State v. Coombs

• Decision Date: 03 July 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-1075,84-1075
• Citation: 480 N.E.2d 414,18 OBR 153,18 Ohio St.3d 123
• Parties: , 18 O.B.R. 153 The STATE of Ohio, Appellant, v. COOMBS, Appellee.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 123

18 Ohio St.3d 123

480 N.E.2d 414, 18 O.B.R. 153

The STATE of Ohio, Appellant, v. COOMBS, Appellee.

No. 84-1075.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

July 3, 1985.

Defendant-appellee, Phillip A. Coombs, was indicted on three counts of rape, one count of felonious assault, and one count of kidnapping, arising from a single incident. Defendant pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. Following a bench trial, the trial court dismissed one count of rape but found defendant guilty of all the remaining counts.

The court of appeals reversed and remanded for further proceedings, holding that the trial court erred in applying a more stringent test of legal insanity than is proper under Ohio law. In so holding, the court cited certain portions of the record wherein the trial judge made statements implying that a defendant must demonstrate a psychosis, or at least a neurosis, in order to meet his burden of proof on the insanity defense. Ruling that this view is unsupported by precedent, the court of appeals concluded that the trial court did not consider the evidence under a legally recognized standard, and thereby committed reversible error.

The cause is now before this court pursuant to the allowance of a motion for leave to appeal.

Arthur M. Ney, Jr., Pros. Atty., and Paul R. Markgraf, Cincinnati, for appellant.

James N. Perry, Cincinnati, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

The sole question before this court is whether the trial court, as trier of fact, erred in failing to find defendant not guilty by reason of insanity. The court of appeals held that the lower court did so err. We reverse.

The standard for demonstrating legal insanity in a criminal case was enunciated in State v. Staten (1969), 18 Ohio St.2d 13, 247 N.E.2d 293 , paragraph two of the syllabus:

"In order to establish the defense of insanity where raised by plea in a criminal proceeding, the accused must establish by a preponderance of the evidence that disease or other defect of his mind had so impaired his reason that, at the time of the criminal act with which he is charged, either he did not know that such act was wrong or he did not have the ability to refrain from doing that act."

At the trial of the instant cause, the expert witness for the defense, Dr. Warren L. Richards, a psychiatrist, testified that the defendant, at the time of the crimes, was suffering from a mental disorder which impaired his ability to conform his conduct to the requirements of right. This testimony clearly attempts to establish legal insanity as that term is defined in Staten. The court of appeals determined that the trial judge failed to properly consider this evidence within the context of Staten, and that he disregarded the testimony as legally insufficient to establish insanity. The court of appeals so concluded on the basis of two excerpts from the record, the first of which involved a series of three questions by the trial judge to the defendant's expert witness, Dr. Richards, as to whether the defendant's disorder could be characterized as either a psychosis or a neurosis. Dr. Richards answered in the negative. A portion of the second excerpt consists of the following statement by the judge at the conclusion of the trial: "The evidence offered by the defense does not provide the appropriate measure of proof to meet the burden required. The defendant, whatever his emotional problems are, and were on that night, does not have a psychosis or even a neurosis by the testimony of his own expert witness." From these passages in the record, the court of appeals concluded that the trial judge was laboring under the misapprehension that Ohio law requires that a criminal defendant, in order to prove legal insanity, must establish that he was suffering from a psychosis or neurosis at the time of the acts in question. We disagree.

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