State v. McDonald
| Decision Date | 17 November 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 44675,44675 |
| Citation | 89 Wn.2d 256,571 P.2d 930 |
| Parties | The STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. Erling S. McDONALD, Appellant. |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
McAdams & Schacht, Ronald K. McAdams, Walla Walla, for appellant.
Arthur R. Eggers, Pros. Atty., Larry B. Siegel, Deputy Pros. Atty., Walla Walla, for respondent.
This case presents 10 assignments of error all relating to the insanity defense. Defendant Erling S. McDonald appeals a conviction of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of first-degree assault for shooting his sister-in-law and her children on May 21, 1975. We affirm the conviction.
Defendant's very able court-appointed counsel argues that defendant was insane at the time he committed the acts and therefore should not be held criminally responsible. The specific assignments of error will be considered seriatim after discussion of the facts.
Defendant was arrested in Seattle soon after the shootings, having driven a stolen Greyhound bus from Walla Walla. He was returned to Walla Walla by authorities, where he gave a confession.
A competency hearing was scheduled and defendant was examined on June 26 by Dr. Bruce Jarvis, a court-appointed psychiatrist. Dr. Jarvis concluded that defendant was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and was incompetent to stand trial. Following a competency hearing and order dated July 10, 1975, defendant was committed for 90 days' observation and treatment at the Monroe Mental Health Unit, Monroe Reformatory.
A competency evaluation was filed with the court after 90 days' observation by three mental health professionals at Monroe: psychiatrist R. Longanecker, psychologist William Jones, and psychiatric social worker Paltiell Mitchell. They diagnosed defendant as "chronically and profoundly mentally ill" suffering from "chronic and severe paranoid schizophrenia" manifested by "a rigid and elaborate delusional system," but they concluded defendant was competent to stand trial.
Defendant was returned to Walla Walla and scheduled to stand trial on November 18-21, 1975, subject to another hearing on his competency. At this second hearing Dr. Jarvis, who had reexamined defendant on November 3, disagreed with the Monroe competency evaluation, expressing his belief that defendant was still not competent to stand trial although he may have a "factual understanding" of the proceedings. Dr. Longanecker refused to corroborate the evaluation team's report that defendant was competent, although his signature appeared on the report. He was equivocal and evasive in answering questions regarding his expert opinion as to defendant's competency.
Defendant's counsel, Ronald McAdams, also took the stand at the hearing and expressed his reservations about defendant's competency to stand trial. Mr. McAdams cited defendant's resistance to counsel, his resistance to the suggestion that he was insane or should plead not guilty by reason of insanity, and his belief that he was facilitated in his "mission" by many people and agencies (including Greyhound, which provided a bus with an automatic transmission for defendant to drive to Seattle after the killings, the police who assisted by not stopping him on the way to Seattle, store and motel personnel). Counsel also asserted that defendant felt allegiance to police authorities who assured him he was sane, and resented counsel who attempted to convince him to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, which he eventually did do.
Following this second competency hearing, the trial judge found defendant still incompetent to stand trial and entered an order dated November 5, 1975. The order provided for another 90-day period of evaluation and treatment at the Monroe Mental Health facility and set the next competency hearing for February 2, 1976.
After 2 more months of treatment at Monroe, Mr. Mitchell and the director of the facility, Dr. McCoy, were convinced defendant was competent. The trial court advanced the February 2, 1976 hearing to January 14, 1976, over defense counsel's objection. In addition to testimony by Dr. McCoy and Mr. Mitchell that defendant was competent, a letter was admitted from Dr. Jarvis, the original court-appointed psychiatrist. Dr. Jarvis had examined the defendant for the third time on January 10, 1976, and concluded that defendant was "vastly improved," his psychosis "in significant remission at this time," and that he "is now aware of his peril and has both the capacity and the will to consult with counsel . . . with both rational and factual understanding of the proceedings." At the end of his report, he stated that "this interview with Mr. McDonald came close to being a normal conversation and, if he holds this improvement, he will certainly continue to be competent for the near future." Dr. Jarvis also commented that the difference of opinion between him and the Monroe mental health experts as to defendant's competency in November could have been due to the defendant losing ground after he was sent from Monroe to the Walla Walla jail, where Dr. Jarvis saw him for the second time.
