State v. Sarinske
| Decision Date | 29 June 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 76-452-CR,76-452-CR |
| Citation | 280 N.W.2d 725,91 Wis.2d 14 |
| Parties | STATE of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Roger SARINSKE, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
DeBardeleben & Snyder, Park Falls, on brief, for defendant-appellant; Arthur DeBardeleben, Park Falls, argued.
Edward S. Marion, Asst. Atty. Gen. (argued), and Bronson C. La Follette, Atty. Gen., on brief, for plaintiff-respondent.
On October 8, 1976, the same jury which earlier found defendant Roger Sarinske guilty of first-degree murder refused to find him not guilty by reason of mental disease. The defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment. He appeals from the judgment of conviction and sentence and from the order denying his motions after verdict. We affirm the judgment and order.
Defendant raises numerous issues on appeal. Several challenge the fairness of the trial, several confront specific evidentiary rulings, and several concern instructions given to the jury. In addition, defendant argues that there was insufficient evidence to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and that the jury could not reasonably have failed to find him not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. Finally, defendant requests a new trial in the interest of justice.
The defendant Roger Sarinske was charged with first-degree murder on March 3, 1976 of Paul Paulie. At the time of the offense he was a thirty-two year old resident of Crandon, Wisconsin, he had been married to Sandra Sarinske for eight years, and they had three children. Roger Sarinske was completing work on his Master's degree in communicative disorders, a field in which he had worked for some years prior to his return to school. Sandra Sarinske was employed as an English instructor at Nicolet College in Rhinelander.
Over a period of several years, Sandra Sarinske had had a series of extra-marital affairs of which the defendant was aware. In the several months prior to the killing, Sandra Sarinske had engaged in sexual relations with two students from Nicolet, Robin Jensen and the deceased, Paul Paulie. Jensen considered Paulie a rival for the affections of Sandra Sarinske. These extra-marital liaisons created (or manifested) difficulty in the marriage, although Sarinske's reaction was one of concern for his wife's emotional well-being and for the continued cohesion of the family unit. On February 23, 1976, the Sarinskes agreed to a month of separation.
By the terms of their informal separation agreement, the Sarinskes were not to see each other during the intervening month. However, on March 2, 1976, as he was driving from River Falls to Chicago Roger Sarinske decided he wanted to see his wife without speaking to her. He detoured to drive by his home, and in the early hours of March 3, en route to Crandon, tired from a long, difficult drive and a week of final exams and little sleep, Sarinske drove through Rhinelander and saw his wife's car parked in front of the Wonder Hotel, the hotel in which he knew Paul Paulie lived. During the guilt phase of the trial, Roger Sarinske testified that he had no memory of what transpired after seeing his wife's car until he found himself in jail. The defendant was asked if he had shot Mr. Paulie, and he stated "I don't know if I shot him." At the insanity portion of the bifurcated trial, the experts who examined Roger shortly after the killing reported getting at that time a considerably more detailed version of the events of the night.
Sandra Sarinske confirmed that she and Paul Paulie spent the day and evening of March 2 together, including having sexual relations, and that at about midnight they drove to the Sarinske home. According to Mrs. Sarinske, as she and Paulie were walking towards her home, she somewhat ahead of him, she heard her husband yell "Hey, Paulie", saw a flash, and then saw Paulie jump in the air and fall to the ground after yelling "No." When she approached the victim's body she saw her husband with a shotgun in his hands standing near the victim. She further testified that she tried to phone the rescue squad, but that her husband grabbed her by the scarf she was wearing around her neck and dragged her back towards Paulie, at which point the victim, still moving but bleeding from the wound to his midsection which caused his death within twenty minutes, said to her "I'll never touch you again." She again attempted to make a call for help, but Roger who was, according to her, extremely upset and violent, ripped the receiver of the phone from the wall and disabled the other phone connection in the house.
