United States v. Smith
Citation | 404 F.2d 720 |
Decision Date | 12 December 1968 |
Docket Number | No. 18095.,18095. |
Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. John Edward SMITH, Jr., Defendant-Appellant. |
Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit) |
Lowell T. Hughes (Court Appointed) Ashland, Ky., for appellant.
James F. Cook, Lexington, Ky. (George I. Cline, U. S. Atty., James F. Cook, Asst. U. S. Atty., Lexington, Ky., on the brief), for appellee.
Before EDWARDS, CELEBREZZE and McCREE, Circuit Judges.
This case presents for the first time in this decade in this circuit the question of what is or ought to be the test of criminal responsibility concerning a defendant's plea of insanity in a criminal case.
Appellant was charged with robbing the First Federal Savings & Loan Association of Ashland, Kentucky, on October 19, 1965, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113 (a) and (d) (1964). In subsequent proceedings to determine his competency to stand trial, an order was entered on February 4, 1966, finding him not competent and he was sent to a federal medical center to receive psychiatric treatment. Again on July 13, 1966, on psychiatric reports from the federal medical center an order was entered finding him still incompetent to stand trial.
On December 2, 1966, another hearing on appellant's competence was held and he was declared competent to stand trial. The trial was held May 1 and 2, 1967. Appellant's defense was insanity, and two psychiatrists testified for him as expert witnesses. One of them at the time of trial was on the staff of the United States Public Health Service Hospital at Lexington, Kentucky, where appellant had been treated. The other psychiatrist had likewise been on the staff of the Lexington hospital at the time he examined appellant. Both testified that at the time of the offense appellant was suffering from serious mental illness (schizophrenia). Neither testified that appellant was so mentally ill as not to know the difference between right and wrong. One testified that "this act was to a substantial degree a product of his mental illness." And the other said, "In my opinion this action could have certainly been related to his mental disorder as to cause and effect." He answered affirmatively a question as to whether appellant's illness had substantially impaired his ability to conform his conduct to what he knew to be right.
The following portion of Dr. Pfeiffer's testimony is typical of the diagnosis of each psychiatrist:
The government produced no psychiatric testimony but relied upon cross-examination of appellant's expert witnesses, plus the testimony of its lay witnesses as to appellant's conduct and statements.
Appellant's attorney presented two requests to charge — one based upon the Durham rule,1 and the other upon the American Law Institute's test of criminal responsibility.2 The District Judge gave neither of these charges. Nor was the charge drawn from this circuit's last major treatment of the problem of criminal responsibility in Pollard v. United States, 282 F.2d 450 (6th Cir. 1960).3 Instead, at the government's request, he gave the following charge:
This instruction is supported by dictum from the last time (1897) the United States Supreme Court considered an insanity charge. See Davis v. United States (I), 160 U.S. 469, 16 S.Ct. 353, 40 L.Ed. 499 (1895), and Davis v. United States (II), 165 U.S. 373, 17 S. Ct. 360, 41 L.Ed. 750 (1897). It is a variation of the classic M'Naghten right-wrong test:
"To establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that at the time of committing the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or if he did know it, that he did not know it was wrong." Daniel M\'Naghten\'s Case, 8 Eng.Rep. 718, 722 (H.L. 1843).
A Supreme Court holding directly in point on the issue of criminal responsibility would, of course, foreclose our consideration of any alternative. But three factors weigh strongly against the Davis cases being regarded as such specific authority. First, the advance of scientific knowledge in the field of psychiatry since 1897 is itself sufficient to render inapplicable any case decided without benefit of modern knowledge. See Durham v. United States, 94 U.S. App.D.C. 228, 214 F.2d 862, 45 A.L.R.2d 1430 (1954), and authorities collected therein; Sobeloff, Insanity and the Criminal Law: From M'Naghten to Durham, and Beyond, 41 A.B.A.J. 793 (1955). Second, the Davis cases were primarily concerned with burden of proof and laid down no rule of law as to a single insanity test. These cases, at most, said that giving the instruction at issue here was not prejudicial error in 1897. United States v. Freeman, 357 F.2d 606, 613-614 (2d Cir. 1966). And third, many courts prior to now have formulated tests in modern psychiatric terms with at least the tacit sanction4 of the United States Supreme Court. United States v. Chandler, 393 F.2d 920 (4th Cir. 1968); United States v. Shapiro, 383 F.2d 680 (7th Cir. 1967); Pope v. United States, 372 F.2d 710 (8th Cir. 1967); United States v. Freeman, 357 F.2d 606 (2d Cir. 1966); Wion v. United States, 325 F.2d 420 (10th Cir. 1963), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 946, 84 S. Ct. 1354, 12 L.Ed.2d 309 (1964); United States v. Currens, 290 F.2d 751 (3d Cir. 1961); McDonald v. United States, 114 U.S.App.D.C. 120, 312 F.2d 847 (1962), modifying Durham v. United States, 94 U.S.App.D.C. 228, 214 F.2d 862, 45 A. L.R.2d 1430 (1954).
All of these courts have rejected the M'Naghten test. In Durham, Judge Bazelon for the D. C. Circuit said:
"We find that as an exclusive criterion the right-wrong test is inadequate in that (a) it does not take sufficient account of psychic realities and scientific knowledge, and (b) it is based upon one symptom and so cannot validly be applied in all circumstances." Durham v. United States, 94 U.S.App.D.C. 228, 214 F.2d 862, 874 (1954).
In Currens, Judge Biggs for the Third Circuit said:
"The vast absurdity of the application of the M\'Naghten Rules in order to determine the sanity or insanity, the mental health or lack of it, of the defendant by securing the answer to a single question: Did the defendant know the difference between right and wrong, appears clearly when one surveys the array of symptomatology which the skilled psychiatrist employs in determining the mental condition of an individual." United States v. Currens, 290 F.2d 751, 766-767 (3d Cir. 1961).
In Pollard, Judge McAllister, speaking for the Sixth Circuit, in adding "irresistible impulse" to the M'Naghten test, cited authorities criticizing the use of M'Naghten alone. See Pollard v. United...
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