,309 N.Y.S.2d 145,26 N.Y.2d 129
• Parties: , 257 N.E.2d 610 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent v. Marion G. ADAMS, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 145

309 N.Y.S.2d 145

26 N.Y.2d 129, 257 N.E.2d 610

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent v. Marion G. ADAMS, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Jan. 22, 1970.

Certiorari Denied June 29, 1970. See 90 S.Ct. 2262.

Eugene G. Lamb, Garden City, and Nathan P. Zablow, Freeport, for appellant.

William Cahn, Dist. Atty. (Henry P. DeVine, Mineola, of counsel), for respondent.

JASEN, Judge.

This appeal involves several issues raised by an insanity defense to the charge of murder in the first degree.

On March 20, 1965, the defendant fed butterscotch pudding heavily laced with sleeping pills to her husband. When he had fallen asleep, she bludgeoned him to death with a hammer and stabbed him repeatedly with a kitchen knife. Following the crime, she ingested a quantity of sleeping pills, and called her cousin to say that she had killed her husband and was about to take more pills. The police officers who responded to the cousin's call prevented the defendant from consuming any more pills and received several admissions from the defendant. She stated that she had killed her husband because of an extramarital affair and to provide her daughter with the proceeds of an insurance policy. The defendant was then removed to a hospital for treatment of a possible drug overdose where she again admitted that she had killed her husband because of her romantic involvement with a psychiatrist.

Indicted for murder in the first degree on March 23, 1965, defendant pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. At her trial the admissions, which had earlier been ruled voluntary in a pretrial hearing (People v. Huntley, 15 N.Y.2d 72, 255 N.Y.S.2d 838, 204 N.E.2d 179), were received in evidence against her. On March 8, 1966, the jury found defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, and she was subsequently sentenced to imprisonment for life. The Appellate Division unanimously affirmed, without opinion. 31 A.D.2d 717, 296 N.Y.S.2d 557.

Initially, defendant argues that the court failed to adequately charge the jury under the then-recently amended section 1120 of the former Penal Law dealing with insanity.

Prior to the amendment of section 1120 of the former Penal Law in 1965, the standard of criminal responsibility in this State was the M'Naghten Rule, which provided that a criminal would not be excused from criminal liability as an insane person unless 'at the time of committing the alleged criminal act, he was laboring under such a defect of reason, as either (1) Not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or (2) Not to know that the act was wrong.' (L. 1881, ch. 676, § 21, repealed, eff. July 1, 1965, L. 1965, ch. 593, § 1.) Although commentators and textwriters for a number of years criticized this standard as being out of touch with the realities of modern thought on mental illness (see, e.g., Glueck, Mental Disorder and the Criminal Law, 264--266 (1925), comment, 26 Albany L.Rev. 305, 306--308), the Legislature did not see fit to cause the statute to be amended for many years. (See People v. Taylor, 138 N.Y. 398, 407--408, 34 N.E. 275, 278--279; People v. Horton, 308 N.Y. 1, at p. 13, 123 N.E.2d 609, at p. 614.) The Governor became aware of the shortcomings of M'Naghten as a result of a clemency hearing following our affirmance in People v. Horton (supra) and appointed a commission to recommend possible improvements which could be made to New York's criminal responsibility statute. (See Gutman, People v. Horton: Is the M'Naghten Rule Adequate?, 7 N.Y.L.F. 320.)

This commission reported in 1958 (Governor's Conference on the Defense of Insanity, Interim Report of the Study Committee (hereinafter referred to as the Foster Report)) that the then-current statute containing the M'Naghten Rule should be amended to overcome three major objections. First, it was reported that a difficulty arose in the use of the word 'know' in M'Naghten because a defendant might be able to verbalize that some act is wrong and yet have no depth of understanding as to what this means. Another defect with M'Naghten was said to be its emphasis on the actor's cognitive capacity. The commission noted that the M'Naghten test disregarded the notion that an individual might have minimal awareness of some fact and at the same time lack the ability to control his conduct in light of this. Finally, the commission stated that M'Naghten taken on its face called for a total impairment of ability to know, whereas in even the most extreme psychoses it is impossible to say that the actor was totally bereft of knowledge or control.

