People v. Hannum

• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: DETHMERS; CARR, KELLY and BLACK, JJ., concurred with DETHMERS; SOURIS; SMITH, EDWARDS and KAVANAGH, JJ., concurred with SOURIS
• Citation: People v. Hannum, 362 Mich. 660, 107 N.W.2d 894 (Mich. 1961)
• Decision Date: 01 March 1961
• Docket Number: No. 73,73
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Louise HANNUM, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 894

107 N.W.2d 894

362 Mich. 660

PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Louise HANNUM, Defendant and Appellant.

No. 73.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

March 1, 1961.

Mustard, Clagett & Everett, Battle Creek, for defendant and appellant.

Noble O. Moore, Pros. Atty., Calhoun County, Marshall, for plaintiff and appellee.

Before the Entire Bench.

DETHMERS, Chief Justice.

On August 8, 1956, defendant shot and killed her husband. She was arrested that day and taken to the city police station. On the way to the station she made statements and admissions to a policewoman about the killing. Two days later she was arraigned. Shortly before the arraignment she made admissions to another police officer about getting a gun, her husband's struggling with her for possession of it, and his being shot. Both officers were permitted to give testimony about those admissions and statements at trial.

After arraignment defendant was examined by two psychiatrists at the request of the prosecuting attorney. They stated that, in their opinion, she was insane. A petition to fix a time and place for hearing to inquire into and determine the issue of insanity was filed, an order entered accordingly, and a hearing was had on September 12, 1956. On that date the court determined that defendant was insane and incapable of understanding the nature and object of the proceedings against her and of assisting in her defense in a rational or reasonable manner. The court, therefore, ordered defendant committed to the Ionia State Hospital until restored to sanity, all in compliance with C.L.1948, § 767.27 (Stat.Ann. § 28.967).

On November 8, 1957, the medical superintendent of the hospital notified the court that defendant was restored to sanity and requested her removal therefrom. On November 13, 1957, the court ordered defendant's removal from the hospital and retention in the county jail for trial on a murder charge, as in the mentioned statute provided. On January 16, 1958, defendant moved to dismiss on the ground that no cause of action existed against her because of her insanity at the time of shooting her husband. The motion was denied and defendant ordered to stand trial.

Defendant next filed notice of intention to claim insanity as a defense. On trial a jury found her guilty of manslaughter. The court sentenced her to serve from 10 to 15 years in the Detroit House of Correction. Motion for new trial was denied. Defendant appeals.

Defendant claims error in denial of her motion to dismiss before trial because it had been established, so she says, by judicial proceedings that she was insane when the offense was committed. Reference is to the mentioned sanity proceedings. Although the two psychiatrists had testified at those proceedings that it was their opinion, based on their examination of defendant two days after the shooting, that she then was and for some time prior thereto had been insane, the court made no such determination. It found only that on the date of hearing she was insane and incapable of assisting in her defense. The statute above cited provides for the kind of proceedings here had, at the time and under the circumstances here presented. It further provides that under such circumstances, upon certification by the hospital superintendent of restoration to sanity, defendant shall be brought to trial. As indicated in In re Roberts, 310 Mich. 372, 17 N.W.2d 218, the determination in the sanity proceedings, commitment and subsequent discharge from the hospital in no way relieved defendant from standing trial thereafter. The determination of insanity in the proceedings did not relate to defendant's condition at the time of shooting. That question was for determination by the jury at time of trial. The motion to dismiss was properly denied.

Defendant further claims error in reception of testimony of lay witnesses at trial that defendant was sane. The policewoman who took defendant from the scene of the crime to jail and there observed her during the next two days until arraignment testified that, in her opinion, defendant was sane. Another police officer, who had seen and talked with defendant at the jail, testified to the same effect. A third officer testified that he had observed defendant for one half-hour and had seen nothing abnormal. Defendant complains that their testimony was incompetent because a proper basis was not laid for its admission. She urges that it was not shown that the officers had known defendant before her arrest or had had sufficient opportunity to observe her thereafter. Her reliance is on O'Connor v. Madison, 98 Mich. 183, 57 N.W. 105. There this Court held, in a will contest, that the testimony of lay witness as to a testator's incompetency was admissible only when it appeared that the witness was sufficiently acquainted with the testator and that it was not error for the court to require such witness to state all the circumstances upon which his opinion was based before permitting him to state his opinion. Cited also is People v. Zabijak, 285 Mich. 164, 280 N.W. 149, 157, in which this Court said:

