People v. Yukl

• Decision Date: 27 June 1975
• Citation: 83 Misc.2d 364,372 N.Y.S.2d 313
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York v. Charles YUKL, Defendant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court

Page 313

372 N.Y.S.2d 313

83 Misc.2d 364

The PEOPLE of the State of New York v. Charles YUKL, Defendant.

Supreme Court, Trial Term, New York County, Part 36.

June 27, 1975.

Robert M. Morgenthau, Dist. Atty. (Robert Tanenbaum, New York City, of counsel), for the People.

Lawrence K. Feitell, New York City, for defendant.

JOSEPH A. MARTINIS, Justice:

Defendant, charged with murder, has, through his counsel, submitted an omnibus motion with several branches, all of which, with the exception of two, have already been determined.

The court reserved decision on the remaining two branches because each of them raised questions of law and considerations of policy that required an extended research and analysis of the issues presented and the arguments made.

The first of these, in the order that they will be considered, requests a bifurcated trial for the defendant; and, the second, the appointment of a cytogeneticist to conduct chromosomal tests of defendant's blood.

MOTION FOR A BIFURCATED TRIAL

The defendant, Charles Yukl, has been indicted and charged with the murder of twenty-three-year-old Karen Schlegel. The alleged crime is said to have occurred on the night of August 19, 1974, in the defendant's apartment while the defendant's wife was temporarily away. The body of the deceased was discovered in a state of disarray shortly thereafter on the roof of defendant's apartment house.

The defendant had been involved in a similar brutal killing in 1966, for which he was convicted, sentenced and eventually released on parole in 1973 from Walkill State Prison.

It appears that the defendant intends to interpose an insanity defense. The psychiatric testimony adduced from defense experts will, of necessity, rest heavily on the defendant's prior violent behavior, in particular, the 1966 brutal killing of Susan Reynolds. In addition, there may be potentially damaging admissions made by the defendant during the course of the psychiatric examination, which the defense would seek to use solely to establish defendant's mental incapacity at the time of the crime.

The defendant has made a motion for a bifurcated trial on the issues of guilt and insanity. In order to avoid what he claims is the inherent prejudice that would result from the introduction of testimony with respect to the 1966 killing and any admissions made to the psychiatrists, the defendant has requested that the issue of insanity be tried first to a separate jury, and then, should defendant be found sane, another jury will determine if the defendant is guilty of the crime as charged.

The questions that this court must determine are whether bifurcation is a necessary procedure under these circumstances and, secondly, whether it is a proper procedure under the law.

The concept of a bifurcated trial whereby the issues of culpability and mental capacity are tried sequentially is often put forth as a curative procedure to remedy problems similar to those posed by the defendant herein. Thus with ever-increasing frequency defendants similarly situated have been challenging the traditional procedures by which an insanity defense is raised and determined.

No court has yet accepted the argument that the concept of a bifurcated trial is a constitutional right that inures to a defendant in any given case (Murphy v. Florida, 495 F.2d 553 (5th Cir., 1974); United States v. Huff, 409 F.2d 1225 (5th Cir.), cert. den., 396 U.S. 857, 90 S.Ct. 123, 24 L.Ed.2d 108(1969); Simpson v. State, 275 A.2d 794 (Del., 1971); Commonwealth v. Bumpus, 290 N.E.2d 167 (Mass., 1972)). In this jurisdiction, an appeal was urged on the ground that the defendant should have been granted a bifurcated trial. The Court of Appeals in People v. Staten, 28 N.Y.2d 904, 322 N.Y.S.2d 732, 271 N.E.2d 563, affirmed the conviction without opinion, where the People had contended there was no constitutional right to a bifurcated trial.

However, the concept of a two-staged trial where a defendant raises the defense of insanity has not been totally discarded and, indeed, some of the courts believe that there may be good cause for its adoption in given instances. Three of our states--California, Colorado and Texas--have adopted such a procedure by statute.

However, the procedure, whether prescribed by a court through its inherent powers or by statute, is not feasibly workable. To dichotomize the two issues in separate trials as urged by its proponents cannot be done under the substantive penal law.