The Foster Report suggested an adaptation of section 4.01 of the Model Penal Code (see A.L.I., Tentative Draft No. 4 (1955), p. 27, Comments at pp. 156--159) as a replacement for the M'Naghten Rule. In 1963, the Temporary Commission on Revision of the Penal Law and Criminal Code issued an interim report recommending a new insanity statute. This interim report embraced the conclusions and recommendations of the Foster Report. However, this proposal met with strong opposition from various groups, particularly the District Attorneys, and it was not until 1965 that section 1120 of the former Penal Law was amended to provide: 'A person is not criminally responsible for conduct if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he lacks substantial capacity to know or appreciate either:

'(a) The nature and consequence of such conduct; or

'(b) That such conduct was wrong.'

As noted in the Practice Commentary to section 30.05 of the revised Penal Law (successor to former Penal Law, § 1120, as amd.) in Volume 39 (pt. 1) of McKinney's Consolidated Laws of New York, 'The new or changed formula, while more limited than the original proposal, expands the old McNaghton Rule. Lack of 'substantial capacity' is a more realistic measure than the total impairment required for exculpation under McNaghton. Further, by relating the test to the defendant's mental 'capacity,' the standard is clarified, for, indeed, it is the defendant's power or capacity to know or appreciate about which the psychiatric witness actually testifies.

'A new dimension is accorded the word 'know' by following it with 'or appreciate.' This is designed to permit the defendant possessed of mere surface knowledge or cognition to be excused, and to require that he have some understanding of the legal and moral import of the conduct involved if he is to be held criminally responsible.'

In this case, the trial court instructed the jury that the law would absolve the defendant only if she suffered a defect of reason as the result of a mental disease or defect which prevented her from having the substantial capacity to know or appreciate either the nature and consequences of the charged conduct or that such conduct was wrong. The court added that the People must prove both elements--i.e., that at the time of the killing the defendant knew she was hurting the decedent and that she knew this act was wrong. The court explained that mere surface knowledge is not sufficient to meet this requirement, and described surface knowledge as the type of knowledge children have of propositions which they can state, but cannot understand. Such knowledge, the court charged, has no depth and is divorced from comprehension. The Judge added, that the law intends to impose criminal responsibility upon the defendant only when and if it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that she has some understanding, as opposed to surface understanding of the legal and moral import of the conduct involved.

In regard to the requirement that the defendant must know that the act was wrong, the court instructed the jury that to be held responsible the defendant must have realized that the act was against the law and against the commonly accepted standards of morality. A mere opinion contrary to the general morality, or a substantial propensity to commit crimes, the Judge noted, is not sufficient to indicate the defendant did not understand the act was wrong. As an example, the court explained that a man who kills because he is under the impression that he is a messenger of God sent to kill all the atheists, may understand the nature and consequences of his act, but does not know or appreciate that such conduct is wrong.

It is argued by the defendant that the use of the term 'defect of reason' in the instruction misled the jury into believing that they were not permitted to acquit the defendant unless they found she was suffering from a mental defect. We do not agree. The use of the term 'defect of reason' by the court, when read in the context of the entire charge, is clearly not misleading. In marshaling defendant's psychiatric evidence, the Judge in his charge carefully pointed to testimony that she 'was not suffering from any mental defect, but a mental disease'. Moreover, as previously mentioned, the court specifically instructed the jury that defendant would be relieved of criminal responsibility if they found she was suffering from a defect of reason as a result of mental defect Or disease which prevented her from having the substantial capacity to know or appreciate either the nature and consequences of the charged conduct or that such conduct was wrong. From this, it is apparent that the jury would not have been misled as the defendant suggests.

Defendant also challenges the court's instruction in regard to 'surface knowledge'. Reading the charge with regard to 'surface knowledge' indicates that it is substantially the same as the discussion of the subject in the Foster Report and the 1963 Interim Report of the Temporary Commission on Revision of the Penal Law and Criminal Code.

Equally specious is the objection to the charge relating to 'substantial capacity to know or appreciate', as the terms are used in section 1120 of the former Penal Law.

As mentioned above, the jury was charged that the defendant should not be found guilty if she lacked the...