State v. Warner

• Citation: 91 Vt. 391,101 A. 149
• Parties: STATE v. WARNER.
• Decision Date: 01 May 1917
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Vermont

101 A. 149

91 Vt. 391

STATE

v. WARNER.

Supreme Court of Vermont. Windsor.

May 1, 1917.

Exceptions from Windsor County Court; Frank L. Fish, Judge.

George Warner was convicted of murder, and he excepts. Affirmed.

Argued before MUNSON, C. J., and WATSON, HASELTON, POWERS, and TAYLOR, JJ.

H. G. Barber, Atty. Gen., and Bert E. Cole, State's Atty., of Windsor, for the State. Fred G. Bicknell, of White River Junction, for respondent.

POWERS, J. George Warner has been convicted of murder in the first degree. The homicide was committed in the town of Andover on November 4, 1914, and Henry Wiggins was its victim. The respondent brings here but two questions, neither of which requires any particular statement of the evidence. He introduced some evidence tending to show that he was insane at the time of the homicide, and that this mental unsoundness developed about two years before that event. Thereupon the state produced various witnesses, who had known the respondent for many years preceding the trial, and after they had testified to certain facts, circumstances, and observations, they were allowed, subject to the respondent's exception, to predicate thereon opinions of his mental soundness. The only question raised below or made here regarding the admissibility of this testimony is that it was too remote, in view of the evidence of the respondent, and it is insisted that these witnesses should have been limited to opinions based upon facts observed within the two years preceding the crime— the period covered by the respondent's evidence. The exception is without merit. Remoteness is ordinarily a question addressed to the discretion of the trial court. State v. Bean, 77 Vt. 384, 60 Atl. 807; Smith v. C. V. Ry. Co., 80 Vt. 208, 67 Atl. 535; Belka v. Allen, 82 Vt. 456, 74 Atl. 91; Perkins v. Perley, 82 Vt. 524, 74 Atl. 231. There is nothing in the record before us to take the case out of the rule.

When a respondent puts his mental condition in issue by the introduction of evidence tending to show his insanity, he opens an inquiry that may take a very wide range; how wide depends upon the circumstances of the case in hand. Undh. Cr. Ev. § 160; 1 Wig. Ev. § 233. Broadly speaking, his whole life may be canvassed for evidence bearing upon the question, and his ancestry and family history may be investigated. In this very case, the respondent properly introduced evidence tending to show insanity in his ancestors, and asked the jury to believe that the seeds of the malady came to him by inheritance. In these circumstances, if not otherwise, it was proper for the state to show that mental disease had not appeared in the respondent during the time covered by its witnesses. For this very fact was, of itself, a circumstance bearing upon the probability that it developed at all. Nor can a respondent, by limiting his own evidence to a certain period of time, thereby circumscribe the inquiry or affect the right or duty of the prosecution. Moreover, sound public policy and a proper regard for the rights and interests of a respondent in a capital case, whose mental responsibility is an issue at his trial, forbid that he should be allowed to concede away his rights by admitting that he was sane at any previous date or time. When the issue is once raised, it is the duty of the state to produce sufficient relevant evidence to establish his legal responsibility by the measure of proof required by the law. It is as much the duty of the state to protect an insane man from conviction, as it is to prevent a sane man from escaping that result. We cannot say from the record that the ruling complained of resulted in a wider range of inquiry than was allowable. Besides, the respondent's position only amounts to this: Improper evidence was admitted to establish an undisputed fact—which is harmless error. McKindly v. Drew, 71 Vt. 138, 41 Atl. 1039; Coolidge v. Taylor, 85 Vt. 39, 80 Atl. 1038; First Nat. Bank v. Bertoli, 88 Vt. 421, 92 Atl. 970; State v. Saidell, 70 N. H. 174, 46 Atl. 1083; 85 Am. St. Rep. 627; Dietz v. Big Muddy C. & I. Co., 263 Ill. 480, 105 N. E. 289; Watters v. Brown, 177 Ala. 78, 58 South. 291; Standard Life & Ac. Ins. Co. v. Schmaltz. 66 Ark. 588, 53 S. W. 49, 74 Am. St Rep. 112.

At the close of the charge, the respondent excepted to the failure of the court to instruct the jury that:

"The burden of proof as to sanity, in cases of murder of the first degree, and with premeditation, enters in as an element of the crime."

From the course of the trial as shown by the record, it is manifest that the meaning of this somewhat obscure exception was that the respondent was entitled to an instruction that the burden was on the state to establish the respondent's sanity as an intrinsic element of the crime, and to establish it beyond a reasonable doubt. This is unquestionably the law.

Sanity is the normal condition of the human mind. Consequently, the law, in reliance upon this self-proving assertion, presumes at the outset of the trial that the respondent in any given case possesses the requisite degree of mental capacity to make him criminally responsible. And this presumption answers the administrative requirements of the law until evidence comes into the case from some source tending to show otherwise. But, if such evidence...