State v. Huss

• Decision Date: 16 July 2003
• Docket Number: No. 02-0427.,02-0427.
• Citation: 666 N.W.2d 152
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee v. Loren Glenn HUSS, Jr., Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

666 N.W.2d 152

STATE of Iowa, Appellee v. Loren Glenn HUSS, Jr., Appellant.

No. 02-0427.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

July 16, 2003.

John B. Whiston, University of Iowa Clinical Law Programs, and Stefanie Bowers and Jocelyn Prewitt, Student Legal Interns, Iowa City, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Roxann M. Ryan and Thomas H. Miller, Assistant Attorneys General, and John P. Sarcone, Polk County Attorney, for appellee. NEUMAN, Justice.

After seventeen years of legal wrangling in the state and federal courts, Loren Huss was found not guilty by reason of insanity for the murder of his girlfriend, Marilyn Sheets. We recently affirmed that verdict on appeal. State v. Huss, 657 N.W.2d 447, 454 (Iowa 2003). Huss now appeals the district court's order for his continued commitment pursuant to Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.22(8) (2001). The court concluded that Huss remains mentally ill and dangerous despite a written evaluation by a staff psychiatrist at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center (IMCC) that Huss "has no signs or symptoms of mental illness ... and is not seen as a danger to himself or others."

Because we are convinced the record supports the court's finding that Huss is still mentally ill, but the same record provides insufficient proof of present dangerousness, we reverse and remand with directions.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

It is not the facts—but the inferences to be drawn from them—that are at the heart of this controversy. Huss argues strenuously that the district court erroneously focused on his past, "ignoring his entire recent record." One of the court's crucial tasks, however, was to make a predictive judgment about Huss's future behavior based on his prior conduct. In re J.P., 574 N.W.2d 340, 344 (Iowa 1998); In re Mohr, 383 N.W.2d 539, 542 (Iowa 1986).

By any measure, much of Huss's prior conduct is horrifying. The following two paragraphs from the district court's ruling accurately summarize the assault wrought by an insane Huss on Marilyn Sheets:

In the early hours of May 19, 1986, Des Moines police responded to a domestic disturbance at the apartment of Defendant and Ms. Sheets. The apartment was virtually demolished. Broken furniture was strewn about. The walls were smeared with blood and peppered with holes. Defendant, soaked in his victim's blood, was yelling scripture and kicking and pouncing on the nude, spread-eagled body of Ms. Sheets when police arrived. It took five officers to subdue Defendant, who continued to chant variations of the verse from John 3:16.

Ms. Sheets had been struck, kicked, bitten, and strangled. She suffered a lacerated liver, bite marks of the head and neck, a crushed upper and lower jaw, and a brain hemorrhage in addition to the numerous contusions, lacerations and abrasions of the body, face, and throat. Dirt was found in her vagina which Defendant had repeatedly kicked. He had bitten off her nose and gouged out her eyes. He had scooped blood from the sockets and smeared it over the doorway in some reference to Passover. These injuries were inflicted antemortem.

Two other assaults, also shocking, predated Huss's attack on Sheets. In 1981, Huss—then eighteen years old—received a suspended sentence for second-degree robbery after committing a brutal, late-night assault on a woman in a parking lot. The victim was found unconscious, her clothes torn from her body, with multiple wounds including severe injuries to her eyes. A year later, Huss and several companions gang-raped a teenage girl. Huss, who was arrested at the scene, pleaded guilty to third-degree sex abuse. His prior probation was revoked and his ten-year sentence ordered to be served concurrently with his robbery conviction. It was while on parole for these convictions that he murdered Marilyn Sheets. According to psychiatric experts who examined Huss following the Sheets murder, Huss's pre- and post-assault behaviors were symptomatic of the onset and culmination of bipolar affective disorder in manic phase: Huss had tried out for the Iowa Cubs, envisioning himself as a major league baseball player; he planned a gambling trip to Las Vegas as a way of earning money to feed Des Moines' homeless; his thinking and speech patterns were disorganized and marked by hyperreligiosity and hypersexuality; and he was dehydrated and weak after the killing. Based on the prior assaults, Huss was also diagnosed with an Axis II antisocial personality disorder.

