State v. Garrett, 50782

• Decision Date: 14 June 1965
• Docket Number: No. 50782,No. 2,50782,2
• Citation: 391 S.W.2d 235
• Parties: STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Rodney Glen GARRETT, Appellant
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 235

391 S.W.2d 235

STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Rodney Glen GARRETT, Appellant.

No. 50782.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

June 14, 1965.

Norman H. Anderson, Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, David G. Dempsey, Asst. Atty. Gen., Clayton, for respondent.

William J. Shaw, Gene McNary, Clayton, for appellant.

EAGER, Presiding Judge.

Defendant was found guilty by a jury of first degree robbery, committed with a dangerous and deadly weapon. The principal, and we may say only, defense was that defendant was not guilty by reason of 'mental disease or defect.' Sections 552.010-552.040, RSMo, Laws 1963, p. 674 et seq. V.A.M.S. Defendant's appointed counsel requested and defendant was given a psychiatric examination prior to arraignment; he was also examined subsequently. Following the conviction and a finding by the Court of a prior felony, defendant was sentenced to the Department of Corrections for a term of ninety-nine years. After a detailed motion for new trial was overruled, this appeal was taken. Defendant was and is most ably represented by the Public Defender of St. Louis County.

On the afternoon of April 30, 1963, defendant and a boy named 'Kenny' entered the 'Jam Inn' restaurant and 3.2 beer place on Highway 66 in St. Louis County. Defendant ordered and drank a beer; the only waitress on duty, Evelyn Jean Brown, had seen him in the place previously, but did not actually know him. A little later he came back alone and parked in front of the place; he ordered and drank another beer and waited until the other one or two customers had gone. As the waitress was washing dishes, he approached her from the rear with an open pocketknife in his hand, grabbed her around the neck with one arm, cut her on the right side of the face and on the throat and, after she fell to the floor, stabbed her in the back at least seven times. When the knife was found later the blade which had been used was bent. In defendant's written and oral confessions, admitted without objection, he stated that he told the girl he wanted the money and not to scream, that she started to kict and scream, and that he got excited and 'started striking her.' In any event, he then dragged her to the rear of the place, took the paper money from the cash register, tore the telephone receiver from the instrument and laid it on the bar. He then moved the girl, threatening to kill her, into the men's room, where he choked her until she blacked out. Thereupon, he left and drove away. The girl regained consciousness, got up and ran to a motel apartment next door where she lives with her parents. She was bleeding profusely; the police came and she described her assailant before being taken to a hospital. Fifty-one stitches were required to close the cuts in her face and neck, and she remained in the hospital for eight days, during which time a lung collapsed. There would seem to be no serious residual damage. From the description given, the police very promptly went out and picked up the defendant (whom one or more of them knew) in the process of using the telephone in a bar four or five miles away. One $20 bill and fifteen one dollar bills were found on him--with a red, sticky substance on them. Both in oral statements and in a signed confession taken on the same evening, defendant admitted substantially all the details of the offense.

At the trial, and to some extent here, counsel rely on certain remarks and circumstances which are said to indicate some form of insanity, per se. We mention some of these, but they were matters solely for the jury on the weight of the evidence, and there is and can be no contention that the crime was not sufficiently proven, or that the existence of a 'mental disease or defect' was not a question for the jury. Principally, these things are: that the crime was committed in a place where defendant was known and where his father was known; that he made a remark to Miss Brown that he was 'used to doing this'; that he inquired of her where the phone was and where the knife was that he had dropped; that he apparently tried to get her outside the place after cutting and stabbing her; that several persons said that he had been drinking but that he did not seem to be intoxicated; that when arrested at the telephone, he said,--'I'm glad you caught me or you'd find her in the river, too'; that three other knives were found in his car; that he told one or more officers that he committed the offense because he needed the money, that he did not know why he had cut the girl, and that he had a sudden impulse to hurt someone. However, we note also that in defendant's signed confession he stated that he started drinking that morning at about 7:30, 'mostly whisky at different places,' that he committed the offense on 'the spur of the moment,' and that he then went home, washed, and changed his shirt before going out again, because it was bloody and torn. In an oral statement to police he had said that he waited until two customers left to rob the girl. None of these circumstances or statements can be decisive of the questions we have here.

