State v. Nuetzel

• Decision Date: 15 February 1980
• Docket Number: No. 6961,6961
• Citation: 61 Haw. 531,606 P.2d 920
• Court: Hawaii Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Hawaii, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Frederick Charles NUETZEL, Defendant-Appellant.

Page 920

606 P.2d 920

61 Haw. 531

STATE of Hawaii, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Frederick Charles NUETZEL, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 6961.

Supreme Court of Hawai'i.

Feb. 15, 1980.

Syllabus by the Court

1. At the outset of a case a defendant is presumed sane at the time he committed the offense. However, if any evidence introduced raises the question of his sanity, or insanity becomes a defense, then the State 2. The standard, on a motion for judgment of acquittal, is whether the evidence, considered most favorably to the government, is such as to permit a rational conclusion by a jury that the accused was sane beyond a reasonable doubt.

is required to establish the sanity of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt.

3. Where insanity is raised as a defense, the nature and quantum of rebuttal evidence sufficient to present a jury question is to some extent determined by the strength of the case for insanity.

4. Sole reliance on a crime's bizarreness and emotional impact is not by itself indicative of a defendant's insanity.

5. Instructions should be flexible with wide discretion vested in the trial judge to clarify the terms of the definition of legal insanity. Trial judges should not be restricted to merely repeating the terms of the statute.

Renee M. L. Yuen, Yuen & Perkins, Honolulu, for defendant-appellant.

Albert H. Esposito, Deputy Pros. Atty., Togo Nakagawa, Pros. Atty., Honolulu, for plaintiff-appellee.

RICHARDSON, Chief Justice.

Defendant-appellant Frederick Charles Nuetzel appeals from his conviction of murder pursuant to HRS § 707-701 following a five-day jury trial. We affirm his conviction.

The facts and circumstances leading to appellant's arrest were presented during the prosecution's case through the testimony of various witnesses. Mrs. Naomi Weigel, property manager of decedent's apartment building testified that appellant resided with decedent, Kenneth Todd, for two weeks prior to his death. On the afternoon of March 18, 1977, Mrs. Weigel noticed a note taped to the front door of decedent's apartment. The note, signed by Kenneth Todd, stated that he had gone to Nanakuli for the weekend and would return the following Monday. On Wednesday, March 23, 1977, Naomi Weigel decided to check Todd's apartment. She was surprised that Todd had not informed her personally of his leavetaking and was worried about him and his dog, whom she could hear from inside the apartment. That evening, using her passkey and accompanied by friends, she entered the apartment and found Todd dead in his bedroom.

The medical examiner, Dr. Alvin Majoska, testified that Kenneth Todd's body contained at least eleven stab wounds to the abdomen, seven small wounds on the back and other various wounds on the neck and head. The major injury, however, was an incised wound on the left chest which extended through the chest wall, the lung and the pericardium. The wound was such that the decedent's heart was excised almost entirely. The medical examiner's opinion as to Todd's death was "hemorrhage due to excision of the heart." In other words, Todd bled to death as a result of having his heart cut out.

Several police officers testified as to the condition and location of decedent's body on their arrival at the apartment after Naomi Weigel alerted the Honolulu Police Department. Detective Jeffrey H. Yamashita also testified extensively at trial as to the interview he conducted with appellant on March 24, 1977 at the Honolulu Police Department cell block where appellant was being held on another unrelated charge.

Appellant willingly talked to Detective Yamashita ¹ and related the following version At the close of the state's case, defense counsel moved for a judgment of acquittal which was denied by the trial judge. The greater part of the defense's case included the testimony of four expert witnesses. Dr. Furukawa, the first psychiatrist to examine appellant, initially had been contacted by the Office of the Public Defender to determine whether there were any grounds on which to base a defense of insanity. As a result of the examination, Dr. Furukawa recommended that the court appoint a sanity commission to further interview appellant. ² At trial Dr. Furukawa also testified as a defense witness and stated that he felt appellant was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia or "paraphrenia" and that his capacity to recognize what he was doing and also to conform his behavior to the law's standards was impaired at least 75%.

