People v. Webb

• Decision Date: 10 September 1998
• Docket Number: Docket No. 104587,No. 1,1
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ronald D. WEBB, Defendant-Appellant. Calendar
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 884

580 N.W.2d 884

458 Mich. 265

PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ronald D. WEBB, Defendant-Appellant.

Docket No. 104587.

Calendar No. 1.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Argued April 9, 1998.

Decided July 21, 1998.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 10, 1998.

Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General, Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General, John McBain, Prosecuting Attorney, Richard D. Hitt, Special Prosecutor, and Jerrold Schrotenboer, Chief Appellate Attorney, Jackson, for People.

State Appellate Defender by P.E. Bennett, Detroit, for Defendant-Appellant.

Opinion

MALLETT, Chief Justice.

This is a murder case in which the defendant offered the defense of insanity. Following his conviction on one murder count, the defendant argued in the Court of Appeals that the circuit court abused its discretion in restricting the testimony of his psychiatric expert. The Court of Appeals affirmed, finding no error. We believe that the circuit court did err, but we likewise affirm. On this record, the error was harmless.

We also modify the judgment of the Court of Appeals with regard to the nature of the sentencing procedure that should be followed when a defendant is acquitted of one offense by reason of insanity, but is convicted of another offense. In such a situation, a defendant is properly sentenced to the custody of the Department of Corrections and shall receive evaluation and treatment of any mental illness pursuant to M.C.L. § 768.36; M.S.A. § 28.1059.

I

In November 1990, the defendant shot and killed his father and his father's friend. The shootings took place at the father's home, where the defendant also lived. A short time before, the father ordered the defendant, then nineteen years old, to move out of the house.

During the defendant's youth, the relationship between him and his father had been tumultuous. According to the defendant, his father was physically abusive and had a substantial drinking problem. Over the years, the defendant had engaged in a variety of aggressive and antisocial behaviors, some directed against his father and some directed against others. At one point, the defendant attempted to burn down his father's house.

After the shootings, the defendant made some efforts to conceal the crime; however, he was soon apprehended. He was charged with two counts of open murder and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. M.C.L. §§ 750.316, 750.227b; M.S.A. §§ 28.548, 28.424(2).

The defendant offered an insanity defense. His expert witness was Andrew S. Watson, M.D., a retired professor of law and of psychiatry. ¹ The prosecution expert was William A. Decker, M.D., a former administrator of the Department of Mental Health's hospital in Kalamazoo.

Pursuant to M.C.L. § 768.20a(6); M.S.A. § 28.1043(1)(6), ² each expert prepared and submitted a report. Dr. Watson's eight-page report and Dr. Decker's seven-page report, both typed single-spaced, began with a list of prior sources that each doctor examined. By title, and without summary of content, Dr. Watson listed thirty-seven various letters, reports, and other materials that he had reviewed before meeting the defendant. Dr. Decker listed thirty-nine such items, including Dr. Watson's report. Each doctor then described at length the information and the impressions garnered during an interview with the defendant. Dr. Watson's report concluded with these observations:

As noted above, this [double homicide] was not deliberate and conscious activity, but was rather driven by unconscious forces over which he had no control. This lack of self-awareness, due to the factors outlined above, are the manifestations of mental illness required by law in an insanity pleading.

For the reasons stated above, it is my opinion that 1) Ronnie Webb can appropriately plead not guilty by reason of insanity; or alternatively 2) that he may be found to lack the intent to commit first degree murder.

Dr. Decker reached a different conclusion:

There was nothing in the information that I obtained from Mr. Ronald Webb personally, or in my observations of him during the course of my evaluation, or in the voluminous amount of material that I reviewed to indicate that Ronald David Webb at any time in the past or at the time of the commission of the crime with which he is charged on November 3, 1990, to indicate that he was mentally ill. Further, there was no evidence to indicate that he lacked the capacity to either appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. It is therefore my opinion that Mr. Ronald David Webb was not legally insane at the time of the commission of the crimes with which he is charged of having committed on November 3, 1990.