Dr. Anton F. Heusler, a physician specializing in psychiatry, had examined defendant about three months prior to the trial; he had also read the various depositions showing the circumstances of the offense, and had received and studied the psychological report of a Dr. Ossario who had also examined the defendant. Dr. Ossario had reported that defendant had an oral IQ of 73, a performance IQ of 81, a 'full scale' IQ of 75, and that defendant's general capacity was in the 'dull normal' range. Dr. Heusler determined that defendant had a personality disorder, meaning that he was a sociopath of the anti-social type and that his mentality was that of a borderline defective. This witness defined a sociopathic personality as one with a deviation which makes it 'extremely difficult for him to conform to the social culture in which he lives'; he also stated that when a mental deficiency is added it would be more difficult for the individual to so conform to the social culture or to law. Dr. Heusler testified that, considering everything, defendant had a mental deficiency and that he probably could not conform his conduct to the requirements of the law; that in arriving at this conclusion he considered both the sociopathic personality and the mental deficiency, the latter of which was also in his opinion a mental disorder. On cross-examination he discussed the ordinary characteristics of sociopaths. ¹

In rebuttal the State produced Dr. Paul T. Hartman, a physician also specializing in neurology and phychiatry, who had examined defendant by appointment of the Court. This witness had also read the depositions and had seen Dr. Ossario's report. His stated conclusion was that the defendant had no mental illness of defect which would prevent him from conforming his conduct to the requirement of the law or prevent him from appreciating the nature, quality or wrongfulness of his conduct. He testified that defendant was within the limits of normal intelligence; that he did have a sociopathic personality, meaning that he tended to do what he wanted to do and not to conform, and that he had also an inability to profit from past experiences; that in his opinion this was not a mental disease or defect.

We quote here the pertinent portions of the mental responsibility act, Laws 1963, p. 674 et seq.

Section 552.010. 'The terms 'mental disease or defect' include congenital and traumatic mental conditions as well as disease. They do not include an abnormality manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise anti-social conduct, whether or not such abnormality may be included under mental illness, mental disease or defect in some classifications of mental abnormality or disorder. * * *'

Section 552.030. '1. A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he did not know or appreciate the nature, quality or wrongfulness of his conduct or was incapable of conforming his conduct to the requirements of law. * * *

'3. Evidence that the defendant did or did not suffer from a mental disease or defect shall be admissible

'(1) To prove that the defendant did or did not have a state of mind which is an element of the offense; or

'(2) For the purpose of determining whether or not the defendant, if found guilty of a capital offense, shall be sentenced to death or life imprisonment. * * * '5. All persons are presumed to be free of mental disease or defect excluding responsibility for their conduct, whether or not previously adjudicated in this or any other state to be or to have been insane, drunkards, drug addicts, sexual or social psychopaths, or otherwise mentally ill, incompetent, deranged or impaired. The issue of whether any person had a mental disease or defect excluding responsibility for his conduct is one for the jury to decide upon the introduction of substantial evidence of lack of such responsibility. But in the absence of such evidence the presumption shall be conclusive. Upon the introduction of substantial evidence of lack of such responsibility, the presumption shall not disappear and shall alone be sufficient to take that issue to the jury. The jury shall be instructed as to the existence and nature of such presumption when requested by the state and, where the issue of such responsibility is one for the jury to decide, the jury shall be told that the burden rests upon the accused to show by a preponderance or greater weight of the credible evidence that the defendant was suffering from a mental disease or defect excluding responsibility at the time of the conduct charged against him.

'6. When the defendant is acquitted on the ground of mental disease or defect excluding responsibility, the verdict and the judgment shall so state.'

Section 552.040. '1. When a defendant is acquitted on the ground of mental disease or defect...