Winn v. United States

• Decision Date: 09 July 1959
• Docket Number: No. 14875.,14875.
• Citation: 270 F.2d 326,106 US App. DC 133
• Parties: Lewis R. WINN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

106 US App. DC 133, 270 F.2d 326 (1959)

Lewis R. WINN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 14875.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued May 6, 1959.

Decided July 9, 1959.

Mr. John A. Shorter, Jr., Washington, D. C. (appointed by the District Court), with whom Mr. Roy M. Ellis, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellant.

Mr. Walter J. Bonner, Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Messrs. Oliver Gasch, U. S. Atty., and Carl W. Belcher, Asst. U. S. Atty., were on the brief, for appellee.

Before BAZELON, FAHY and BASTIAN, Circuit Judges.

BAZELON, Circuit Judge.

Appellant, tried for first-degree murder, was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to a term of four to fifteen years. He appeals from that judgment.

Before trial the United States Attorney moved for a mental examination of the accused, stating in his motion:

"The defendant was indicted for the crime of First Degree Murder on April 21, 1958. The charge specifically alleges that on March 9, 1958, the defendant threw a three day old child from a third story window, at 1806 R Street, N.W., within the District of Columbia. He was arrested shortly thereafter and began an exhibition of certain bizarre behavior. As a result of these actions he was sent to the District of Columbia General Hospital for a short examination and while there, for several days, he remained almost completely mute and would answer certain questions only by writing on a piece of paper. He refused to eat and apparently on several days had to be given intravenous infusions. This report came from Dr. James Foy, a medical officer in the department of psychiatry at that hospital.

"For these reasons it seems apparent that a complete and thorough mental examination be conducted so that the rights and interests of all parties in this action be protected." Emphasis supplied.

We said in Blunt v. United States, 1957, 100 U.S.App.D.C. 266, 275 note 23, 244 F.2d 355, 364 note 23, that the prosecutor who knows that the accused's mental state at the time of the crime will be the critical issue at the trial, has an obligation to see to it that any pre-trial mental examination of the accused that may be ordered be broad enough to cast light on that issue. And in Williams v. United States, 1957, 102 U.S.App.D.C. 51, 58, 250 F.2d 19, 26, we pointed out that this course is required not only to protect the rights of the accused, but also to protect "society's great interest" in hospitalizing the accused, if his violent act sprang from mental disorder, so that he would not be released — as he would be after completion of a prison sentence — without medical assurance that he is not likely to be dangerous to himself or others in the reasonably foreseeable future. See also Douglas v. United States, 1956, 99 U.S.App.D.C. 232, 240, note 12, 239 F.2d 52, 60, note 12. It was these rights and interests which the prosecutor commendably sought to protect in the pre-trial motion which he filed here.

But the District Court's order upon the motion required only such examination as was necessary to permit formulation of an "opinion * * * as to whether the defendant is presently of unsound mind or mentally incompetent so as to be unable to understand the proceedings against him or properly to assist in his own defense." Why the order was thus restricted does not appear.

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