Schade v. State

• Decision Date: 27 July 1973
• Docket Number: No. 1620,1620
• Citation: 512 P.2d 907
• Parties: Charles S. SCHADE, Appellant, v. STATE of Alaska, Appellee.
• Court: Alaska Supreme Court

Page 907

512 P.2d 907

Charles S. SCHADE, Appellant, v. STATE of Alaska, Appellee.

No. 1620.

Supreme Court of Alaska.

July 27, 1973.

R. Collin Middleton, Deputy Public Defender, Herbert D. Soll, Public Defender, Anchorage, for appellant.

Stephen G. Dunning, Asst. Dist. Atty., Seaborn J. Buckalew, Jr., Dist. Atty., Anchorage, John E. Havelock, Atty. Gen., Juneau, for appellee.

Before RABINOWITZ, C. J., and CONNOR, ERWIN and BOOCHEVER, JJ.

OPINION

CONNOR, Justice.

Charles S. Schade was convicted of first degree murder, after trial by jury. His appeal concerns not only the defense of insanity but certain other issues necessarily connected with that defense.

At about 5:00 p. m. on November 3, 1970, Nancy Miller left her work at a drive-in restaurant in Kodiak, Alaska. She was on foot. She was reported as missing the next day. By the morning of November 5th her nude body was found near a road. The body had been stabbed eight times. One of the thrusts was directly to the heart, which killed her.

In the ensuing investigation, the Navy criminal investigators at the nearby Kodiak Naval Station were asked to provide assistance. Special agents Barker and Kennedy learned that a hospital corpsman, Blevins, had treated a marine corporal, Charles Schade, for a head injury on the night Nancy Miller was last seen. Blevins was dubious about Schade's story to the effect that he had been clubbed by an unknown man as he left the bowling alley on the naval base. Agent Kennedy called the Kodiak Police Department and related his information. The Kodiak police officials indicated that they would like to interview Schade. Agent Barker then called Major Mason, Schade's commanding officer, and asked whether Schade could be released from duty for an interview. Major Mason telephoned Schade and asked whether he objected to an interview. Schade indicated his assent.

Barker and Kennedy met Schade on the base, asked him again whether he was willing to be interviewed, and obtained his assent. The agents accompanied Schade to the Kodiak police station, arriving there at about 5:30 p. m. on November 6th. Lt. Henderson asked Schade to come into his office, where he sat on one side of the desk and Schade on the other. Henderson advised Schade of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). The adequacy of the warning is one of the issues in this appeal. Henderson obtained a written waiver from Schade, consenting to be interviewed.

During the interrogation Schade told a series of stories, each one progressively more incriminating than the earlier versions. He finally stated that on the evening of November 3rd he had grabbed a girl on the road in Kodiak and had pulled her off the road. Henderson asked several questions to which he was sure only the killer would know the answers. The answers conformed to Henderson's information. The interrogation was suspended about 9:15 p. m., with Schade agreeing to give a written statement.

At about 10:00 p. m. Schade finished the statement. It was entirely in his handwriting, except for some questions and answers written in by Henderson, with Schade's signature following. At this time Henderson formally, arrested Schade.

The written statement was highly incriminating. In it, Schade admitted pulling the girl off the road, and said that he 'might have' unclothed her, after which he was struck,

'by some unknown substance, up against the head by her (sic). After which I believe I may have been holding some foreign substance and struck her once or twice-after which she fell and rolled and didn't move. . . .'

Lt. Henderson talked briefly with the Kodiak police chief; then he reminded Schade of the rights he had been advised about earlier and continued the interrogation. Schade admitted that he had lied about the weapon in his first written statement, and now corrected his story to identify both the weapon and the place where he had disposed of it. As before, he agreed to furnish a written statement. The body of it is entirely in his handwriting. It reads:

'I early (sic) gave Lt. Henderson bum scoop in the form of a statement on location and weapon and so do wish to change now.

Location: Harbor, behind Harbor master building and off to Left.

Weapon: small fishing knife approx. 6 long, steel with scaling blade on top and pointed and simi-sharp (sic) cutting blade. Black tape holding handle together.'

Schade later showed Henderson where he had thrown the knife. It was recovered by a diver. It matched Schade's description except that it was eight inches in length.

