Case Name: STATE of Louisiana In the Interest of Pate CAUSEY
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1978-10-09
Citations: 363 So. 2d 472
Docket Number: No. 61885
Parties: STATE of Louisiana In the Interest of Pate CAUSEY.
Judges: SANDERS, C. J., dissents and assigns reasons.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 363
Pages: 472–479

Head Matter:
STATE of Louisiana In the Interest of Pate CAUSEY.
No. 61885.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Oct. 9, 1978.
Charles Williams, Gerdes & Valteau, New Orleans, for Pate Causey-relator.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Harry F. Con-nick, Dist. Atty., Gregory S. Abramson, Asst. Dist. Atty., for State-respondent.

Opinion:
TATE, Justice.
At the instance of a juvenile made defendant in juvenile proceedings, we granted certiorari to determine whether a juvenile has a right to plead not guilty by reason of insanity and a right to a hearing to determine his mental capacity to assist in his defense. La., 357 So.2d 1159.
Facts
Pate Causey, age 16, was petitioned into the Orleans Parish juvenile court, charged with armed robbery. His attorney filed a motion, the substance of which was that defendant be allowed to plead not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity, and that the judge appoint a panel of psychiatrists to perform comprehensive tests to determine whether defendant was legally insane at the time the act was committed, and also whether defendant was legally competent to aid in his own defense.
Several psychological tests had been performed upon the defendant, and the report of the testing psychologists had recommended psychiatric evaluation. A psychiatrist had interviewed the defendant, without access to the psychological test results. Defense counsel wished to subpoena the psychiatrist, whose report he had been given by the judge at the time of the hearing on the motion. After indicating his inclination to deny the motion, the judge asked the defense attorney if he would "submit it [the question whether defendant was competent to assist in his defense] on that [the psychiatrist's report]." Defense counsel responded, "I submit on the report," and the court denied the motion.
The Right of a Juvenile to Plead Insanity
There is no statutory right to plead not guilty by reason of insanity in a Louisiana juvenile proceeding, since such proceedings are conducted as civil proceedings, with certain enumerated differences. La. R.S. 13:1579 (1977). We hold, however, that the due process guaranties of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and of Article I, Section 2 of the Louisiana Constitution, require that a juvenile be granted this right.
The only courts ever squarely confronted with the issue have held that, at least in adult proceedings, the denial of the right to plead insanity, with no alternative means of exculpation or special treatment for an insane person unable to understand the nature of his act, violates the concept of fundamental fairness implicit in the due process guaranties. Sinclair v. State, 161 Miss. 142, 132 So. 581 (1931); State v. Strasburg, 60 Wash. 106, 110 P. 1020 (1910). Some recent federal cases have also spoken of the insanity plea in terms indicating that the right to assert it has constitutional dimensions of a due process (fundamental fairness) nature. See, e. g., Buzynski v. Oliver, 538 F.2d 6 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 984, 97 S.Ct. 503, 50 L.Ed.2d 596 (1976); Hill v. Lockhart, 516 F.2d 910 (8th Cir. 1975); Ramer v. United States, 390 F.2d 564 (9th Cir. 1968). See also United States v. Jackson, 306 F.Supp. 4 (N.D.Cal.1969).
The insanity defense, and the underlying notion that an accused must understand the nature of his acts in order to be criminally responsible (the mens rea concept), are deeply rooted in our legal tradition and philosophy, as the cited decisions note. See also LaFave and Scott, Criminal Law, Sections 27 (p. 191) and 36 (p. 238) (1972); Hall, General Principles of Criminal Law, 18, 70-104 (Chapter 3), 146, 185-90, 449-64 (2d ed. 1960). We deem it clear, as held by the Mississippi and Washington supreme courts in Sinclair and Strasburg above cited, that the due process-fundamental fairness concepts of our state and federal constitutions would be violated, at least in adult prosecutions for crimes requiring intent, if an accused were denied the right to plead the insanity defense. Cf. also Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 8 L.Ed.2d 758 (1962).
However, not every constitutional right guaranteed to adults by the concept of fundamental fairness is automatically guaranteed to juveniles.
