State v. Sexton, 2003-331.

• Citation: 904 A.2d 1092,2006 VT 55
• Decision Date: 09 June 2006
• Docket Number: No. 2003-331.,2003-331.
• Parties: STATE of Vermont v. Jacob A. SEXTON.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Vermont

904 A.2d 1092

2006 VT 55

STATE of Vermont v. Jacob A. SEXTON.

No. 2003-331.

Supreme Court of Vermont.

June 9, 2006.

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Robert Simpson, Chittenden County State's Attorney, and Pamela Hall Johnson, Deputy State's Attorney, Burlington, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Matthew F. Valerio, Defender General, and Anna Saxman, Deputy Defender General, Montpelier, and William A. Nelson (on the Brief), Middlebury, for Defendant-Appellee.

Present: AMESTOY, C.J.,¹ DOOLEY, JOHNSON, SKOGLUND and REIBER, JJ.

REIBER, J.

¶ 1. We accepted this interlocutory appeal to consider whether a defendant charged with murder may assert either the defense of diminished capacity to reduce the offense to manslaughter, or insanity to excuse the offense entirely, where the voluntary use of illegal drugs was an essential causal factor in the defendant's psychotic state at the time of the offense. Consistent with the law of this and other states, we conclude that a defendant in these circumstances may argue for a reduction of the offense based upon an inability to form the requisite intent to commit murder, but may not be relieved entirely of responsibility for his or her criminal acts. Accordingly, as explained more fully below, we affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.

¶ 2. Although this appeal is from a pretrial ruling, the material facts are largely undisputed. On the night of September 27, 2000, police found a Japanese exchange student, Atsuko Ikeda, lying in the street in Winooski. Ikeda had suffered serious injuries, and died shortly after transport to the hospital. During the ensuing investigation, defendant walked onto the crime scene and lay down on the street in front of a police cruiser. Upon questioning by the police, defendant reportedly said, "Just cuff me, I know I did something bad, I just don't know what." Defendant was charged with Ikeda's murder.

¶ 3. While in custody, defendant informed the police that, on the day in question, he had killed his cat and then gone outside intending to kill a person. He recalled lunging at a woman passing on a bicycle (later identified as Ikeda) and then beating her repeatedly until she stopped moving. Defendant later told psychiatrists that he had taken a variety of illegal drugs during the six months preceding the incident. Defendant recounted that for about two months, in July and August 2000, he took many "hits" of LSD, and that his last reported use of LSD was two to three weeks before the September killing. Defendant explained that on the night of the incident he felt that he needed to kill people and "gather their souls."

¶ 4. At defendant's arraignment on a charge of second-degree murder, the court ordered a psychiatric evaluation of defendant's competency and sanity.² In December 2000, Dr. Robert Linder, the court-appointed psychiatrist, filed a lengthy report with the court, ultimately concluding that defendant was insane at the time of the offense. The conclusion was based on a series of interviews with defendant and others, defendant's psychiatric and family history, and a battery of psychological tests from which Dr. Linder inferred that defendant was in a florid psychotic state at the time of the crime that prevented him from appreciating the wrongfulness of his conduct or conforming his conduct to the requirements of law. Dr. Linder's preliminary diagnosis was that defendant suffered from either a previously undiagnosed mental disease involving a schizophrenic disorder, or a substance-induced psychosis. At a later deposition in 2002, Dr. Linder noted that defendant's psychotic thoughts had largely resolved and that he had returned to his "usual self," suggesting a primary diagnosis of schizophrenoform disorder, in which psychotic symptoms last between one to six months.

¶ 5. In his December 2000 report, Dr. Linder indicated that defendant's mental state had improved over the course of their interviews and that he appeared to be competent to stand trial. Based on the report, the parties stipulated to defendant's competency, and the court scheduled a hospitalization hearing. Following the hearing, the court found that defendant was a person in need of treatment and ordered him committed to the Vermont State Hospital.