After Schade was indicted, the trial court determined that he was competent to stand trial.

At trial the prosecution put on proof of Schade's confessions, circumstantial evidence linking Schade to the commission of the offense, and items of proof about Schade's demeanor both before and after the commission of the offense. The defense put on evidence that Schade was suffering from a major mental illness, paranoid schizophrenia, at the time the offense was committed. The psychiatric evidence and its interpretation was, however, disputed vigorously by the prosecution.

The jury found Schade guilty of first degree murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The contentions on appeal are:

(1) It was reversible error not to apply the insanity test of Durham v. United States, 94 U.S.App.D.C. 228, 214 F.2d 862 (1954).

(2) It was reversible error to apply the insanity test of M'Naghten's Case, 10 Cl. & Fin. 200, 8 Eng.Rep. 718 (H.L.1843).

(3) Appellant was not competent to stand trial.

(4) Appellant's confession was inadmissible because he was not given a proper warning as required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).

(5) Appellant's confession was inadmissible because, as a result of his mental disorder, the confession was involuntary.

(6) Appellant's confession was inadmissible because it was obtained during, and was the product of, unlawful detention.

(7) The court erred in failing to accept appellant's waiver of a jury trial.

(8) It was error not to instruct the jury on the effects of a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

(9) It was error to allow a particular psychiatrist, one Dr. Rollins, to testify.

The Court has had the benefit of ample and clearly presented arguments and briefs from both parties to this appeal.

I. THE INSANITY TEST

Appellant objected to the use of an instruction to the jury which employed an insanity test similar to that set forth in Chase v. State, 369 P.2d 997 (Alaska 1962). ¹ In the case at bar the instruction used by the court was different from the one approved in Chase, but it was in substance a statement of the rule derived from M'Naghten's Case, 10 Cl. & Fin. 200, 8 Eng.Rep. 718 (H.L.1843). It read:

'Mental illness and mental abnormality, in whatever form either may appear, are not necessarily the same as legal insanity. A person may be mentally ill or mentally abnormal and yet not be legally insane. For mental illness or mental abnormality to be a defense to crime, such The last occasion on which the proper test of insanity as a defense to crime was at issue in this Court was in Pope v. State, 478 P.2d 801 (Alaska 1970). A majority of the Court did not reach the ultimate question of whether Chase should be overruled and whether a different test than the one formulated in Chase should be employed. My separate opinion in Pope did deal with the insanity formulation and urged that the test in Alaska be patterned on that developed by the American Law Institute. ² Since the publication of Pope, and since the judgment entered in this case, the legislature has acted in the field. In 1972, it enacted the following statute which provides in part:

condition must make the person incapable of knowing or understanding the nature and quality of his act, or make him incapable of knowing or understanding that his act was wrong.'

'Mental disease or defect excluding responsibility. (a) A person responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of the conduct, as a result of mental disease or defect, he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law.

(b) Reliance on mental disease or defect as excluding responsibility is an affirmative defense. The burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt does not require the prosecution to disprove an affirmative defense unless and until there is evidence supporting the defense. The requirement of evidence supporting the affirmative defense is not satisfied solely by evidence of an abnormality which is manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise antisocial conduct.' AS 12.45.083(a), (b), as enacted by Ch. 119 SLA 1972.

That is the test which must be used after September 10, 1972, the effective date of the statute.

The case at bar, and certain companion cases, were tried before the statute came into effect. The question before us is what test should have been used in those cases tried before the current statute became law, and as to which a direct appeal has been taken on the proper test of insanity as a defense to a criminal charge.

As pointed out in the separate opinion in Pope, 478 P.2d at 810, the test employed in M'Naghten's Case contains many defects and has been subjected to severe critical attack, especially during the last two decades. One of the main difficulties with the M'Naghten rule is that it assumes that mental illness is a mere failure of intellectual function, while modern psychiatry takes into account the affective aspects of human personality in diagnosing and analyzing the nature of mental and emotional illnesses. For this reason, the use of the M'Naghten test deprives the trier of fact of many of the insights yielded by modern psychiatry. ³

There is widespread agreement today that in a modern age the M'Naghten rule works an injustice, as many types of serious mental illness do not relieve ...