State v. Murphy

• Decision Date: 30 July 1985
• Citation: 496 A.2d 623
• Parties: STATE of Maine v. Maurice E. MURPHY.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 623

496 A.2d 623

STATE of Maine v. Maurice E. MURPHY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued May 9, 1985.

Decided July 30, 1985.

Charles K. Leadbetter (orally), Wayne S. Moss, William R. Stokes, Eric E. Wright, Thomas L. Goodwin, Asst. Attys. Gen., Augusta, for plaintiff.

Fenton, Chapman, Fenton, Smith & Kane, Nathaniel R. Fenton (orally), Bar Harbor, Douglas B. Chapman, Gross, Minsky, Mogul & Singal, P.A., by: George Z. Singal, Bangor, for defendant.

Before McKUSICK, C.J., and NICHOLS, ROBERTS, VIOLETTE, WATHEN and SCOLNIK, JJ.

McKUSICK, Chief Justice.

Defendant Maurice Murphy appeals his conviction in Superior Court (Hancock County) of murder and Class A robbery committed upon Maxine Eaton, late of Northeast Harbor, on June 11, 1982. After his indictment on those charges, defendant pleaded both not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity, and elected under 17-A M.R.S.A. § 40 (1983) to have a bifurcated trial. In the first stage of the trial, a jury found that the State had proved beyond a reasonable doubt all elements of the substantive offenses of murder and robbery. In the second stage, which was tried jury-waived, the trial justice found that defendant had failed to prove his insanity defense by a preponderance of the evidence.

We reject defendant's initial contentions on appeal that his constitutional right to a speedy trial was violated and that the evidence before the jury was insufficient to support its guilty verdict. We agree with defendant, however, that the trial court in the first stage of the bifurcated trial erroneously excluded the testimony of two psychologists whom defendant presented to testify regarding his capacity to have the required culpable state of mind at the time of the murder and robbery. We vacate his convictions. We also address the merits of other issues defendant raises on appeal that are likely to come up on retrial.

I. The Facts

From the evidence before it during the first "guilt or innocence" stage of the trial, the jury could reasonably have found the following facts. In August of 1981, defendant Maurice Murphy's adult daughter Marsha came to stay with her parents on Maple Street in Northeast Harbor. As a State's witness, Marsha Murphy acknowledged at trial that her father had always been a heavy drinker, but it seemed to her that in August 1981 he was drinking even more than usual. He was "sickly and crazy," so that it was "hard to talk with him, hard for him to keep a thought." Defendant would usually stay up most of the night and sleep most of the morning. His breakfast was typically a can of beer. His only food would be sandwiches, which he would eat every two or three days. He always kept the house locked up and the curtains pinned shut, because he was convinced that there were snipers waiting outside to get him. He weighed only 98 pounds, and spent most of his days watching television. He felt that the Russians and especially the Chinese "were coming to get him." Most of the time he kept a .38 caliber revolver near him for protection.

After staying with her parents for about a month, Marsha Murphy moved next door. During the fall and winter of 1981, defendant's condition became worse. Although he associated with his family, he would never wash, change his clothes, or even take them off, for months at a time. His bed and the chair he usually occupied in the darkened living room were always soaked with urine.

By the spring of 1982, defendant's condition had so deteriorated that he entered the hospital. There, his mental condition was worse than ever: he hardly knew where he was, and he felt sure that "they" were switching around the pictures on the walls surreptitiously. He thought he was a prisoner of war. His condition had not improved when he was released from the hospital a week later. His speech at that time was limited to disconnected, "crazy little statements." He would sit around all day in his recliner in the living room, with the curtains pinned shut "against the snipers," sipping beer, in a sort of stupor. He seldom left the house.

During Friday evening, June 11, 1982, defendant, as he later told his daughter, did leave his house, taking with him his .38 caliber pistol. He walked two doors down Maple Street and entered the home where 56-year-old Maxine Eaton lived alone. He asked Miss Eaton to lend him some money, on the pretext that his granddaughter needed an operation. She got out her large pocketbook and subsequently began to cry, for no reason that was apparent at trial. Defendant, believing her to be desperately unhappy, took it upon himself to "play God."