At approximately 3:40 a. m., somewhere between one and two and a half hours after Paulie was shot, the chief of Crandon's police department, L. W. Dodd, received a call at home. The caller identifying himself as Roger Sarinske, told Dodd that he had just shot and killed a man with a shotgun. Dodd, who knew Sarinske somewhat, recognized his voice. Dodd and one of his men went directly to the Sarinske residence, found the body in the driveway, and went inside the house to find Roger Sarinske seated at the kitchen table. Upon Dodd's arrival Roger was calm and cooperative.
During the trial, defense counsel attempted to throw doubt upon the main facts of the killing (as related by Mrs. Sarinske and as suggested by the physical evidence) and to suggest that another person, perhaps Robin Jensen, had shot Paulie from the second story of the house. Defense challenged prosecutorial evidence on the angle at which the fatal projectiles traveled and pointed to the spent shotgun shell on the second floor of the house. Defense attempted to discredit the testimony of Mrs. Sarinske and focused on Mrs. Sarinske's supposed uncertainty as to whether she saw the flash when she was facing the house or facing the victim. Defense counsel succeeded in showing that Jensen and probably Sandra Sarinske made inconsistent statements about how often they had seen one another since the killing, but a witness testified that Robin Jensen was with him the night of March 2-3.
After the jury found Roger Sarinske guilty of first-degree murder (jury instructions relating to second-degree or manslaughter were neither submitted nor requested by defense), the jury heard testimony from lay and expert witnesses concerning Roger Sarinske's mental health. Roger Sarinske was described as a constructive citizen; he performed volunteer work in the community; he aided handicapped children while he was in the military service. Even in giving the most negative testimony about their marital relations, Sandra Sarinske observed that he was a "very, very kind and gentle" person to others, if not to her. However several witnesses testified that Roger's reaction to Sandra's infidelities was "too good," that over the years he failed to express even indirectly any anger at her or her lovers. Paul Paulie and his roommates, after Roger went to Paulie's room to ask him to leave Sandra alone for her own good, accorded him the nickname "St. Francis" because of his forgiving attitude and lack of hostility.
Mrs. Sarinske testified that her husband beat her about 25 to 30 times in their marriage, most violently after shooting Paulie. Roger admitted to having hit her once or twice with his open palm when she became nearly hysterical, but claimed that he most frequently just yelled, or restrained her by putting his arms around her when she was abusing him. Mrs. Sarinske testified that in January 1976 Sarinske shot and killed a dog who was bothering their female who was in heat; he testified that he had shot away from the dog to frighten the dog off after it had jumped on one of the children and failed to respond to his yelling. At the time of the trial, Roger and Sandra were living together as man and wife after she withdrew an intervening divorce action.
Against this background, three experts in psychology, one psychologist and two psychiatrists, testified on the question of mental disease. The two defense experts concluded that Sarinske was suffering from a mental disease known as dissociative reaction and that he had killed Paulie while in a particular phase of that disease. In contrast, the state's expert, Dr. Fosdal, declined to characterize Sarinske as suffering from a mental disease and instead described Sarinske's condition as one resulting from continual stress. Fosdal said that Roger's impairment of both ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct and of the ability to conform his conduct to the law was "substantial." He further commented that "the examiners will vary as to the ease with which they will call a passionate upsetting moment call this that . . . or call that a dissociative reaction." Further facts will appear in the opinion.
The defendant contends, on several grounds, that he was denied a fair trial.
Sarinske maintains that the judge's informing the jury at the commencement of the trial of both the "not guilty" and the "not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect" pleas deprived him of due process of law.
The trial court in informing the jury of both pleas was acting in accordance with this court's mandate in State ex rel. La Follette v. Raskin, 34 Wis.2d 607, 627, 150 N.W.2d 318 (1967) that the jury be informed of both pleas "at the outset." Sec. 971.175, Stats., provides that the jury shall be advised of the two pleas and that there be a separation of the issues with the guilt issue heard first:
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