People v. Martin
| Decision Date | 21 December 1971 |
| Docket Number | 2,Nos. 1,s. 1 |
| Parties | PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Charles Ronald MARTIN, Defendant-Appellant. PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. J. C. LEWIS, Jr., Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Thomas G. Plunkett, Pros. Atty., Oakland County by Frank R. Knox, Asst. Pros. Atty., James K. Miller, Pros. Atty. by Donald A. Johnston, III, Asst. Pros. Atty., Grand Rapids, for plaintiff-appellee.
Cholette, Perkins & Buchanan by Richard D. Ward, Grand Rapids (Kenneth L. Block, Grand Rapids, of counsel), for defendant-appellant Martin.
Smith, Magnusson, Anderson & Chartrand by Douglas Chartrand, Pontiac, for defendant and appellant Lewis.
Before the Entire Bench.
In both of these cases, defendants challenge the Michigan test for criminal insanity. In Lewis, the right of the People to conduct a psychiatric examination of a defendant is also challenged.
Martin appeals from a first degree murder conviction. During the early morning of March 2, 1968, in Walker, Michigan, Martin robbed a gas station, shot and killed the two attendants. He was apprehended by Indiana State Police acting pursuant to a radio dispatch. While in custody at the county jail of LaPorte, Indiana, Martin signed a waiver of extradition. The police from Walker city arrived and took defendant back to Michigan. On March 4, 1968, Martin signed a confession which included the detailed plans he had made prior to the crime.
On August 22, defendant moved to quash the information on the ground that the court lacked jurisdiction over him because of the manner in which he was returned from Indiana. The motion was denied. Martin was found mentally competent to stand trial and was tried by Judge Boucher.
The sole issue was the defense of insanity. Four psychiatrists testified--three representing the State and one representing defendant. The three psychiatrists who examined defendant agreed that Martin was suffering from some personality disorder. Dr. Kenneth Nickel, called by the prosecution, opined that Martin had a passive-aggressive personality disorder. Dr. Nasit Tanal, whose examination concerned Martin's competency to stand trial, felt defendant was suffering from a schizophrenic reaction. Dr. Wolfgang May, called by the defense, stated that defendant was mentally ill during the commission of the crime and termed that illness a combination of dissociation, dissociative reaction, and overwhelming of the superego. Dr. May testified that during the commission of the crime Martin did not know the difference between right and wrong and was operating under an irresistible impulse. The State's psychiatrists disagreed with both conclusions.
The fourth psychiatrist, Dr. Ames Robey, called on rebuttal by the prosecution over defense counsel's objections, stated that a schizophrenic could know right from wrong and resist an impulse to commit a crime.
The trial court found that Martin did know right from wrong, could resist an impulse to commit the crime, and concluded that he was guilty of murder. The court found that if Michigan accepted the Durham 'product' test, defendant could be found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Martin contests his conviction on three grounds: 1) the Indiana waiver of extradition signed by him is invalid for failure to comply with Mich.Comp.Laws, Ann. § 780.1, et seq. (Stat.Ann. 1954 Rev. § 28.1285(1), et seq.), and Indiana Burns.Ann.Stat. § 9--419, et seq., IC 1971, 35--4--3--1 et seq., for failure to apprise defendant of the charge of murder and because, as a minor, Martin was not competent to waive his rights; 2) the trial court erred in permitting Dr. Robey to be indorsed after the trial had begun and in refusing to grant defense counsel's request to have Dr. Robey sequestered; and 3) the trial judge erred in not applying the Durham 'product' test of insanity.
On November 25, 1968, at about 2:30 a.m., Joan Carper observed J. C. Lewis, Jr., peeking into the room in her apartment where she was about to go to sleep. Lewis attacked and beat her. He remained in her apartment for about four hours, during which time he attempted several times to rape her, forced her to commit fellatio, and finally consummated intercourse. He was arrested the next day at school. After receiving the proper Miranda warnings, he signed a full confession which was found to be voluntary.
