People v. Young
| Citation | 364 Mich. 554,111 N.W.2d 870 |
| Decision Date | 30 November 1961 |
| Docket Number | No. 93,93 |
| Parties | PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Cecil YOUNG, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Michigan |
James R. Golden, Battle Creek, for defendant and appellant.
Paul L. Adams, Atty. Gen., Joseph B. Bilityke, Sol. Gen., Noble Moore, Pros. Atty., Marshall, for appellee.
Before the Entire Bench.
On February 20, 1952, Ida Bell Harris, former wife of defendant-appellant, Cecil Young, was killed in her apartment by knife wounds, one of which seversed the jugular vein. Defendant-appellant was charged with her murder.
After examination, a sanity commission was appointed. On hearing its report, a Calhoun county circuit judge found Young to be 'so insane that he is incapable of understanding the nature and object of the proceedings against him,' and committed him to the Ionia State hospital for the criminally insane 'until restored to his right mind.' See C.L.1948, § 767.27 (Stat.Ann.1954 Rev. § 28.967).
Six years later, on November 6, 1958, the medical superintendent of the Ionia State hospital certified to the circuit court of Calhoun county that appellant was restored to sanity and able to understand the nature of the proceedings against him. Thereupon he was returned to the Calhoun county jail to be tried on the original charge of murder.
Prior to trial his counsel filed notice of defense claiming that Young was 'insane at the time of the alleged commission of the offense.'
At the trial this defense was the only contested issue. The prosecution witnesses established the knifing of the deceased by defendant and testified to defendant's subsequent admissions of the killing. This testimony was disputed only as to the coherence and detail of defendant's admissions. The prosecution also presented a psychiatrist as a rebuttal witness on the issue of insanity. This witness, Dr. Meister, testified to interviewing defendant twice shortly after his arrest and gave as his opinion that Young was sane at the time the crime was committed.
Dr. John G. Haarer testified for the defense. Dr. Haarer was identified as a psychiatrist who had been medical superintendent of Ionia State hospital during a portion of defendant's stay there. He gave as his opinion that defendant had been suffering from a mental disease called catatonic schizophrenia at the time of the commission of the crime. He also testified that defendant was 'so insane, legally insane, that he could not differentiate right from wrong.'
Aside from the testimony of these 2 expert witnesses, whose opinions were in direct conflict, the only testimony, relating directly to the mental illness question concerned defendant's Section VIII discharge from the army. The army medical records were admitted in evidence by stipulation. These indicated that during overseas service in 1943 defendant had had hallucinations which had led to a diagnosis of psychosis, and to his return to the States and discharge. These records also indicated that army tests and had shown defendant had mentality of 8 years.
The case was submitted to a jury with a charge which properly posed the issue of insanity. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, and the trial judge denied a motion for a new trial and sentenced defendant to life imprisonment.
On appeal, the only issue before this Court is defendant-appellant's contention that the circuit judge committed prejudicial error in his cross-examination of defendant's medical witness.
The colloquy complained of followed Dr. Haarer's direct examination, and his cross-examination by the prosecuting attorney. It ran as follows:
'The Court: But you took into consideration his past history, didn't you?
'The Court: Were you the one that sat on his case at the time you said he recovered his psychosis?
'The Court: When he was released from Ionia?
'The Court: And didn't all of this history still exist of what had happened in the past, at that time?
'The Court: How do you psychiatrists square that with the idea that you use that you say that he is insane one time, and then you pass upon the same facts a year or so, or a few years later, and those same facts are there, and still you say he has recovered?
'The Court: Well, he testified here this morning that he couldn't remember anything of the facts that happened at the time of this offense that is alleged to have occurred, and these are the same facts he testified to you at the time he came up there.
'The Court: I guess I just don't understand how you can use the same facts...
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People v. Stevens, Docket No. 149380.
...have” standard.2 Unfortunately, application of the standard set forth in Simpson and Cole has been inconsistent. In People v. Young, 364 Mich. 554, 558, 111 N.W.2d 870 (1961), this Court cited Cole for the proposition that we have “not hesitated to reverse for new trial when the trial judge......
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People v. Swilley
...clearer otherwise unclear, vague, or confusing testimony. Stevens , 498 Mich. at 173, 175-176, 869 N.W.2d 233 ; People v. Young , 364 Mich. 554, 558, 111 N.W.2d 870 (1961) (noting that a judge’s authority "encompasses a right to question a witness for the purpose of shedding light on someth......
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People v. Anstey
...N.W. 484 (1936), and the court should not make known to the jury its own views regarding disputed factual issues, People v. Young, 364 Mich. 554, 558, 111 N.W.2d 870 (1961), the credibility of witnesses, People v. Clark, 340 Mich. 411, 420-421, 65 N.W.2d 717 (1954), or the ultimate question......
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People v. Moss
...court's participation in the trial denied the defendants a fair and impartial trial by unduly influencing the jury. People v. Young, 364 Mich. 554, 111 N.W.2d 870 (1961), People v. Cole, 349 Mich. 175, 84 N.W.2d 711 (1957). To so determine we review the record in its entirety and adopt the ......