State v. Ganster

• Decision Date: 17 November 1967
• Docket Number: No. 1726,1726
• Parties: STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. Robert K. GANSTER, Appellant.
• Court: Arizona Supreme Court

Page 620

433 P.2d 620

102 Ariz. 490

STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. Robert K. GANSTER, Appellant.

No. 1726.

Supreme Court of Arizona, In Banc.

Nov. 17, 1967.

Darrell F. Smith, Atty. Gen., and Robert K. Corbin, Maricopa County Atty., by Gary M. Sundberg, Phoenix, for appellee.

Miller, Pearson & Sullivan, by Murray Miller, Phoenix, for appellant.

UDALL, Justice:

Robert K. Ganster, hereinafter referred to as defendant, was charged with the crime of assault with intent to commit murder upon the person of his wife. The defendant pled not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. At the conclusion of the trial a verdict of guilty was returned, and the defendant was sentenced to a term of five years to life imprisonment.

According to our well established rule, we must review the evidence in the light most favorable to sustaining the conviction thus resolving all reasonable inferences in favor of the state. State v. Blankenship, 99 Ariz. 60, 406 P.2d 729; State v. Mangrum, 98 Ariz. 279, 403 P.2d 925.

The pertinent facts are as follows: The defendant and his wife Mary resided in an apartment in Tempe. Sometime near midnight on September 25, 1965, three revolver shots were heard by a neighbor. Upon entering the Ganster apartment, the neighbor found Mary suffering from bullet wounds in her chest and ankle; the defendant with a bullet wound in the head was lying close by. A revolver was beside him. According to Mary's testimony, on the night of the shooting an argument arose between Mary and the defendant. After the argument the defendant obtained Mary's suitcases for her and she began to pack. The defendant went to the kitchen and procured a gun. He returned, pointed the gun at Mary and shot her, then apparently turned the gun on himself.

On this appeal the principal question concerns the defense of insanity. There is a presumption that all persons are sane and ordinarily in a criminal case the prosecution may rely on this presumption. Foster v. State, 37 Ariz. 281, 294 P. 268. However the defendant may raise the issue of insanity in his defense, and when he does so, it is the state's burden to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was legally sane. State v. Schantz, 98 Ariz. 200, 403 P.2d 521; see also State v. Martin, 102 Ariz. 142, 426 P.2d 639.

In the instant case the issue of insanity was raised. Defendant offered the expert testimony of two psychiatrists in support thereof. It is contended that this was sufficient to overcome the presumption of sanity and to require the state to prove defendant's sanity beyond a reasonable doubt, as it must prove all material issues of fact.

Dr. Maurice Ruland, testifying for the defendant, stated that as a full-time psychiatrist at the Maricopa County Hospital he had treated the defendant physically and mentally from a period shortly after the September 25th incident through the date of the trial in March of the following year. Based on several examinations made during that period Dr. Ruland expressed the opinion that the defendant could not on September 25th or the early morning hours of September 26, 1965 distinguish right from wrong nor did he know at that time the natural and probable consequences of the acts he committed. The doctor also stated that he felt the defendant should have had psychiatric treatment and still required it, although his condition would not require additional hospitalization.

On cross-examination the psychiatrist said that the only evidence of organic brain damage was caused by the bullet wound the defendant suffered on the September 25th incident. He testified further that the defendant had not, to the best of his knowledge, ever been previously treated or hospitalized for mental illness and conceded that a man facing a trial as the defendant was, might tend to exaggerate symptoms of insanity or abnormality during a psychiatric interview, and that the defendant was, while under examination, aware that he was being charged or would be charged with a crime.

Dr. Ruland, in further discussing the defendant's condition, said that while the defendant was fully oriented mentally at the time of the trial, the defendant apparently had no memory of that segment of his life which involved the alleged criminal incident at issue here. The condition the defendant was said to have suffered during that period was described by the doctor as disassociated reaction, a condition which would be categorized with amnesia. Dr. Ruland stated that disassociated reaction could be faked, that the condition was a partial amnesia--equivalent to a dream state, sectional or fractional memory.

Finally, Dr. Ruland stated that he had found no evidence of psychosis in the defendant's behavior, and that accepting the general use of the term sane, he found the defendant sane prior to the alleged criminal incident. Stating that though he considered the defendant mentally ill, because extremely neurotic, the doctor said he did not feel that his condition would have at any time required the defendant's hospitalization.

Dr. Samuel Wick, also a psychiatrist, was the second expert witness called for the defense. He testified that based on an examination which occurred six months after the involved incident he felt capable of expressing an opinion as to the defendant's sanity. In answer to the question of whether the defendant could have, at the time of the alleged crime, distinguished between right and wrong the doctor stated:

'The question as to whether he was able to distinguish right and wrong and to have the responsibility to do so depends upon the series of events which had taken place during that evening and subsequent to--following or during the night and early morning. He was able to understand what was happening up to a certain point as he described it. The afternoon, he and his wife were having an argument about some of the situations that had existed in the household and the feeling that she had that he was usurping some of her prerogative, so the speak, and this argument subsided. They went out in the evening and visited some friends and came home about 11 p.m. And they seemed to be fairly congenial, and then the argument started again. Subsequent to this argument she indicated that there was no further use to continue and that she was going to leave. He then went to the closet to obtain a suitcase, which he brought to the bedroom where she began packing. Up to that point he was aware of what was happening. He was alert, and in good contact. After he noticed her packing He left the room, went back to the closet. Then he is unable to recall the details and the events subsequent to that time. And I would say then is when he was unable to differentiate between right and wrong.'

The doctor stated also that from the point of the defendant's loss of memory he would not have known the natural and probable consequences of the act he committed.

On cross examination Dr. Wick stated that because the defendant had suffered no previous organic brain damage or hospitalization it was more difficult to render an opinion on a state of mind at a prior time. He said further that,

'With a brain injury following a bullet wound or any other type of trauma in which it is possible to have what is called a retrograde amnesia, that is a forgetting of the events and incidents of the actual occurrence and for a time preceding the occurrence. But, you see, this doesn't fit into that category specifically because if it were true then he wouldn't remember any of the incidents that had taken place.'

While the prosecution presented a psychiatrist also, his testimony was in agreement with the opinions expressed by the defense-called psychiatrists. In fact, as was brought out by the prosecution in the cross examination of one of the defense-called psychiatrists, these three witnesses had conferred subsequent to their individual examinations of the defendant and had concluded that their findings were substantially similar.

The defendant's former wife, the victim of the alleged crime, gave testimony describing the occurrences of the night of the shooting, as previously discussed. In answer to questions concerning her husband's mental state she stated that she had seen her husband excited and angry at times previous to the involved occurrence. She answered too that it was a normal anger he had experienced just like that which anyone else would experience. She said that he had no particular expression on his face at the time of the shooting and that she did not...