State v. Melvin

• Decision Date: 14 July 1975
• Citation: 341 A.2d 376
• Parties: STATE of Maine v. Donald J. MELVIN.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 376

341 A.2d 376

STATE of Maine v. Donald J. MELVIN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

July 14, 1975.

Roland A. Cole, County Atty., Alfred, Fernand R. Larochelle, Charles K. Leadbetter, Asst. Attys. Gen., Augusta, for plaintiff.

George F. Wood, Saco, Basil L. Kellis, Ronald D. Bourque, Sanford, William S. Brodrick, South Berwick, for defendant.

Before DUFRESNE, C. J., and WEATHERBEE, POMEROY, WERNICK, ARCHIBALD and DELAHANTY, JJ.

WEATHERBEE, Justice.

A York County grand jury indicted the defendant for felonious homicide in the penalty degree of murder in the death of Raymond Archambault. The matter came to trial in April of 1973. The defendant entered pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder and the defendant appealed from the Court's judgment. We deny the appeal.

A brief summary of the evidence produced by the State will be sufficient to demonstrate its capacity to prove that the defendant committed acts which if done by a sane person would constitute murder. (17 M.R.S.A. § 2651.) The defendant and several young friends with whom he shared an apartment had spent the day drinking as had been their custom for several weeks. Late that evening the defendant went with three of his friends to a lounge in Sanford where they all continued drinking. When the lounge was about to close, the defendant directed the attention of one of his companions, Wayne Brunelle, to one of the other patrons and suggested that they 'roll' the patron. Brunelle went outside and waited until he saw the defendant and this patron leave and he then set out to intercept them. He soon came upon the two and seized the intended victim from behind. While this man was being held, the defendant took the man's watch and money and handed them to Brunelle. The defendant then struck the helpless victim twice, and the victim fell to the ground. The defendant straddled the victim and produced a knife which Brunelle had seen him wearing in a sheath on another occasion. As Brunelle turned away to leave the scene he heard 'a couple of grunts'. Brunelle started back for the apartment alone, but after about a minute was rejoined by the defendant. Together they ran most of the way back, Brunelle entering the apartment ahead of the defendant. When the defendant entered two or three minutes later, Brunelle noted that the defendant 'had blood all over his arm.' ¹

The defendant told his friends at the apartment that he 'had just murdered somebody' and 'I killed a man for a lousy three dollars.' His friends saw blood on the defendant and they were forced to restrain him when he became hysterical. The knife, watch and the jacket worn by the defendant were later found in the water below a dam a short distance from the defendant's apartment.

The victim proved to be Raymond Archambault. His death had resulted from multiple stab wounds, many of which had been inflicted with great force and would, alone, have been lethal.

The defendant presented the testimony of a clinical phychologist and a psychiatrist who examined the defendant and that of a Deputy Sheriff who had observed an episode of momentary unconsciousness of the defendant which occurred while the defendant was lodged in the county jail and which the defendant contended was an epileptic seizure. The clinical psychologist expressed the opinion that the defendant suffered from a personality disorder of the sub-type known as explosive personality, which he considered to be a mental disease or defect. The psychiatrist agreed that the defendant had an explosive personality disorder and felt that, in addition, the defendant was afflicted with temporal lobe epilepsy which he said was a mental disease. He also said the defendant was a diabetic and that the long period in which the defendant consumed no food but drank a large quantity of alcohol could have produced hypoglycemia resulting in an irrational state. He expressed the opinion that the defendant's action resulted from a combination of the personality disorder, the hypoglycemia and the temporal lobe epilepsy, triggered by alcohol and an offensive remark.

The State responded with psychiatric opinion that the defendant had a personality disorder, anti-social type manifested by repeated criminal conduct, which is a behavioral problem; that epilepsy is not a mental disease; that epileptic seizures do not result in directed aggressive activity; and that on August 8, 1972 the defendant was not suffering from mental disease or defect.

The Presiding Justice's Instruction to the Jury on Proof of Insanity

After a thorough and correct explanation to the jury of the State's duty to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the various particular elements of the offense charged, the Justice told the jury:

'The burden of proof is on the defendant to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that as a result of mental disease or defect he either lacked substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of law, or lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his act-of his conduct. If the defendant has met this burden, you shall bring in a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. If he has not met that burden, you shall bring in a verdict of guilty of the offense which you found proved beyond a reasonable doubt, which, of course, you will have had to find before you can consider the element of insanity.'

Defense counsel then approached the bench and requested this instruction:

'The burden is upon the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not suffering from a mental disease or mental defect at the time of the alleged crime.'

The State urges us that the defendant has not properly preserved this issue for appellate review. There is substance to the State's position. The defendant made no objection to the language used in the Justice's charge, ² and no claim is made that he was prevented from doing so. While the defendant now contends that we are required by both logic and constitutional mandate to adopt the position that the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant's act was not the product of a mental disease or defect, the requested instruction fell short of presenting this position to the Justice because it ignored the element of causation between the mental disease or defect and the act. ³ Even if the Justice had acceded to the point of view now argued by the defendant, the requested instruction would not in its totality have been sound law and the Justice would not have been required to give it. ⁴ The total effect falls short of compliance with M.R.Crim.P., Rule 30(b).

Therefore, under our long established practice we are left to examine the Justice's instruction for obvious or manifest error. ⁵ We have done so.

The defendant concedes that the Justice's charge correctly placed the burden of proof as to mental disease or defect upon the defendant under existing Maine law as announced in State v. Lawrence, 57 Me. 574 (1870) and followed in an unbroken line of decisions including State v. Hathaway, 161 Me. 255, 211 A.2d 558 (1965) and State v. Collins, Me., 297 A.2d 620 (1972). The defendant urges us that a re-examination of our established position on this issue was necessitated by the holding of the United States Supreme Court in In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970).

However, the precise issue which this defendant raises has in the meantime been fully considered and decided by us in State v. Buzynski, Me., 330 A.2d 422 (1974). Buzynski was argued before-and decided after-the oral arguments in the present case. We had the benefit of the present defendant's extensive analysis of the issues involved, including his analysis of the effect of Davis v. United States, 160 U.S. 469, 16 S.Ct. 353, 40 L.Ed. 499 (1895), of Leland v. Oregon, 343 U.S. 790, 72 S.Ct. 1002, 96 L.Ed. 1302 (1952), and of In re Winship, supra, during the formulation of our decision in Buzynski. We concluded then that 'there is no constitutional infirmity in placing upon a criminal defendant the affirmative duty of establishing by a fair preponderance of the evidence that the unlawful act with which he is charged is the product of mental disease or mental defect.' 330 A.2d, supra, at 431. ⁶

In addition to the analysis of judicial precedent discussed in Buzynski, we are convinced that strong policy considerations impel us to continue to hold to the Lawrence rule. Once a jury has found that a person has been unable to control his conduct and has committed acts forbidden by the criminal statutes, there is a very important public interest that he be held for public safety (and his own safety) until it has been judicially determined that there is no likelihood of his causing injury to himself or others, due to the mental injury or defect. The specific affirmative finding of causative mental disease or defect (as distinguished from a mere failure of the State to prove that there was no causative mental disease or defect) furnishes the basis for our present statutory scheme of commitment of persons whose diseased or defective mental conditions has resulted in a criminal type of conduct. Chase v. Kearns, Me., 278 A.2d 132 (1971).

We remain unconvinced that our position must or should change.

The Defendant's Claim of Error Because His Trial Was Not Bifurcated

In his efforts to establish that the defendant was suffering from a mental disease which caused his violent attacks upon the victim, defendant's counsel presented through his psychiatrist and...