¶ 6. In February 2001, defendant notified the State that he intended to present expert testimony in support of an insanity defense, and the court granted the State's motion for an independent psychiatric evaluation. In April, the State's psychiatrist, Dr. Albert Drukteinis, filed a report concurring in Dr. Linder's opinion that defendant was psychotic at the time of the offense, but concluding that it was caused solely by defendant's voluntary use of illegal drugs. Although Dr. Drukteinis observed signs of a personality disorder with narcissistic features, he found no evidence that defendant suffered from a major thought disorder such as schizophrenia. At a subsequent hearing on the State's motion to amend defendant's conditions of release, defendant's treating psychiatrist, Dr. Margaret Bolton, also diagnosed defendant as having a personality disorder, and agreed that defendant did not suffer from any major mental illness such as schizophrenia, as reported by Dr. Linder, or borderline personality, as suggested in an earlier report by Dr. Bertold Francke. In June 2002, the court transferred custody of defendant to the Department of Corrections after concluding that his continued hospitalization was no longer justified.

¶ 7. In July 2002, the State filed a motion in limine seeking to prevent defendant from presenting an insanity defense at trial, arguing that Vermont law does not recognize temporary insanity caused by the voluntary use of drugs. The State also moved to preclude a diminished capacity defense, asserting that second-degree murder based on wanton disregard for the likelihood that one's actions would naturally cause death or great bodily harm is a general intent crime to which the defense has no application. After the parties submitted supplemental briefing, the court requested that defendant provide a concise statement of his theory as to the insanity defense. Defendant, in response, submitted a supplemental letter from Dr. Linder, reaffirming his earlier opinion that defendant was in the midst of a severe psychotic episode at the time of the offense, resulting from either a substance-induced psychosis or an underlying mental illness, such as schizophrenoform disorder, caused by the ingestion of illegal drugs in combination with an underlying psychological vulnerability that predisposed him to such a reaction.

¶ 8. In March 2003, the court issued a written decision, concluding that second-degree murder based on wanton disregard of the likelihood that one's conduct would naturally cause death or great bodily harm is a specific intent crime in Vermont. Therefore, it held that defendant was entitled to rely on the defense of diminished capacity due to voluntary intoxication. The following June, the court issued a second decision, concluding that defendant was also entitled to argue that he was legally insane at the time of the killing. Although the court ruled that "an individual whose mental state is altered solely because of the consumption and abuse of illegal drugs" may not assert an insanity defense, it found that one whose consumption of illegal drugs activates a latent mental disease or defect resulting in a psychotic reaction is entitled to a complete defense to the crime charged, unless the defendant knew or had reason to know that the drugs would elicit such a reaction.

¶ 9. The State moved for permission to pursue an interlocutory appeal of both orders. The trial court granted the motions, certifying the following three questions, which we accepted for review:

(1) Does the issue of diminished capacity caused by voluntary intoxication by means of illegal drugs apply to a charge of second degree murder based upon wanton disregard of the likelihood that one's conduct would naturally cause death or great bodily harm, so as to reduce the offense to voluntary manslaughter?

(2) Does the issue of diminished capacity caused by a combination of pre-existing mental condition and the effects of voluntary consumption of illegal drugs apply to a charge of second degree murder based upon wanton disregard of the likelihood that one's conduct would naturally cause death or great bodily harm, so as to reduce the offense to voluntary manslaughter?

(3) Is the following a correct statement of Vermont law:

The term "mental disease or defect" as used in 13 V.S.A. § 4801 includes a mental condition caused by the voluntary consumption of illegal drugs if the drugs activate a latent mental disease or defect, and as a result of that mental disease or defect the individual has lost the capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct, or has lost the capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law, unless the individual knew or had reason to know that the drug would activate the illness. The resulting disease or defect must be recognized medically and must exist at the time of the offense, independent of any temporary intoxication or high that the drugs caused. It does not matter that the mental disease or defect was not permanent, if the condition lasted for a substantial time after the intoxicating effects of the illegal drugs had worn off. A mental disease or defect cannot be caused solely by the consumption of an illegal drug.

I.

¶ 10. This interlocutory appeal presents questions of law, and our review is therefore nondeferential and plenary. State v. Koch, 169 Vt. 109, 112, 730 A.2d 577, 580 (1999).

¶ 11. The first two certified questions ask us to reexamine the common law of diminished capacity. The State suggests that our recent decisions have made such a defense unavailable to a defendant charged with second-degree murder based on a wanton disregard of the likelihood that the...