of events. The incident in question occurred on either March 18th or 19th. Appellant had returned to the apartment around 6:00 p. m. after spending the day at the beach. Todd returned much later at around 11:00 p. m. He had been out drinking with friends and appeared very intoxicated. Both Todd and appellant were seated across from each other at the kitchen table. Suddenly, without any provocation, Todd swore at appellant, grabbed a knife from the table and lunged at appellant with the knife. Simultaneously, appellant picked up a screwdriver that was also lying on the table. He managed to avoid Todd's attack [61 Haw. 534] and hit Todd's head with the screwdriver. Todd dropped the knife and at this point appellant went into a frenzy, stabbing continuously at Todd. Todd continued to fight back and appellant in turn continued his stabbing. Later, appellant picked up the knife and cut out Todd's heart to make sure he was dead. He covered the body, bathed and changed his clothes. The next day he threw the heart into the downstairs dumpster and placed the handwritten note on the apartment door. On the morning of March 23, 1977, appellant left the apartment for breakfast and a newspaper and later went to the beach. He was subsequently picked up by the police for another offense.

Pursuant to a court order, Dr. Presbrey, Dr. Graham and Dr. Lo served on a commission that undertook further examination of appellant. Dr. Presbrey had examined appellant for fifty minutes and diagnosed him as a "paranoid personality" with "anti-social features," which Dr. Presbrey characterized as a personality disorder. When questioned about the degree of appellant's impairment, Dr. Presbrey noted that at the time of the offense, appellant's ability to know that what he was doing was wrong was impaired 40% And that his capacity to control himself from wrongdoing was impaired 50%.

Dr. Graham examined appellant for seventy minutes and diagnosed him as a "paranoid personality" with "sociopathic features." When asked to quantify appellant's degree of impairment, Dr. Graham stated that appellant's ability to control himself was "moderately diminished."

The fourth psychiatrist, Dr. Lo, examined appellant for seventy-five minutes, diagnosing him as having a "personality disorder with anti-social and paranoid tendencies." Dr. Lo's conclusion as to appellant's impairment was that it was "minimum to moderate."

The last medical evidence presented was through a medical report written by Dr. Barthel, psychological consultant for the After this report was read to the jury in its entirety, defense counsel renewed her motion for a judgment of acquittal which was again denied. Instructions were given to the jury and as a result of its deliberations, a verdict of guilty was returned on February 3, 1978.

state courts and corrections. Dr. Barthel's report was received into evidence by stipulation in lieu of his testimony. Although his report was very brief, Dr. Barthel concluded that appellant showed no signs of psychoses or loss of control.

The two issues raised on appeal for this court's consideration are:

I. Whether the trial court, at the close of appellant's case, erred in denying the motion for a judgment of acquittal.

II. Whether the trial court erred in its instruction to the jury defining "lack of substantial capacity" as "capacity which has been impaired to such a degree that only an extremely limited amount remains."

I

Rule 29(a) of the Hawaii Rules of Penal Procedure (1977) states:

The court on motion of a defendant or of its own motion shall order the entry of judgment of acquittal of one or more offenses alleged in the charge after the evidence on either side is closed if the evidence is insufficient to sustain a conviction of such offense or offenses.

Appellant argues that his motion for judgment of acquittal should have been granted because even after all the evidence had been presented, the prosecution failed to establish the material elements of murder ³ beyond a reasonable doubt. Specifically, appellant argues that his defense of legal insanity pursuant to HRS § 704-400(1) ⁴ totally negated the necessary criminal intent required to establish penal responsibility.

This court has clearly expressed the constitutional principle that an accused in a criminal case can be convicted only upon "proof by the prosecution of all of the elements of the crime charged against him beyond a reasonable doubt." State v. Napeahi, 57 Haw. 365, 372, 556 P.2d 569, 574 (1976). Thus, to secure appellant's conviction, the state had the burden of proving all the elements of murder, HRS § 707-701, beyond a reasonable doubt. But appellant's raising the defense of insanity under HRS § 704-400(1) required the prosecution to prove the additional element of appellant's sanity to establish its prima facie case. According to State v. Moeller, 50 Haw. 110, 433 P.2d 136 (1967), at the outset of a case a defendant is presumed to have been sane at the time he committed the offense. However, "if any evidence introduced raises the question of the sanity of a defendant or insanity becomes a defense, then the State is required to establish the sanity of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt." 50 Haw. 121, 433 P.2d at 143, citing Territory v. Adiarte, 37 Haw. 463 (1947). See Davis v. United States, 165 U.S. 373, 17 S.Ct. 360, 41 L.Ed. 750 (1897). Thus, when defense counsel introduced the testimony of the four psychiatrists as to appellant's allegedly impaired...