By the end of 1986, Huss's bipolar condition had gone into remission. The State and defense counsel agreed Huss was insane at the time of the Sheets murder but Judge Jack Levin, who heard the matter on a stipulated record, disagreed and set the case for jury trial. See State v. Huss, 430 N.W.2d 621, 623 (Iowa 1988). We upheld Huss's subsequent murder conviction on appeal, see id. at 625, but—thirteen years later—the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, ruling on Huss's habeas corpus petition, ordered his release unless, within ninety days, the Iowa court rendered a verdict on the original stipulated record. Huss v. Graves, 252 F.3d 952, 958 (8th Cir.2001). As noted at the outset of this opinion, the state court adjudication that followed resulted in a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. Huss, 657 N.W.2d at 449. We upheld that verdict on appeal, see id. at 454, and the record made in connection with the post-verdict proceedings is now before us.

Two psychiatrists and one psychologist testified at the hearing on Huss's "present mental condition." See Iowa R.Crim. P. 2.22(8)(b). Dr. Michael Taylor, who twice evaluated Huss in 1986, explained that bipolar affective disorder is a genetically-based neurochemical disorder of the central nervous system characterized by at least one episode of mania and one or more episodes of depression. The illness is, by definition, episodic and, statistically speaking, is likely to last five weeks. Between episodes of mania or depression, the patient is, in Dr. Taylor's words, "completely asymptomatic, completely normal." When asked whether a medical expert could predict with accuracy when future psychotic episodes might occur in an individual with bipolar affective disorder, the doctor replied:

If we have an individual who has had a manic episode every spring for the last eight years, it becomes relatively easy. But in an individual such as Mr. Huss who experienced what sounded to be his first manic episode in 1986, it is totally impossible to predict if or when Mr. Huss might experience a future manic episode or episode of depression.

As for a current diagnosis, Dr. Taylor testified Huss has bipolar affective disorder, in remission, along with an antisocial personality disorder. He made plain that mental illness in remission is not the same as the absence of mental illness, as the patient is at a "significantly greater risk than the general population" to experience a future manic episode. In his expert opinion, Huss continues to be dangerous because, in Dr. Taylor's words, "[t]he best predictor of future behavior is past behavior." He acknowledged that he knows of no treatment that would be helpful to Huss.

Dr. Curtis Fredrickson, staff psychiatrist at IMCC since 1979, has been acquainted with Huss since 1983. Huss worked as an aide on the psychiatric unit while awaiting discharge from prison in 1984 for his assault conviction. Then, in 1987, Fredrickson performed Huss's competency evaluation in connection with the Sheets murder trial. His current diagnosis (which essentially mirrors the diagnosis given in 1987) is bipolar disorder, in remission, with one manic episode with psychotic features in 1986.

Dr. Fredrickson's written evaluation, which formed the basis for the rule 2.22(8) hearing that followed, reported this summary:

[W]e are dealing with an individual of average intelligence with good academic abilities. He does not suffer from any major Axis I disorder at this time. He has not been on any psychiatric medications for 13 ½ years. His adjustment to the Department of Corrections has been good and he has been in general population with no difficulties.

TREATMENT/EVALUATION:

The patient has not required any treatment on this admission. He was involved in our routine program. Besides the unit milieu he was involved in some group therapy sessions, activities, social rec., and physical recreation activities, and individual counseling as needed. He had a job assignment along with the other patients helping clean the unit once a day.

CLINICAL COURSE:

No signs or symptoms of mental illness or psychosis or mania were noted.

* * * *

[C]urrently the patient ... is not seen as a danger to himself or others.

Dr. Leonard Welsh, a psychologist with IMCC, diagnosed Huss with Axis I poly-substance abuse history and Axis II antisocial personality disorder. Welsh testified that he could not rule out Axis I psychosis or bipolar disorder in remission but had not personally observed the symptoms in Huss. When asked whether Huss presently posed a danger to himself or others, Welsh stated that "in terms of his profile you'd have to say that he is certainly more of a danger to others than the average citizen because the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior."

The court also heard brief testimony from Dorothy Wallace, the victim of Huss's first assault, and from Huss himself. Huss described, as best he could, the events surrounding Marilyn Sheets' death. Mindful that he was, at that time, totally out of control of his senses, he expressed concern over the potential for recurrence of that mental state. He explained that he has told his family and "friends in prison... everybody" that he expects them to take action if he ever begins displaying such "bizarre" behavior again. After describing how he has managed over the past fifteen years to coexist peacefully with inmates, correctional officers and others in a prison setting, he acknowledged his willingness...