U.S. v. Samuels, 85-2002

• Decision Date: 24 September 1986
• Docket Number: No. 85-2002,85-2002
• Citation: 801 F.2d 1052
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Michael Keith SAMUELS, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 1052

801 F.2d 1052

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Michael Keith SAMUELS, Appellant.

No. 85-2002.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted March 13, 1986.

Decided Sept. 24, 1986.

Sylvester James, Jr., Kansas City, Mo., for appellant.

J. Whitfield Moody, Asst. U.S. Atty., Kansas City, Mo., for appellee.

Before McMILLIAN and BOWMAN, Circuit Judges, and HANSON, ^* Senior District Judge.

HANSON, Senior District Judge.

Samuels appeals from the district court's judgment of conviction sentencing him to serve five years for his violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 871(a), charging that he mailed a letter threatening to take the life of or inflict bodily injury on the President of the United States. Samuels contends that there was insufficient evidence of his sanity at the time of the offense to support the jury's verdict. Furthermore, he claims that the government's psychiatric witness should not have been allowed to state the test for insanity because this amounted to a statement of opinion as to criminal responsibility in violation of Rule 704(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence. Samuels also contends that the trial court's retroactive application of the Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984 violated the ex post facto clause of the Constitution. We reverse the decision of the district court as to sufficiency of the evidence.

I. BACKGROUND

On January 13, 1984 the White House mailroom received a letter signed by Samuels. The letter was dated January 10, 1984 and addressed to: "Ronald Regan [sic], the President of the Land you took from the Indians, Washington, D.C. Washington." The letter read:

To Ronald Regan and all other honkies that was President & cabinet members. I dont and is not going to talk with ya and ya better quit fucking with me. I'm not going to help ya brainwash our people and any others. Keep fucking with me and ya will be dead and buried six feet deept. I will kill ya myself. Keep fucking with me. Michael Keith Samuels. Also the honkies in any kind of uniforms, plain clothes or no clothes.

The letter was relayed by the Intelligence Division of the United States Secret Service, located in Washington, D.C., to Special Agent James P. O'Connor in the Kansas City office of the Secret Service. During the interrogation of Samuels in the Secret Service office, he admitted writing the letter and then stated "[a]nd I don't want to talk about it anymore." At that point the interview stopped and he was detained in custody.

Samuels was indicted on April 19, 1984 for violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 871(a). Samuels plead not guilty to the charges against him and was committed to the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners at Springfield, Missouri ("MCFP") for an initial 60-day observation period to determine his competency to stand trial. On April 30, 1984, Dr. James Leach, a psychiatrist at MCFP, appeared at a competency hearing before the district court and testified that Samuels was competent to stand trial. The court, however, expressed concern that the appellant's competency had been attained only through the use of Thorazine and remitted him back to MCFP for further testing to determine if his competency could be maintained without the use of drugs.

On January 15, 1985 a second competency hearing was held at which Dr. Leach testified that Samuels was not competent to stand trial because his frequent attacks on medical personnel and other patients rendered him a threat to himself and others. Dr. Leach did indicate to the court that within an additional 2-4 month period, if Samuels remained on a program of medication, he would probably stabilize and become competent to understand the nature of the charges against him and assist in his defense. The court accepted Dr. Leach's opinion and ordered the additional 4-month period.

After the hearing on January 15, 1985 until the trial on May 28, 1985 Samuels remained in MCFP under the care of Dr. Harry S. Darling. After treating Samuels with the medication Navane, Dr. Darling testified before the district court that Samuels was competent to stand trial while on medication, but that he would not be competent without medication. After the court found Samuels competent to stand trial while on medication, the trial was held. The jury thereafter returned a verdict of "guilty" against the defendant. This appeal followed.

II. SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE

Samuels raised the defense of insanity at trial and asserts now on appeal that the trial court should have found that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding that he was sane at the time he wrote and mailed the letter to the President. The American Law Institute test for insanity was adopted by this court in United States v. Frazier, 458 F.2d 911, 918 (8th Cir.1972), and states that a defendant is insane if at the time of the alleged crime "he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law." (Footnote omitted.) ¹ A defendant is presumed to be sane until he introduces evidence of insanity, at which point the burden shifts to the government to prove sanity beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Voice, 627 F.2d 138, 148 (8th Cir.1980). To reverse a conviction "we must be satisfied that the prosecution's evidence was so weak that the reasonable juror would necessarily possess a reasonable doubt as to defendant's sanity." Id. at 148-49. Reviewing this case in the light most favorable to the United States, we find that the government produced insufficient evidence from which the jury could reasonably find Samuels was sane at the time he wrote and then mailed the threatening letter to the President.

Samuels clearly met his initial burden of producing evidence to overcome the presumption of sanity. He produced evidence from his brother, Alonzo Samuels, that his behavior had deteriorated from September of 1983 to January of 1984. Samuels also presented evidence from his long-time community worker, Eleanor Klein, that when he was taking his medication his assaultive and threatening behavior would become stabilized. ² She also testified that in the months preceding his arrest on January 30, 1984 she had noticed that he had not been taking his medication. Furthermore, these witnesses testified as to his long history of prior hospitalizations and treatment for his mental problems. Samuels had a history of episodic illness which followed the pattern of events which occurred in the months prior to his arrest. Typically, after he had been hospitalized and had taken medication long enough to stabilize his behavior and thought processes, he would become happier and hopeful of finding a steady job. However, when he was unable to find work he would begin to withdraw and stop taking his medication. At this point, Samuels would become hostile and exhibit paranoid schizophrenic behavior.

During the months immediately preceding his arrest, Samuels had become deeply depressed. In December of 1983 he refused to allow other family members to decorate the Christmas tree in their home and took ornaments off after others had put them on. He turned the television set to the wall so that no one could see the screen because people on television were attempting to force him to spy on Russia. He moved his mother and all their household effects into a vacant house across the street from his home. The police evicted them. Within a few days, he returned his mother and furnishings to the vacant house and had to be evicted again.

Samuels also wrote numerous letters to the "king of Africa," the U.N., the mafia, the C.I.A., the mayor, the governor, doctors, and social workers. To write his numerous letters, he tore pages out of phone books and used whatever paper he could find. Most of the letters were threatening and belligerent, evidencing his delusional and paranoid thought processes.

On January 13, 1984, the day the letter was received in the White House mailroom, Eleanor Klein and Alonzo Samuels, having decided to readmit him to the Western Missouri Mental Health Clinic (WMMHC), went to his home, only to have him elude them. On January 16, 1984, after having been arrested for threatening a Medicare driver, he was admitted to WMMHC. The admitting physician noted that Samuels seemed to be experiencing "acute exacerbation of a chronic, psychotic process when not properly medicated." He was placed in restraints on that day and later was observed pretending to take pictures of several WMMHC staff members for his "list of people I'm going to kill."

Samuels having met his initial burden of producing sufficient evidence to overcome the presumption of sanity, the government then had the burden of establishing beyond a reasonable doubt that he was sane at the time the offense was committed. United States v. Malone, 558 F.2d 435, 437 (8th Cir.1977). We first note that neither of the government's lay witnesses, George Kachur and Dick Counts, could testify about Samuels' state of mind on or about January 10 through 13 when the offense occurred.

In addition, the government presented the testimony of Dr. Clayton Pettipiece, who testified with regard to the examinations he conducted beginning August 7 or 8, 1984 to determine Samuels' mental state some eight months earlier. Dr. Pettipiece testified that he reviewed previous medical and pre-sentencing reports and read evaluations made during Samuels' previous admissions to MCFP and then wrote a report in which he concluded that Samuels was a manipulative person who was merely...