So, on the basis of unconflicting psychiatric testimony, defendant was found competent to stand trial. Proceedings commenced on January 22, 1976, with a CrR 3.5 hearing on the admissibility of defendant's confession of June 6, 1975. The trial court deemed the confession freely and voluntarily given in the presence of defendants attorney after defendant had received full advice on his constitutional rights.
The next stage in the trial proceedings was a sanity hearing on defendant's motion for acquittal. Dr. Jarvis there testified in accordance with his original observations of June 26, 1975, that defendant was insane at the time of the commission of the crime. Dr. McCoy testified that defendant was sane. Another psychiatrist, Dr. Sol Levy, testified that he had examined defendant on January 29, 1976, and he did not believe him to be mentally ill. He stated that defendant was sane and appreciated the wrongfulness of his conduct at the time of the crime. Mr. Mitchell, the psychiatric social worker from Monroe, then testified that defendant was sane at the time of the commission of the crime, knew right from wrong and knew what he was doing when he committed the crime. The trial court orally denied the motion for acquittal and entered no findings.
Trial before jury commenced February 3, 1976, and, as the defense conceded, the only issue was sanity. The facts of the crime were undisputed. The jury convicted on all counts and defendant was sent to the State Penitentiary at Walla Walla, for two consecutive life terms. Motions were made and denied for a directed acquittal on the basis of defendant's insanity and to have the testimony of Dr. McCoy and Mr. Mitchell stricken because, as adherents to a minority theory of psychiatry called transactional analysis, they failed to apply the M'Naghten test in making their determinations.
Defendant's personal history is rife with unresolved conflicts with parents and ex-wives and the internal demons which afflict most of us in some way. The record shows two periods of commitment and a year of private therapy prior to defendant's arrival in the State of Washington. In 1970 he was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown in Maryland. Sometime after that he was jailed for 6 months in Florida for raping his ex-wife, and was then transferred to a mental hospital. The doctors there found him safe to be at large after a short time. He then went to Maryland where he was once again jailed and hospitalized, this time for obstructing a police officer and carrying a concealed weapon. Once again, he was released after a brief time. He then robbed a bank and came to Washington to kill his sister-in-law for refusing to help him find his ex-wife.
Defendant's first assignment of error is based on a misapprehension of RCW 10.77.090. Defendant argues that the statute mandates a full 90-day period for a second incompetency commitment, although the first commitment period need not be for a full 90 days. He asserts that it was error for the trial court to advance the February 2, 1976 hearing to January 14, 1976, thereby depriving defendant of the full 90 days of treatment and evaluation to which he was entitled under the statute.
Subsection 1 of RCW 10.77.090 provides that, if the court finds a defendant incompetent to stand trial the proceedings shall be stayed and the defendant committed "for no longer than a period of ninety days." Subsection 2 provides in pertinent part as follows:
If the court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant is incompetent, the court shall have the option of extending the order of commitment or alternative treatment for an additional ninety day period, but it must at the time of extension set a date for a prompt hearing to determine the defendant's competency before the expiration of the second ninety day period. The defendant, his attorney, the prosecutor, or the judge shall have the right to demand that the hearing on or before the expiration of the second ninety day period be before a jury.
(Italics ours.) We read this section of the statute as directory, not mandatory. We said in Spokane County ex rel. Sullivan v. Glover, 2 Wash.2d 162, 169, 97 P.2d 628, 631 (1940):
There is no universal rule or absolute test by which it can be positively determined whether a provision in a statute is mandatory or directory. In the determination of that question, as of every other question of statutory construction, the prime object is to ascertain the legislative intent as disclosed by all the terms and provisions of the act in relation to the subject of legislation, and by a consideration of the nature of the act, the general object to be accomplished, and the consequences that would result from construing the particular statute in one way or another.
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