State v. Correra, 79-154-C

• Decision Date: 12 June 1981
• Docket Number: No. 79-154-C,79-154-C
• Citation: 430 A.2d 1251
• Parties: STATE v. Michael R. CORRERA. A.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 1251

430 A.2d 1251

STATE v. Michael R. CORRERA.

No. 79-154-C.A.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

June 12, 1981.

Dennis J. Roberts, II, Atty. Gen., Kathryn A. Panciera, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., for plaintiff.

John F. Cicilline, Providence, for defendant.

OPINION

KELLEHER, Justice.

The defendant, Michael R. Correra (Correra), stands convicted after a Superior Court jury trial of (1) having committed murder in the second degree, (2) having committed a crime of violence while armed with a firearm, and (3) having received stolen goods. Following the denial of his motion for a new trial, Correra received a thirty-five-year sentence on the murder charge and concurrent two-year sentences on each of the other offenses.

The evidence adduced at trial indicated that during January 1977 Mary Henderson was living with Correra in an apartment located in North Providence. Mary testified that she had told her brother, Jack, about Correra's having physically assaulted her several times prior to the incident in question. Jack, who lived in Pawtucket, arrived at the apartment on January 12, 1977, at approximately 11:30 p. m. The purpose of his visit was to check on his sister's welfare.

Jack and Correra proceeded to do a bit of drinking and talking. The drinking involved straight shots of Scotch. The imbibing and conversation terminated at about 4:30 a. m. on January 13, 1977. Jack retired to a spare bedroom to sleep, and Correra went to his bedroom.

A few minutes later, Correra left his bedroom, claiming that he was seeing "little animals coming through the walls and they were trying to get him." Mary tried to calm him down, and in response to her urgings Correra called some of his friends and invited them to come over to the apartment. According to Mary, Correra then told her that he had heard something in the kitchen. He took a gun from a night stand next to the bed and pointed it at Mary. When Correra asked her who was in the other bedroom, she replied, "Jackie." Correra then yelled, "I don't want him in my house. Wake him up." Correra then went into the adjoining bedroom. He first pointed the gun at Jack's head and then at his shoulder, and pulled the trigger. After a short struggle with Correra, Mary ran out of the house to seek help. Correra told her, "Go ahead. Go call the cops."

When the police arrived, Correra was nowhere to be found. Later, it was determined that he had run in his stocking feet some two miles to a friend's house. A .357-caliber magnum pistol was found in a standing ashtray in the hallway opposite Correra's apartment. This gun was loaded with one round spent. A ballistics expert testified that a test firing indicated that the magnum was the murder weapon. Additional bullets were found in a night stand in Correra's bedroom. Subsequent investigation determined that the magnum had been stolen sometime between August and November of 1976.

At trial, Correra's defense was based upon the theory of diminished capacity. Correra's friends and family all testified that he had been ill for two weeks prior to the shooting and at various times had been hallucinating.

Doctor Bruno Franek, a psychiatrist, told the jury that Correra's hallucinations resulted from a disease that was referred to at the trial as herpes simplex encephalitis. Herpes simplex is a virus that can cause infections just about anywhere in the body; and in this case, according to Dr. Franek, the virus caused inflammation, swelling, and eventual degeneration of a portion of Correra's brain tissue. This witness told the jury that Correra's encephalitis was the transitory type and that it would come and go. He also reported that because of that condition, on the night in question Correra was incapable of possessing the necessary specific intent to kill.

Doctor Robert E. Becker, medical director of the Institute of Mental Health, reached a different conclusion. He said that Dr. Franek's diagnosis was based on inadequate information. Doctor Becker was of the opinion that additional tests and consultations were an absolute requirement before anyone could give an opinion about Correra's mental state. Unlike Dr. Franek, Dr. Becker believed that Correra's ingestion of alcohol and drugs was a matter of considerable import. Doctor Becker was unable to reach any conclusions concerning Correra's mental status.

The third expert was Dr. George Peter, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Rhode Island Hospital. He testified that only one in fifty cases of encephalitis was caused by herpes simplex and that recent studies indicated that the mortality rate for those afflicted with this disease was 70 percent. Those who survived, he said, suffered residual neurological complications such as paralysis or seizures. Doctor Peter was also insistent that the particular blood tests ordered by Dr. Franek for that condition were meaningless and that no one with the symptoms Correra allegedly showed could have been suffering from herpes simplex encephalitis.