The United States Supreme Court has undertaken a case-by-case analysis of juvenile proceedings, making not only the historical inquiry into whether the rights asserted were part of fundamental fairness, but also a functional analysis of whether giving the particular right in question to the juvenile defendant would interfere with any of the beneficial aspects of a juvenile proceeding. Only those rights that are both "fundamental" and "essential," in that they perform a function too important to sacrifice in favor of the benefits theoretically afforded by a civil-style juvenile proceeding, have been held to be required in such proceedings. McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 403 U.S. 528, 91 S.Ct. 1976, 29 L.Ed.2d 647 (1970); In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970); In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967).
The same approach was adopted by a majority of this court in determining which due process rights are guaranteed to juveniles by the Louisiana Constitution, in State in Interest of Dino, 359 So.2d 586 (La.1978). (Since we ultimately find this defendant's right to plead insanity to be guaranteed by the state and federal due process clauses, we need not reach the additional equal protection argument advanced, by which juveniles would be denied the equal protection of the laws if they were not permitted as are adults to be exculpated by insanity from criminal responsibility.)
McKeiver, Winship, and Gault imposed on juvenile proceedings a host of traditional criminal trial safeguards — the right to appropriate notice, to counsel, to confrontation and cross-examination, and the privilege against self-incrimination — and declined to impose only one safeguard, the right to a jury trial.
While the due process right to a jury trial has been held to be an element of "fundamental fairness," at least in non-petty adult proceedings, Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968), the court's emphasis in McKeiver was not on the degree of "fundamentality," but on the function served by the jury trial. The plurality saw the jury as a component in the factfinding process, and as such, not "a necessary component of accurate factfind-ing." 403 U.S. at 543, 91 S.Ct. at 1985. Only after finding that the jury trial — although "fundamental" for adults — was not really "essential" to a fair trial proceeding, i. e., did not perform a function that could not be adequately performed by some other procedure, did the court examine the impact of a jury trial upon the beneficial effects of the juvenile system, and conclude that it would "bring with it into that system the traditional delay, the formality, and the clamor of the adversary system and, possibly, the public trial." Id. at 550, 91 S.Ct. at 1988.
In Winship, the court held that a juvenile could not be adjudged to have violated a criminal statute by a mere preponderance of the evidence. The standard of proof "beyond a reasonable doubt" was held to play "a vital role in the American scheme of criminal procedure. It is a prime instrument for reducing the risk of convictions resting on factual error. . . . '[A] person accused of a crime . . . would be at a severe disadvantage . . . if he could be adjudged guilty and imprisoned for years on the strength of the same evidence as would suffice in a civil case." 397 U.S. at 363, 90 S.Ct. at 1072.
Underlying the functional analysis of the two procedures examined in McKeiver and Winship, was not only the consideration of whether equally effective safeguards existed to the rights sought to be imported into juvenile proceedings, but also a consideration of the realistic role played by these two rights in safeguarding juvenile rights at actual trials: the "beyond a reasonable doubt standard" actually kept the juvenile in Winship out of jail, whereas there was no evidence that a jury trial in McKeiver would have done so.
The availability of some procedure for differentiating between those who are culpably responsible for their act and those who are merely ill is, as we have seen, a part of "fundamental fairness." Moreover, it is hard to see that any important aim of the juvenile system is thwarted by affording such a distinction to the mentally ill juvenile.
The function of the insanity plea is much more akin to that of the burden of proof imposed on juvenile proceedings in Win-ship, than of the jury trial involved in McKeiver and Dino. An insanity defense, like a high burden of proof, will generically spell the difference between conviction and acquittal. That there is perhaps a lesser stigma associated with an adjudication of juvenile delinquency than with an adult criminal conviction, and that juvenile incarceration is theoretically calculated to rehabilitate rather than to punish, were deemed constitutionally insignificant in Winship.
In the present case, further, the state expressly does not contest the issue whether this juvenile should be allowed to plead not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity when charged with a serious crime.
Incompetence to Stand Trial in Juvenile Proceedings
In Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 86 S.Ct. 836, 15 L.Ed.2d 815 (1966), the United States Supreme Court held that the failure to observe procedures adequate to protect a defendant's right not to be tried or convicted while incompetent to stand trial deprives him of due process. The Pate court held that the defendant was entitled to an evi-dentiary hearing on the issue of his competence to stand trial, where the showing at the time of the trial raised a substantial issue as to his mental condition. See also Drope v. Missouri, 420 U.S. 162, 95 S.Ct. 896, 43 L.Ed.2d 103 (1975).
