People v. Schnieder

• Decision Date: 23 March 1972
• Docket Number: Docket No. 11080,No. 2,2
• Citation: 197 N.W.2d 539,39 Mich.App. 342
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Daniel SCHNIEDER, Defendant-Appellant
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

Page 539

197 N.W.2d 539

39 Mich.App. 342

PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.Daniel SCHNIEDER, Defendant-Appellant.

Docket No. 11080.

Court of Appeals of Michigan, Division No. 2.

March 23, 1972.

Released for Publication May 25, 1972.

Leave to Appeal Denied May 23, 1972.

Arthur J. Tarnow, State Appellate Defender, Detroit, for defendant-appellant.

Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Robert A. Derengoski, Sol.Gen., Walter W. Turton, Pros.Atty., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before DANHOF, P.J., and T. M. BURNS and O'HARA, ^* JJ.

O'HARA, Judge.

We address ourselves again to the relatively new statute, M.C.L.A. § 767.27a;M.S.A. § 28.966(11), which prescribes the method by which a defendant's competency to stand trial is determined in this State.In pertinent part, the statute provides:

'(3) Upon a showing that the defendant may be incompetent to stand trial, the court shall commit the defendant in the criminal case to the custody of the center for forensic psychiatry or to any other diagnostic facility certified by the department of mental health for the performance of forensic psychiatric evaluation.The commitment shall be for a period not to exceed 60 days.Within that period the center to other facility shall prepare a diagnostic report and recommendations which are to be transmitted to the committing court.'

'(4) Upon receipt of the diagnostic report and recommendations the sheriff shall immediately return the defendant to the committing court and the court shall immediately hear and determine the issue of competence to stand trial.The diagnostic report and recommendations shall be admissible as evidence in the hearing, but not for any other purpose in the pending criminal proceedings.'(Emphasis supplied.)

The precise point of precedential significance presented by this appeal should be thus stated:

Where an accused is committed to the forensic center and a report as to his competence to stand trial is furnished the trial court pursuant to the statute, may a psychiatrist who has participated in the examination and preparation of the report, and who is also called as a witness to give opinion evidence in the case in chief on the question of the defendant's insanity as a pleaded defense, base his opinion in whatever minimal degree upon the report of the center or upon any information he obtained in the course of his examination of the defendant at the center?

The question is of first impression.

In the first place, the examining psychiatrist who signed the report of the forensic center should not even have been called as a witness in the case in chief.We disapprove the practice.It is to be discontinued in the trial courts.

In this case, once called, the psychiatrist was absolutely barred...