In the appeal, Correra raises several issues. Some relate to the diminished-capacity doctrine, and some relate to certain evidentiary rulings made by the trial justice. We shall first direct our attention to the diminished-capacity issue.

The diminished-capacity doctrine recognizes that although an accused was not suffering from a mental disease or defect when the offense was committed sufficient to exonerate him of all criminal responsibility, his mental capacity may have been diminished by intoxication, trauma, or mental disease so that he did not possess the specific mental state or intent essential to the particular offense charged. A defendant claiming diminished capacity concedes his responsibility for the act but claims that, in light of his abnormal mental condition, he is less culpable. Recently in State v. Doyon, R.I., 416 A.2d 130 (1980), we refused to apply the diminished-capacity doctrine to an offense that might be classified as a "general-intent crime."

Correra's reliance on diminished capacity reminds us that in State v. Fenik, 45 R.I. 309, 315, 121 A. 218 (1923), the court did allow evidence of the defendant's abnormality to determine his "fixity and duration of the conscious intent or premeditation." At the time Fenik was decided, the M'Naughten defense of insanity was in existence. Our adoption of the American Law Institute view of criminal responsibility in State v. Johnson, R.I., 399 A.2d 469 (1979), established a test that encompasses mental abnormalities which at the time of Fenik would not be sufficient to relieve a defendant of criminal responsibility. Accordingly, we shall reexamine the issue discussed in Fenik in light of what we said in State v. Johnson.

About a quarter of a century ago the United States Supreme Court in Fisher v. United States, 328 U.S. 463, 66 S.Ct. 1318, 90 L.Ed. 1382 (1946), refused to take a position on the issue of diminished capacity and said such a question might well be considered by the individual Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals. However, Justices Frankfurter, Murphy, and Rutledge filed vigorous dissents in which they urged that this doctrine be recognized. The logic of their position has received widespread approval. Today, a majority ¹ of the jurisdictions that have considered the diminished-capacity concept have ruled that whenever the state has the obligation to establish a conscious mental ingredient as one of the elements of the crime charged, the defendant is free to establish the existence of a mental defect or obstacle to the presence of the state of mind that is an element of the crime, such as, premeditation or deliberation. Some jurisdictions, in taking an all-or-nothing position, have declared that there is no intermediate stage of partial criminal responsibility for an individual; either he is totally responsible or an acquittal is in order.

In recognizing the concept of diminished capacity, we are persuaded by the following conclusion expressed by Judge Leventhal in United States v. Brawner, 471 F.2d 969, 999 (D.C.Cir.1972):

"Neither logic nor justice can tolerate a jurisprudence that defines the elements of an offense as requiring a mental state such that one defendant can properly argue that his voluntary drunkenness removed his capacity to form the specific intent but another defendant is inhibited from a submission of his contention that an abnormal mental condition, for which he was in no way responsible, negated his capacity to form a particular specific intent, even though the condition did not exonerate him from all criminal responsibility."

However, we hasten to add that our decision is subject to the comment expressed earlier in the Johnson case where, in adopting the A.L.I. standards for determining criminal responsibility, we said:

"The terms mental disease or defect do not include an abnormality manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise antisocial conduct." State v. Johnson, R.I., 399 A.2d 469, 476 (1979).

Our opting for this defense in the so-called specific-intent cases is a recognition of the great advancements made in the psychiatric field. Hughes v. Mathews, 576 F.2d 1250 (7th Cir. 1978); United States v. Williams, 483 F.Supp. 453 (E.D.N.Y.1980); State v. Gramenz, 256 Iowa 134, 126 N.W.2d 285 (1964); Commonwealth v. Walzack, 468 Pa. 210, 360 A.2d 914 (1976).

Judicial reliance upon psychiatric testimony in other areas of the law belies any concern that such evidence is not a sufficiently recognized and acceptable medical science capable of offering quality expert guidance. Whatever judicial skepticism may exist regarding psychiatric science is best resolved through the factfinder's determining the credibility and weight to be given the expert's testimony instead of resolving the uncertainty by a total exclusion. Rejection of the diminished-capacity defense because of a fear of the unreliability of psychiatric testimony implies a distrust of the jury, which in actuality is free to...