State v. Fuller-balletta
| Decision Date | 17 June 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 2008-96-C.A.,2008-96-C.A. |
| Citation | 996 A.2d 133 |
| Parties | STATEv.Tonya FULLER-BALLETTA. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Lauren S. Zurier, Department of Attorney General, for Plaintiff.
Paula Rosin, Office of Public Defender, for Defendant.
Present: SUTTELL, C.J., GOLDBERG, FLAHERTY, ROBINSON, and INDEGLIA, JJ.
This case comes before the Supreme Court on appeal by Tonya Fuller-Balletta (Fuller-Balletta or acquittee) who was acquitted of murder by reason of insanity, from an order of the Superior Court committing her to the custody of the director of the Rhode Island Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals (director and MHRH respectively) 1 pursuant to G.L.1956 § 40.1-5.3-4(e), for care and treatment at an inpatient facility. The acquittee argues on appeal that: (1) the evidence presented at the hearing legally was insufficient to meet the statutorily required showing of a likelihood of serious harm to support the trial justice's finding that the acquittee is dangerous; (2) the trial justice erred when she failed to consider the precise circumstances of acquittee's conduct-resulting in homicide-which gave rise to the insanity acquittal; and (3) the trial justice should have ordered acquittee into a community-based outpatient facility instead of inpatient treatment in a public institution. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm the order of the Superior Court.
We recount the tragic events of this case that culminated in the death of Fuller-Balletta's twelve-year-old daughter. On the evening of October 29, 2004, a trooper with the Rhode Island State Police went to Fuller-Balletta's home to execute an arrest warrant that had been outstanding for fourteen years. 2 Unbeknownst to the state trooper, Fuller-Balletta was mentally unstable and in the midst of continuing paranoid delusions, hallucinations, and extreme behavior resulting from a mental illness that had been progressing for the previous few years.
In 2002, during an unsuccessful run for governor, Fuller-Balletta was asked to leave a pre-election debate because she was singing. The acquittee's relationship with her husband became strained; she would sit holding a baseball bat near him as he slept and sprayed him with mace. Eventually she forced her husband to leave their home. She was convinced that she was under surveillance; she believed that spies lived next door and that her telephones were bugged. She disconnected the home's alarm system, doorbell, and smoke alarms. The acquittee detached her telephone wires from her home because she was convinced that she was receiving messages through her telephones and the home's Internet service. Fuller-Balletta insisted on home-schooling her two daughters, Marina (then, age thirteen) and Talia (then, age twelve) because she did not want them to leave the house. A few days before this tragedy, acquittee turned off the furnace in her basement and began heating the house with just the kitchen stove. Fuller-Balletta never sought psychiatric help or medical treatment for her increasingly deteriorating mental state.
When the state trooper arrived at Fuller-Balletta's home shortly before 9 p.m., he explained the purpose of his visit; and, although he did not have the actual warrant, he offered to show acquittee an electronic copy of the arrest warrant. Fuller-Balletta refused to go with him to his cruiser, began cursing at the officer, and started to kick and punch him. Talia and Marina also punched and kicked the officer and acquittee yelled to one of her daughters to grab a can of mace. The state trooper returned to his cruiser and called for assistance. Three additional state troopers and two Providence police officers responded to the scene; acquittee's husband also arrived.
Meanwhile, Fuller-Balletta, believing that the state trooper and her husband were part of a conspiracy against her, armed herself and her daughters with sharp butcher knives. Fuller-Balletta then barricaded herself and her daughters in a rear bedroom and set fire to the bed. She later explained that she thought it was better for her and her daughters to die than be taken by the police; additionally, she thought that the fire would spark the attention of a neighbor who was a firefighter. The acquittee told Talia and Marina that the police were there to hurt them and that they should be prepared to commit suicide.
After a failed attempt to coax acquittee out of the house, the police forcibly entered the home; they almost immediately detected the smell of smoke. They removed the bedroom door-which had been barricaded-saw the burning mattress and found acquittee and her daughters huddled near a back wall. They threatened to kill the police officers with the knives if they entered the room. One of the children stated “Mommy, just tell, just tell me, I will cut my wrists.” The officers called the fire department and retrieved fire extinguishers from their vehicles.