'A non-expert witness who has had ample means to observe and form conclusions as to the mental condition of a person and who testifies to pertinent facts on which his conclusions are based may state his conclusions as to the insanity of a person. Paul v. Clements, 176 Mich. 251, 256, 142 N.W. 384; Lamb v. Lippincott, 115 Mich. 611, 73 N.W. 887. See, also, Beaubien v. Cicotte, 12 Mich. 459, 502.'

Defendant says the officers in the instant case did not have ample means to observe and form conclusions. In Zabijak, however, the testimony held properly excluded did not consist of the lay witnesses' opinions of defendant's insanity but rather their conclusions as to what the facts were about defendant from which insanity might be inferred. Also, it is to be observed that in O'Connor and in Zabijak the test laid down was for qualification to testify as to insanity. In the case at bar the situation is reversed, the question going to competency of evidence of sanity. In People v. Borgetto, 99 Mich. 336, 58 N.W. 328, 330, this Court said:

'The subject has recently been discussed in the case of O'Connor v. Madison, 98 Mich. 183, 57 N.W. 105, where the authorities are collected, and where it is held that a witness cannot be permitted to state that a testator was mentally incompetent until he has detailed some circumstances which the court can say tend to show it. * * *

'But there is a difference in the nature of the testimony requisite as bases for opinions in the two cases of sanity and insanity. The former is the normal condition; the latter, the abnormal. The latter is based upon unnatural conduct; the former may safely rest upon the absence of unnatural action or language. Once it is shown that the witness has a sufficient acquaintance under circumstances that give a reasonable opportunity for judging, and the testimony that he saw nothing unusual or abnormal is competent. What is required to show a sufficient opportunity depends upon circumstances which may properly move the judicial discretion, the testimony being more or less valuable as the circumstances are convincing. In the language of that case, when, 'taken as a whole, they move the judicial discretion of the trial judge, by apprising him that the witness may believe in the competency of the person upon reasonable grounds, 'the opinion may be given.'

Defendant also cites People v. Saccoia, 268 Mich. 132, 255 N.W. 738. There this Court upheld the trial court's rejection of testimony of a doctor who did not claim to be an expert on mental diseases, of his opinion of defendant's mental condition before the doctor had examined or known him after having testified that defendant was sane when he examined him. The case is inapplicable here as the officers testified only concerning their opinion that defendant was sane on the day of the offense and immediately following it when they saw her.

We think no error was committed in the admission of the lay testimony on the basis of the opportunities they had to observe defendant, the extent of which was made known to the juyr. The question was not one of admissibility but, rather, one of weight to be given the testimony by the jury.

Error is assigned on reception of the testimony of an officer about statements or admissions of defendant made to him a day or more after arrest but before arraignment, relying on Mallory v. United States, 354 U.S. 449, 77 S.Ct. 1356, 1 L.Ed.2d 1479. This case was tried two years before our decision in People v. Hamilton, 359 Mich. 410, 102 N.W.2d 738. There we made clear our views on failure of officers to take accused before a magistrate promptly for arraignment and the inadmissibility of confessions wrung from the prisoner before such belated arraignment. In the instant case, however, statements made by defendant to officers immediately after the shooting and testimony of bystanders about defendant's res gestae statements, so clearly established the facts that the testimony of statements made to police two days later could scarcely have had prejudicial effect.

Defendant claims that testimony as to defendant's extrajudicial admissions was erroneously received when the corpus delicti had not been established by independent proofs. This went to the matter of lack of proofs of premeditation or malice aforethought, a necessary element of murder in the first degree of which defendant stood charged. When the evidence of such admission was offered and objection made on the grounds of lack of other proofs of corpus delicti, the prosecuting attorney moved to amend the information by striking out the words 'willfully or with malice aforethought.' The court, over defendant's objection, allowed the amendment and permitted the testimony. The jury ultimately convicted defendant of manslaughter. There can be no doubt that, as to manslaughter, there were...