U.S. v. Ewing

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit
• Writing for the Court: Sykes
• Citation: U.S. v. Ewing, 494 F.3d 607 (7th Cir. 2007)
• Decision Date: 17 July 2007
• Docket Number: No. 05-3409.,05-3409.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. John E. EWING, Jr., Defendant-Appellant.

494 F.3d 607

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. John E. EWING, Jr., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 05-3409.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued September 15, 2006.

Decided July 17, 2007.

Eugene L. Miller (argued), Office of the United States Attorney, Urbana Division, Urbana, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Abner J. Mikva, Lara Flath (argued, under the supervision of H. Melissa Mather), University of Chicago Center for Studies in Criminal Justice, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before FLAUM, KANNE, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

SYKES, Circuit Judge.

John Ewing, Jr., is a paranoid schizophrenic plagued by delusions that society is engaged in a conspiracy to read his thoughts. After becoming convinced a state court judge was part of that conspiracy, Ewing attacked the judge with a Molotov cocktail. For this he was indicted on two federal charges and at trial raised a defense under the federal insanity statute, 18 U.S.C. § 17(a), which provides that a defendant has an affirmative defense if "as a result of a severe mental disease or defect, [he] was unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts."

Ewing asked the district court to instruct the jury that "wrongfulness" for purposes of the insanity defense means "moral as well as criminal wrongfulness," and further that "moral wrongfulness" is determined according to the defendant's subjective beliefs about morality or moral justification. The district court denied this request and instead adopted the government's alternative instruction that defined wrongfulness as "contrary to public morality, as well as contrary to law." The jury rejected Ewing's insanity defense and found him guilty. Ewing now appeals, challenging the district court's refusal to give his jury instruction on wrongfulness as well as the court's failure to order sua sponte competency hearings at various points during the proceedings.

We affirm. The district court provided the jury with a proper instruction on the meaning of wrongfulness for purpose of the insanity defense. A defendant's ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of his acts is a concept adopted from the common-law M'Naghten rule for legally exculpatory insanity. M'Naghten's Case and American case law applying it establish that a defendant's ability to appreciate right and wrong has consistently been determined by reference to societal, not personal, standards of morality. Finding no language in the statute to the contrary, we infer that Congress adopted M'Naghten's conception of wrongfulness when it codified the essential elements of the M'Naghten insanity test in § 17(a). We also conclude the district court did not err in failing to order a competency hearing during trial or a retrospective competency hearing after trial.

I. Background

A. The Attack on Judge Miller

Ewing has a history of paranoid schizophrenia dating back at least twenty years. During that time, he has intermittently taken medication and resided at various mental health facilities. A recurring symptom of his mental illness is a delusion that society is engaged in an elaborate conspiracy to read his thoughts through the aid of supercomputers. Ewing also persists in believing he was awarded a $25 million judgment by consent decree in a slip-and-fall civil lawsuit he filed in 1988 against a grocery store in Champaign, Illinois. In reality, that lawsuit was dismissed on summary judgment by Judge George Miller of the Champaign County Circuit Court.

After numerous unsuccessful written attempts to convince Judge Miller that he was owed $25 million, Ewing decided to attack the judge with a Molotov cocktail. At the time Ewing was living in a nonrestrictive mental health community in Peoria and was off his medication. On April 8, 1997, Ewing traveled by bus to Champaign. Once he arrived, he purchased and filled a gas can at a gas station near the Champaign County courthouse, then purchased a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor from a nearby liquor store and a knife from a local pawn shop. He next checked into a motel, where he used these materials to prepare a Molotov cocktail. From there he walked to the courthouse, entered Judge Miller's courtroom with a hood up around his face, threw the device at the judge, and fled. Judge Miller ducked to avoid the firebomb, sustaining a head laceration. The incendiary device fell at the foot of the judge's bench, the bench caught fire, and the courtroom was engulfed in flames. At the time of the attack, Judge Miller was presiding over a civil trial. The jurors, litigants, and courtroom personnel escaped the burning courtroom in a panic; no one was seriously injured. Firefighters responded and suppressed the fire, but everything in the courtroom was destroyed.