The trial of either issue, in whatever sequence, necessitates the determination of some of the elements in the other. So that the concept itself is pregnant with notes of self-contradiction.

Examining this procedural concept which was embodied in the state statute, the highest court of Arizona, the Supreme Court of that state, analyzed and evaluated its feasibility and the history of its application in its own and in other states in State v. Shaw, 106 Ariz. 103, 471 P.2d 715.

In its well-reasoned and studied opinion, replete with citations and quotations of other cases and legal commentaries, the court sets forth the labyrinthal paths and the prestidigitation required to overcome the paradoxical conclusions to which the adoption of a bifurcated trial has led and ultimately invalidated the statute as being in violation of constitutional due process.

The basic fallacy in the concept of bifurcation is that the intent to commit the crime with which the defendant is charged is a major element in all serious criminal cases to be alleged and proven by the state. Any diminution of that intent is competent evidence which the defendant must not be precluded from presenting to the trier of the facts. Thus his culpability is predicated not only upon the act that he committed, but also upon his mental state of awareness and/or responsibility at the time he committed the act. Any evidence affecting his capacity to form an intent or bearing upon the mental formulation of intent to commit the act is indeed part of the case. So that it is patently clear that the culpability trial will necessitate the adducing of evidence bearing upon his mental responsibility in cases where an insanity defense is raised. Therefore, elements of his insanity defense will become materially relevant to determine his intent at the time he committed the act.

The adjudication of the insanity issue prior to the determination of the culpability trial would present questions of whether the defendant in fact committed the act with which he is charged. For without such a finding, the resultant adjudication of the defendant's sanity would be made without a predicate, which is the act that he committed or the corpus of the crime. And, moreover, such an adjudication, if the defendant were found insane at the time he is alleged to have committed such an act, would not be dispositive of the case. It would leave the defendant without any adjudication that he did or did not commit the act, and might very well lead to the raising of constitutional issues of due process because the effect of such adjudication might result in his being institutionalized in accordance with our proceedings. (See section 330.20 of the Criminal Procedure Law.)

Thus analyzed, such a procedure, if judicially adopted in this jurisdiction as proposed, though sounding, at first blush, as meritorious and expeditious, would not in my opinion be legally feasible under our Penal Law. It is laden with problems of due process and does not accomplish the movant's purpose of dichotomizing the stated issues in an absolute way. To duplicate the issues in a two-stage proceeding, as is done in the states that have adopted this kind of procedure by statute (California, Colorado and Texas), would only result in exacerbating the legal complexities and furthering delay in the trial of cases.

"The bifurcated trial system as it now stands, still appears to be fraught with the same basic legal infirmities which accompanied it at its inception. Such infirmities cannot be cured by the application of procedural remedies" (State v. Shaw, supra, 723, citing 3 Cal. West L.Rev. 159).

Accordingly, the motion for a bifurcated trial is in all respects denied.

MOTION FOR THE APPOINTMENT OF A CYTOGENETICIST

Also, as part of the insanity defense of his client, the attorney seeks the appointment of a qualified cytogeneticist to carry out the chromosomal testing of the defendant's blood at county expense. Although it is suggested that such testing is not mechanically complex and is inexpensive, the use of the results, if favorable to the insanity defense, would be offered at the trial of the action. Thus the court must determine whether or not evidence of chromosome abnormality should be admitted as a part of the defense of insanity in criminal trials.

Prior to admitting evidence of a scientific nature, the court must determine the threshold question: is the scientific theory, instrument, or test sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the particular field to which it belongs? (People v. Leone, 25 N.Y.2d 511, 307 N.Y.S.2d 430, 255 N.E.2d 696, IIIA Wigmore (3d ed.) section 990, p. 992.)

The existence of the XYY genetic phenomenon was firmly established in 1961. ¹ Early studies of chromosome imbalance focused almost exclusively on prison populations. The XYY male, in prison samples, appears to be a very tall, slightly retarded individual with a severely disordered personality characterized by violent, aggressive behavior. ² However, the sampling, thus far, has been inadequate and inconclusive. ³ A built-in bias exists because samples comprised of institutionalized persons will, of...