The defendant was tried in May 1992. After defense counsel offered his opening statement, the assistant prosecutor rose to object:

Your Honor, during opening statement counsel indicated that we would hear from Dr. Watson that the defendant was mentally ill. Dr. Watson filed a report here. In his report he comes to his conclusions, and his conclusions don't say he's mentally ill. Nowhere in here does Dr. Watson say that Ronnie Webb is mentally ill.

* * * * * *

Now, [defense counsel] is suggesting that his examiner is going to come in saying something other than what is contained in the report, which is required to list the mental illness or if he's mentally ill. He doesn't say anywhere in there that he was, in fact, mentally ill. I guess my motion is two parts, Judge: One is to strike the defense of insanity, strike the witness, or limit the witness to the conclusions that he draws in his report as to mental illness.

* * * * * *

[Defense counsel] now says that his examiner is going to--his independent examiner is going to say something other than the conclusions that he has drawn in his report, to-wit: That Ronnie Webb is mentally ill. What he says here is: This lack of self-awareness, due to the factors outlined above, are manifestations of mental illness. He doesn't say he's mentally ill or what the mental illness is.

* * * * * * Judge, I guess, other than that the statute requires that he lists that he's mentally ill; he doesn't do that. He doesn't say that he's insane in the report. It says that he's got to list sanity or insanity. What I presume what [defense counsel] is going to do is have Mr. Watson testify that Ronnie Webb was mentally ill and was insane at the time of the shooting. He doesn't say it in his report, Your Honor. I either want him stricken or limited to what he puts forth in his report in compliance with the statute.

The objection was discussed by the attorneys and by the judge, and the subject was treated again, at length, the following day. Defense counsel protested that "the prosecutor is trying to suggest to this court that the expert has to repeat in his report the words used by the legislature in the law, and that is not my understanding of the intent of the legislature." Defense counsel argued that Dr. Watson's report provided "exactly" what the statute required and responded, "How the prosecutor can suggest to the Court that that does not say that the man was mentally ill at the time is beyond me."

The circuit court refused to bar the defense of insanity or the testimony of Dr. Watson. The court noted that, early in his report, Dr. Watson wrote that "[t]he purpose of this evaluation is to ascertain whether Ronnie Webb's capacity to understand and to conform his behavior to the requirements of the law...." Given Dr. Watson's final conclusion that the defendant had exhibited "the manifestations of mental illness required by law in an insanity pleading," the circuit court evidently found that the report contained, with sufficient clarity, a finding of mental illness and insanity. ³

The court then ruled:

I'm not going to allow Dr. Watson to testify to any clinical findings that are not listed in his report. The statute requires that the report shall contain the facts in reasonable detail upon which the findings were based. I'm not going to allow him to testify to any facts, upon which the findings were based if they're not listed in his report.

When asked to clarify the ruling, the court added that Dr. Watson would not be permitted to testify on the basis of facts adduced by other witnesses during the trial.

Dr. Watson testified at length on behalf of the defendant. During the course of his testimony, he pushed the limits of the court's evidentiary ruling, prompting numerous objections from the assistant prosecutor. In response, the circuit court several times reaffirmed its earlier ruling that Dr. Watson's testimony would be restricted to what was contained in his report. In these exchanges, the court indicated that Dr. Watson could not testify regarding the factual background supplied by the thirty-seven documents that he had reviewed and that were listed at the beginning of his report.

Despite the objections of the assistant prosecutor, and the trial court sustaining those objections, Dr. Watson was able to testify fully regarding this matter. A review of his wide-ranging testimony, spread across two days of trial and almost two hundred pages of transcript, reveals that he was able to present a full exposition of his views and of the facts and theories that were the bases for his conclusions. In short, Dr. Watson was a forceful witness who, notwithstanding the trial court's rulings, found ways to provide the jury with the information that he wished to share.

The jury returned its verdict on the tenth day of trial. With regard to the murder of his father, it found the defendant not guilty by reason of insanity. However, he was found guilty, but mentally ill, of second-degree murder in the shooting death of his father's friend. The jury also found the defendant guilty of two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

For the murder of his father's friend, the...