In State v. Bennett, 345 So.2d 1129 (La. 1977), on rehearing, this court swept away many of the devices that had been used in Louisiana courts to circumscribe the effects of Pate. On original hearing, the court had relied on such factors as the defendant's burden of proof, judicial discretion and the "clearly erroneous" rule to uphold a trial court determination, after a hearing had determined (but without significant psychological testing) that the defendant was legally sane. On rehearing, the court held that a defendant "has a right to demand that the [court-ordered sanity] hearing be thorough and cannot be held responsible for the commission's failure to. complete its task," i. e., sufficient "clinical evaluation" so that the examining physicians will be "certain of their results." 345 So.2d at 1139. Burdens of proof and standards of judicial review — relied upon here in the state's brief to uphold the juvenile court judge's finding that defendant was competent — come into play only where the record does not suggest further inquiry into the defendant's sanity.
Since the right not to be tried while incompetent is a due process-fundamental fairness right, see Pate and Drope cited above, it should (under the previous analysis) be applicable to juvenile proceedings, unless some essential end of the juvenile justice system will be thwarted by its application. Indeed, the right — rooted as it is in traditional notions of fair play, viewed from the early days of the common law as central to a defendant's ability to present his defense, and akin to the right not to be tried in absentia is not only historically "fundamental," but also functionally "essential," and therefore cannot be outweighed under the Gault/McKeiver/Winship test by other, desirable aspects of the juvenile system.
The state does not suggest any special reason that a juvenile should be denied this right due an adult. The only reason that comes to mind is the argument that many juveniles, "sane" as well as "insane," "normal" as well as "retarded," are incompetent to assist in their own defenses, at least by normal adult standards. This, indeed, is a large part of the rationale for the special juvenile system. Where a juvenile is "incompetent" primarily because of his tender years, it might be unnecessary and perhaps unwise to substitute the full-dress examinations and hearings designed for adult incompetents, in place of procedures designed especially to deal with youth and inexperience.
But that is not the case here. Pate Cau-sey was reported, by the psychologists who examined him for the court, to vary "from the upper end of the range of moderate mental retardation with regard to non-verbal intelligence . to the range of mild mental retardation with regard to verbal intelligence. . . . " He was reported to have "poor fine motor control, spatial disorientation, and problems in angling . suggestive of neuropsyschological dysfunction," with "memory problems and the possibility of episodic 'blanking out' " as "further evidence of possible neuropathy." Psychiatric evaluation was recommended.
A psychiatrist did meet with the boy, without access to test results; the gist of his conclusions was that the boy was dull and a liar rather than retarded and psychotic.
The reports were given by the judge to the defense attorney at the trial, to read for five minutes before arguing the motion relating to incompetence. This data, inconclusive and perhaps contradictory but suggestive of possible problems, is much like that which, in Bennett, this court held to require further testing.
Conclusion
The right not to be tried while incompetent to assist in one's own defense is a fundamental due process right. The right to plead insanity, absent some other effective means of distinguishing mental illness from moral culpability, is also fundamental. There is no compelling reason to deny either of these constitutional rights to juveniles charged with conduct that would be serious crimes if committed by adults.
Here, there were facts in the record to put the trial court on notice that the defendant might be mentally retarded or insane. A defendant in a juvenile proceeding has the right to plead not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. Under the showing made, this defendant also had the right to a more thorough mental (psychiatric) examination, followed by a contradictory hearing.
Decree
For the foregoing reasons, the ruling of the trial judge denying applicant's motion is reversed, and the case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings consistent with the views expressed by this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
SANDERS, C. J., dissents and assigns reasons.
SUMMERS, J., dissents.
MARCUS, J., dissents for reasons assigned by SANDERS, C. J.
. Act 172 of 1978 enacted a Code of Juvenile Procedure (C.J.P.) which replaces much prior statutory regulation. La. C.J.P. art. 24 provides similarly to former La.R.S. 13:1579 (1977).