United States v. Smith, 74-1532.
| Decision Date | 23 December 1974 |
| Docket Number | No. 74-1532.,74-1532. |
| Citation | 507 F.2d 710 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. James Edwin SMITH, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Halbert T. Dail, Norfolk, Va. court-appointed (Kanter, Kanter & Dail, Norfolk, Va., on brief), for appellant.
J. Brian Donnelly, Asst. U. S. Atty. (David H. Hopkins, U. S. Atty., on brief), for appellee.
Before HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge, and BUTZNER and RUSSELL, Circuit Judges.
The defendant, convicted of mail fraud,1 seeks by this appeal a new trial. Among other claims of error, he assigns error in the limitation placed by the District Judge on the admission of evidence on his defense of insanity. We agree and reverse.
At trial the sole defense raised by the defendant was a want of criminal intent by reason of insanity.2 Whenever insanity is asserted as a defense and is supported by any credible evidence, "it is of critical importance that the defendant's entire relevant symptomatology be brought before the jury",3 or, as stated in another recent case, quoting Wigmore, "when insanity is in issue, `any and all conduct of the person is admissible in evidence.'"4 To this end, the trial judge should permit "an unrestricted inquiry into the whole personality of a defendant"5 and should "be free in his admission of all possibly relevant evidence."6 Any evidence of aberrant conduct or action, whether before or after the act charged, is accordingly admissible under the plea.7
In support of his plea of insanity, the defendant asserted that he had been subject often to recurring and intermittent periods of aberrant conduct, evidencing disorientation from reality and impairment of behavior control on his part. This claim was supplemented by expert testimony to the effect that the defendant, as characterized by a psychiatrist witness, was a "manic depressive" type, given to paranoid ideas of sexual prowess and financial grandiosity, and, in the language of an expert psychologist, was suffering from a "schizo-affected disorder" productive of alternating periods of affected excitement and depression impairing his judgment and rationality. The value of this expert testimony, however, depended on the evidence of the defendant's actual abnormal behavior and conduct during these periods when he claimed to be detached from reality. The important testimony on the defendant's plea accordingly dealt with the episodes when the defendant had exhibited abnormal behavior and it was essential, if Chandler were to be followed, that the defendant be given the opportunity to develop fully and completely his conduct during these episodes of abnormal behavior so that the jury could determine for itself their nature and the defendant's rationality during them. The trial court in most instances, it is true, permitted the defendant, through testimony, to identify the specific periods when the defendant had seemingly lapsed into a world of unreality and delusion. Thus, it allowed the defendant to show that he had on three occasions prior to the acts charged, appeared publicly in Washington — in full formal dress on one occasion — claiming that he was the fiance of a prominent woman, who, incidentally, was completely unknown to the defendant. However, in a number of important instances where the defendant was attempting to spell out in detail his irrational conduct the trial court confined the defendant's presentation to an abbreviated account representing often only a sparse characterization of his conduct. This disposition of the court is illustrated by its ruling on the examination used by the defendant while he was employed to teach a course in business law at Hampton Institute. The testimony of the defendant's superior at the school was that the examination as used by the defendant had absolutely no relationship to the course which was supposedly covered by the examination. In order to demonstrate this fact and to establish that at the time the defendant was laboring under a delusion as to the course being taught, the defendant...
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State v. Vickers
...when a defendant asserts insanity as a defense " 'any and all conduct of the person is admissible in evidence.' " United States v. Smith, 507 F.2d 710, 711 (4th Cir.1974) (quoting 1 Wigmore, Evidence § 228 (1940)). When insanity is at issue, evidence of prior bad acts is admissible if relev......
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State v. Steiger, 13766
...and should "be free in his admission of all possibly relevant evidence." ...' " Id., at 392, 503 A.2d 576, quoting United States v. Smith, 507 F.2d 710, 711 (4th Cir.1974); see also United States v. Alexander, 805 F.2d 1458, 1464 (11th We conclude that the liberal approach applied in State ......
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U.S. v. Weston
...States v. McRary, 616 F.2d 181, 184 (5th Cir.1980); United States v. Ives, 609 F.2d 930, 932-33 (9th Cir.1979); United States v. Smith, 507 F.2d 710, 711 (4th Cir.1974). ...
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State v. Carter
...whether before or after the act charged, is accordingly admissible under the [insanity] plea." (Citations omitted.) United States v. Smith, 507 F.2d 710, 711 (4th Cir.1974); see Sulie v. Duckworth, 689 F.2d 128, 131 (7th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1043, 103 S.Ct. 1439, 75 L.Ed.2d 796......