State v. Maioni

• Decision Date: 15 November 1909
• Citation: 74 A. 526,78 N.J.L. 339
• Parties: STATE v. MAIONI.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

74 A. 526

78 N.J.L. 339

STATE

v. MAIONI.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Nov. 15, 1909.

Error to Court of Oyer and Terminer, Mercer County.

Giovanni Maioni was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he brings error. Affirmed.

Martin P. Devlin, for plaintiff in error.

William J. Crossley, Prosecutor of the Pleas, and William R. Piper, Assistant Prosecutor of the Pleas, for the State.

GUMMERE, C. J. The defendant was indicted for the felonious killing of one Maria Lupo, by shooting her with a pistol, and was convicted of the crime of murder in the first degree. At the trial he sought to escape criminal responsibility principally upon the ground that he was an epileptic, and that when the homicide occurred he was suffering from an attack of the disease, and was totally unconscious of his act done at that time. In support of this line of defense Dr. Cotton was called to testify as an expert, and was asked by counsel for the defendant, among other questions, the following: "If a man be in a highly excited state—or, rather, an epileptic is a highly excited state—what is your opinion about his ability to have a deliberate intent to kill?" This question was overruled upon objection by the state, and its exclusion is made the basis of the first assignment of error. In our opinion the ruling complained of was correct. The witness had, just before this question was asked, testified that an epileptic, between attacks, might be perfectly clear mentally. The excluded question was not limited to the ability of a person to have a deliberate intent to kill during the period of an epileptic attack, or during a specified time before or after the attack. On the contrary, it was broad enough to cover the whole time between such attacks, and to call for the opinion of the expert as to whether an epileptic, at a time when he might be perfectly clear mentally, could, if he was in a highly excited state (even if that state was produced by a cause which would have brought about the same mental condition in an absolutely normal person), form a deliberate intent to kill. Whether a person whose mind is perfectly clear can form a deliberate intent to kill when he is laboring under a high degree of excitement produced by a periectly natural cause is a question upon which the opinion of an alienist is of no more value than that of any other intelligent person; and the opinion of a witness has no place in a judicial investigation, unless he possesses, with regard to the particular subject of inquiry, a knowledge not acquired by ordinary persons. Rut even if the witness could fairly be considered as an expert upon the subject inquired of, the question was nevertheless objectionable, for the matter with which it dealt was a mere abstraction. Questions calling for the opinions of experts upon matters of science must always be predicated upon, and relate to, the facts established by the proofs in the case. Professional opinions upon mere abstract questions of science tend to lead the minds of the jury away from the real points of inquiry, and should always be excluded. 12 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law (2d Ed.) p. 424, and notes.

The remaining assignments of error are directed at mistakes of law said to exist in the charge of the trial court to the jury. The first of these mistakes is said to have occurred in the instruction as to the scope of the defense of insanity. The charge upon that point was as follows: "The insanity of the defendant cannot be used for the purpose of reducing his crime from murder in the first degree to murder in the second degree. If responsible at all in this respect, he is responsible in the same degree as a sane man, and if he is not respousible at all, he is entitled to an acquittal in both degrees." In the case of Graves v. State, 45 N. J. Law, 347, 46 Am. Rep. 778, it was declared by this court that insanity is an affirmative defense; that the burden of proving it is upon the accused; that the law presumes, or assumes, that, at the time of committing the act for which he is tried, he was sane; and that, if he sets up insanity as a defense, and fails to establish it, the presumption, or assumption, of sanity still stands. In the case of Mackin v. State, 59 N. J. Law, 495, 36 Atl. 1040, we held insanity is a defense to crime only when the diseased condition of mind was such that the defendant did not know the nature and quality of the act he was doing—or, if he did know it, that he did not know that what he was doing was wrong. Insanity being an affirmative defense, and that defense being made out only when the mental aberration is shown to be of the character defined in Mackin v. State, the failure by the defendant to prove the existence of such a mental condition at the time of committing the act charged against him leaves the case before the jury in the same situation as if the defense had not been set up at all; that is, with the presumption existing that the defendant knew the nature and quality of the act he was doing, and the wrongfulness of it. A person who has such knowledge stands upon the same plane, so far as accountability to the criminal law is concerned, as one who is entirely normal in his mental make-up. There was no error, therefore, in the instruction complained of.

The defendant further challenges the correctness of the following instruction to the jury with relation to the burden of proof upon the question of insanity: "Every man is presumed to be sane until the contrary is shown, and, therefore, the burden rests upon the defense to convince you, by a preponderance of testimony, that the mind of the defendant was deranged, and so deranged as to make him irresponsible for his act." The contention is that this instruction was erroneous because (to quote the...