After the attack Ewing ran out of the courthouse and threw his hooded jacket under a van. He stopped at a local library for a while and then returned to his motel room. Meanwhile, the police found the jacket under the van and the gas can in a dumpster at the motel where Ewing was staying. After putting the motel under surveillance, the officers confronted Ewing leaving his room and noted that he smelled of gasoline. Ewing was arrested, and the officers found the knife and a note stating "G.S. Miller" and the judge's office telephone number on Ewing's person. A search of Ewing's motel room turned up further evidence of the crime. Ewing was taken to the sheriff's office, where he refused to admit to the attack.

B. Pretrial Competency Proceedings

Two days after his arrest, Ewing was committed to the custody of the Attorney General for a competency determination in accordance with 18 U.S.C. § 4241(a). After an examination by Dr. David F. Mrad, Ewing was found incompetent to stand trial and committed for treatment, which continued for approximately five years. On January 18, 2002, Dr. Mrad reported that Ewing was now competent to stand trial. Ewing was then indicted on charges of arson in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 844(i) and use of a destructive device during a crime of violence in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A) and (B)(ii). On May 10, 2002, the district court found that Ewing was competent to stand trial. Shortly thereafter, the defense gave notice of its intention to proceed with an insanity defense.

Ewing was subsequently reexamined by both Dr. Mrad and Dr. Robert Chapman, Ewing's expert. Dr. Chapman questioned Ewing's competency, and the district court granted the defense's motion for another competency hearing. On May 27, 2003, Dr. Mrad issued another report concluding that Ewing was competent to stand trial; the court accepted this determination and set a trial date of April 14, 2004. Following a brief continuance, jury selection commenced on May 24, 2004. One day into jury selection, the court granted a mistrial based on tainting of the jury pool by pretrial publicity about the incident. The trial was moved to Rock Island, Illinois, and rescheduled for September 13, 2004.

On August 30, 2004, the defense filed a motion for another competency hearing based on some additional delusional behavior Ewing had recently exhibited. Dr. Mrad immediately examined Ewing again and on September 8 informed the court that although Ewing was not doing as well as in 2003, he remained minimally competent to stand trial. In his report Dr. Mrad stated that although some of Ewing's delusions persisted, they did not render Ewing incapable of understanding the proceedings against him or participating in his defense. The court accepted Dr. Mrad's opinion and found Ewing competent to stand trial, but noted the doctor's caution that Ewing's behavior should be monitored during trial. Dr. Mrad had also reported that a change in Ewing's medication may have contributed to his decline in competency, so Ewing was returned to the medication regimen he had been taking in 2003. The marshals ensured Ewing was taking his medication during the trial, and Dr. Mrad and Dr. Chapman were available to observe his conduct throughout.

C. Pretrial and Trial Proceedings

Ewing asserted a defense based on the federal insanity statute, which provides:

(a) Affirmative defense. It is an affirmative defense to a prosecution under any Federal statute that, at the time of the commission of the acts constituting the offense, the defendant, as a result of a severe mental disease or defect, was unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts. Mental disease or defect does not otherwise constitute a defense.

(b) Burden of proof. The defendant has the burden of proving the defense of insanity by clear and convincing evidence.

18 U.S.C. § 17. Prior to trial the defense submitted a nonpattern jury instruction on the definition of wrongfulness. The instruction stated:

The term "wrongfulness," as used in these instructions, means moral wrongfulness as well as criminal wrongfulness. In other words, if you find that the defendant as a result of a severe mental disease or defect, was unable to appreciate the moral wrongfulness of his acts, even if he appreciated his acts to be criminal but commits them because of a delusion that he was morally justified then your verdict must be not guilty only by reason of insanity.

The government objected on grounds that the distinction articulated between moral and criminal wrongfulness was an incorrect statement of law, and also argued that no instruction on the distinction was necessary based on the evidence in the case or Ewing's theory of defense. Alternatively, the government proposed the following instruction on wrongfulness, should the court determine one necessary:

When the word "wrongfulness" is used in these instructions, it means contrary to public morality, as well as contrary to law. However, evidence that the defendant knew his conduct was contrary to law may be considered by you in determining whether the defendant appreciated that his conduct was contrary to public morality.

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