The acquittee, now holding a knife to her daughter's throat, refused to vacate the home. Fuller-Balletta's husband knocked the knife out of her hands, and a state trooper pulled her out of the smoke-filled room; the police then pulled Marina to safety through a window. Tragically, Talia was found near a closet, unresponsive; she was taken to Hasbro Children's Hospital, where she died four weeks later from multi-system organ failure caused by severe smoke and soot inhalation and burns over 40 percent of her body. The manner of death was ruled homicide.
The acquittee was charged with first-degree murder, first-degree arson, several counts of felony assault and resisting arrest. In November 2004, acquittee was deemed incompetent to stand trial as a result of her mental illness; she was confined to the Eleanor Slater Hospital for treatment. On June 2, 2006, a justice of the Superior Court determined that Fuller-Balletta was competent to stand trial.
A bench trial commenced on April 25, 2007. A state trooper and a firefighter testified. To establish her insanity defense, Fuller-Balletta relied on the expert testimony of Joseph Penn, M.D. (Dr. Penn), the director of the child and adolescent forensic psychiatry unit at Rhode Island Hospital. Doctor Penn conducted extensive interviews with acquittee and her family, examined medical records, and concluded that acquittee's mental functioning had been diminishing for two to three years before the fire. Both Dr. Penn and the state's expert witness, Barry Wall, M.D. (Dr. Wall), the director of Forensic Services at the Eleanor Slater Hospital, a state-run facility for the mentally ill, concluded that acquittee met the diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder mixed episode with psychotic features. According to Dr. Penn, because of mental illness, Fuller-Balletta was “unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of her behavior and conform her behavior [to the] requirements of the law[.]” Doctor Wall agreed with Dr. Penn's diagnosis. It was his opinion that, due to her mental illness, Fuller-Balletta could not appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct and lacked the ability to conform her actions to the requirements of the law. Based on these expert opinions, on May 25, 2007, the trial justice found Fuller-Balletta not guilty by reason of insanity.3
In accordance with § 40.1-5.3-4(b),4 the trial justice committed acquittee to the custody of the MHRH, “for the purpose of observation and examination to determine whether [she] is dangerous.” Section 40.1-5.3-4(c) required the director to submit a written report stating “whether by reason of mental disability the [acquittee's] unsupervised presence in the community [would] create a likelihood of serious harm” as that term is defined by § 40.1-5.3-4(a)(4).5 The report, written by Dr. Wall, dated June 15, 2007, described Fuller-Balletta's descent into psychosis; but it recognized that, since she began inpatient treatment at Eleanor Slater Hospital and with appropriate medication, her symptoms had stabilized and her illness had been asymptomatic for an extended period. According to Dr. Wall, at the time of this post-acquittal evaluation, Fuller-Balletta's illness was in full remission and he opined that she “would be at low risk for harming others if she were to be supervised in the community.” (Emphasis added.) He recommended, however, that her “current status in the hospital be kept the same[.]”
Upon receipt of the report, and in accordance with § 40.1-5.3-4(d), 6 in September 2007, the trial justice held an evidentiary hearing (initial hearing) on the issue of acquittee's dangerousness. Doctor Wall testified that patients such as Fuller-Balletta, who have been found not guilty by reason of insanity, were typically more dangerous if they were discharged from the hospital completely unsupervised rather than with supervision that gradually is reduced over time. According to Dr. Wall, a person with bipolar disorder, mixed episode has both phases of bipolar disorder-the manic phase and the depressive stage-at the same time, and this circumstance increases the level of severity of the illness. He explained that, although her condition had improved markedly since her admission to the hospital, Fuller-Balletta remained at the early stages of the treatment process. Significantly, and correctly we conclude, Dr. Wall expressed concern that in the three-month interregnum from his written report to his in-court testimony, Fuller-Balletta began exhibiting signs of decompensation-she refused urine to be tested and refused to sign a treatment plan. According to Dr. Wall, these behaviors could be a “ramping up” of an active phase of her bipolar disorder.
Most importantly, for purposes of this appeal, Dr. Wall rendered an opinion about acquittee's risk of dangerousness. He testified as follows:
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