On Sunday, June 13, Maxine Eaton's body was found in the hallway of her house, shot once through the heart at close range. ¹ Police investigators retrieved the fatal bullet, which was Speer brand .38 caliber ammunition, from a doorframe in her house. Defendant without ever being asked to do so voluntarily turned his pistol over to the police. A forensic ballistics examiner testified, on the basis of his laboratory testing conducted with that gun and the bullet found in the victim's home, that the projectile could only have been fired from defendant's gun. A box of Speer brand "hollowpoint"-type bullets ² was found in defendant's house. It could not be ascertained whether the projectile fired in the victim's house was a hollowpoint bullet.

A thorough search of Miss Eaton's house failed to turn up the large pocketbook she invariably carried. On June 18, police observed defendant sitting in his car in a parking lot by the Northeast Harbor waterfront, with a pile of papers under the car on the passenger side. When defendant moved his car to another space in the lot some 20 feet away, a police officer in plainclothes walked over and collected those papers. They turned out to include bank books and a checkbook belonging to Maxine Eaton, as well as various other personal papers, some of which also bore her name. On June 19, more of the victim's papers were recovered, partially burned, from an old dump where defendant had been seen a few days earlier. Finally, still more of the victim's papers were found intermingled with defendant's possessions in a paper bag next to the chair in his living room where defendant was sitting when he was arrested on June 18, 1982.

At arraignment defendant entered pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity to the charges that he had murdered and robbed Maxine Eaton. He was then required by 17-A M.R.S.A. § 40 to elect between a unitary trial, at which the issues of guilt and insanity would be tried together, and a two-stage proceeding, in the first stage of which only his guilt or innocence would be determined, and in the second stage of which, if he was found guilty in the first stage, his criminal responsibility or lack thereof due to insanity would be adjudged. Defendant exercised his right under the statute not to inform the jury of the bifurcated nature of the proceedings. In the first stage of the trial, before the jury, the State had the burden of proving all elements of the crimes of murder and robbery beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury found that the State successfully carried that burden and convicted defendant of both crimes. Defendant then elected to have the insanity issue tried in the second stage by the court without a jury as provided in 17-A M.R.S.A. § 40(3). Defendant in that second stage had the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence his lack of criminal responsibility because of a mental disease or defect. 17-A M.R.S.A. §§ 39(1), 40(4) (1983). The trial justice found that he had not met that standard of proof, and so held him criminally responsible for his acts in murdering and robbing Maxine Eaton.

II. Defendant's Right to a Speedy Trial

Defendant at the outset contends that pretrial delays caused by the State deprived him of his right to a speedy trial under Me. Const. art. I, § 6 and U.S. Const. amend. VI, XIV, and that the charges against him must therefore be dismissed with prejudice. See Strunk v. United States, 412 U.S. 434, 440, 93 S.Ct. 2260, 2263, 37 L.Ed.2d 56 (1973). We reject defendant's contention.

Whether an accused has been denied his right to a speedy trial can be determined only through the use of a delicate balancing test that takes into account all of the circumstances of the case at hand. See State v. Cadman, 476 A.2d 1148 (Me.1984). In Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 530-533, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 2191-2194, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972), the Supreme Court identified four factors to be considered in evaluating an alleged denial of the right to a speedy trial: the length of the delay, the reasons for the delay, the defendant's assertion of his right, and prejudice to the defendant arising out of the delay. In a number of cases we have used the balancing test of Barker v. Wingo under both our state and federal constitutions. See, e.g., State v. Smith, 400 A.2d 749 (Me.1979).

A. Length of the Delay

We have held that "[t]he Barker analysis ... need be undertaken only when the length of delay is so presumptively prejudicial as to warrant consideration of the three remaining factors." State v. Dudley, 433 A.2d 711, 713 (Me.1981). In the case at bar, a total period of 25 months and 3 weeks expired between defendant's arrest and the commencement of his trial. While that length of time is not unusually egregious, see State v. Smith, 400 A.2d at 752 (25-month delay), and cases cited therein, here, as in Smith, we find that it does generate a presumption of sufficient prejudice to necessitate the Barker analysis. However, a period of 25 months' delay "is not so inordinate as to require a per se finding of a denial of a speedy trial." Id. at 753.

B. Reasons for the Delay

Of the 25-plus months between defendant's arrest on June 18, 1982, and the commencement of his trial on August 9, 1984, 5 1/2 months resulted from defendant's motions and count against his claim of a denial of the right to a speedy...