The first day of trial, the prosecution moved that the court order defendant to undergo a psychiatric examination by a prosecution-selected psychiatrist. Defendant's attorney objected, arguing that the motion was untimely and violated defendant's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Judge Ziem ruled in favor of the prosecution and ordered the examination. Defendant, on advice of counsel, refused to talk to the psychiatrist. Following additional argument, the court ordered defendant to talk to the prosecution psychiatrist. Defendant complied.
Testimony at the trial by Lewis' mother, a psychiatric social worker and a psychiatrist, indicated that Lewis had been mistreated by his father when he was young and had developed a pattern of increasingly frequent 'Peeping Tom' activity, combined with masturbation. The prosecution psychiatrist, Dr. Maurice E. Willis, admitted that Lewis was unstable and mentally ill.
'A. * * * The thing that makes this Man sick is the fact that they happen with or without the stimulus. That's Why he's sick.
'A. I've already conceded he's about as Unstable as he can be.
(Emphasis supplied.)
Following a three-day trial, Judge Ziem found Lewis guilty of rape and gross indecency and sentenced him to a term of 15 to 40 years' imprisonment for rape, and 4 to 5 years' imprisonment for gross indecency. Defendant appealed.
After various intervening proceedings, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court per curiam. (31 Mich.App. 91, 187 N.W.2d 571). We granted leave to appeal and at the same time ordered the Lewis case consolidated with the Martin case for joint submission and invited the appropriate committee of the State Bar of Michigan and other interested parties to file amicus curiae briefs on the following questions:
1) Whether the Michigan test for insanity in criminal cases should be changed or supplemented.
2) Whether a trial court may, upon its own motion or upon the motion of the prosecutor, order a psychiatric examination over defendant's objections to determine criminal responsibility at the time of the offense. (384 Mich. 838,
839). I. Should Michigan Adopt a New
Test for Determining What Constitutes Criminal Insanity?
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.'
Invictus, William Ernest Henley.
'There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.'
Long before psychiatry was recognized as a branch of medicine, judges, juries, lawyers, philosophers, playwrights, poets and theologians were struggling with humanity's eternal problem--mastery of one's fate versus a fate that overwhelms and destroys. In our system of criminal law when the issue of insanity is raised, this is the critical question that must be decided in a trial by the jury or by the judge. Should Michigan adopt a new test for determining what constitutes criminal insanity? In seeking an answer to this question, the following tests have been considered:
1. The M'Naghten Rule--Daniel M'Naghten's Case (HL, 1843), 10 Cl Fin 200, 210 (8 Eng.Rep. 718, 722).
'(A)t the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.'
2. People v. Garbutt (1868), 17 Mich. 9, 20.
'* * * that where the defense makes proof of insanity, partial or otherwise, whenever it shall be made to appear from the evidence that prior to or at the time of the offense charged, the prisoner was not of sound mind, but was afflicted with insanity, and such affliction was the efficient cause of the act, he ought to be acquitted by the jury.'
3. The Michigan test as stated in People v. Durfee (1886), 62 Mich. 487, 494, 29 N.W. 109, 112.
4. The Durham 'product' test--Durham v. United States, 94 U.S.App.D.C. 228, 214 F.2d 862, 874--875 (1954).
'* * * an accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or mental defect.'
5. A.L.I. Model Penal Test, § 4.01 (1962).
'A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality (wrongfulness) of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law.'
6. § 705, Proposed Michigan Revised Criminal Code (1967).
'A person is not criminally responsible for his conduct if at the time he acts, as a result of mental disease or defect, he lacks capacity to confirm his conduct to the requirements of law.'
In 1843, the English House of Lords formulated a rule to fix criminal responsibility in England that has come to be known as the M'Naghten Rule--or the right from wrong test. In many American jurisdictions, this test was adopted with modifications. 1
In People v. Garbutt, Supra, defendant was charged with the crime of murder in the first degree....
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