Case Name: Commonwealth v. Bechtel, Appellant
Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1956-02-06
Citations: 384 Pa. 184
Docket Number: Appeal, No. 46
Parties: Commonwealth v. Bechtel, Appellant.
Judges: Before Stern, C. J., Stearns, Jones, Bell, Musmanno and Arnold, JJ.
Reporter: Pennsylvania State Reports
Volume: 384
Pages: 184–194

Head Matter:
Commonwealth v. Bechtel, Appellant.
Argued November 25, 1955.
Before Stern, C. J., Stearns, Jones, Bell, Musmanno and Arnold, JJ.
Albert Blumberg, for appellant.
John R. Graham, Assistant District Attorney, with Mm Raymond R. Start, District Attorney and Joseph E. Pappano, First Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
February 6, 1956:

Opinion:
Opinion by
Me. Justice Bell,
Robert B. Bechtel, a student at Swarthmore College, was arrested on January 11, 1955, charged with the homicide of Francis Holmes Strozier, a fellow student. While awaiting indictment and trial he filed an application for a Commission under §344 of The Mental Health Act of June 12, 1951, P. L. 533, 50 PS 1224. The Court thereupon appointed a Commission composed of Dr. George Wilson, Dr. Harvey Bartle, Jr., and Charles H. Heidmann. The Commission held hearings on March 8 and March 11, 1955. On March 9, 1955, the Grand Jury returned bills of indictment charging defendant with murder and manslaughter.
The Commission found that Bechtel was mentally ill and was a person of criminal tendency as defined in §102 of the Mental Health Act, sub-section (4) which reads: " 'criminal tendency' shall mean a tendency to repeat offenses against the law or to perpetrate new-off enses, as shown by repeated convictions for such offenses or tendency to habitual delinquency". The Commission recommended that defendant be committed to Farview State Hospital for the remainder of his life. The Court made an order directing the commitment of the defendant to Farview State Hospital for treatment as a mentally ill person until the further order of the Court, pursuant to §1225 (d) of the Mental Health Act. Farview State Hospital is an institution for patients convicted of crime or a person who is charged with crime and has criminal tendencies, or a person who has criminal tendencies. From this order of the court Bechtel took this appeal.
Bechtel argues (1) that the Commission had no power or authority to state or recommend that he should be committed to a hospital for the criminal insane for the remainder of his life; and (2) there was no adequate evidence that he was "a person of criminal tendency".
Defendant does not question the finding of the Commission or of the Court that he "is in fact mentally ill and is in such condition to make it necessary that he be eared for in a hospital for mental illnesses" but objects, we repeat, to being committed to Farview State Hospital.
Under the Mental Health Act if a Sanity Commission is appointed, its findings are advisory and not mandatory upon the Court below; it is the Court and not the Sanity Commission which must be satisfied that the person charged with the crime is insane or mentally ill: Commonwealth, v. Patskin, 375 Pa. 368, 100 A. 2d 472.
The Commission correctly decided that their duty was to ascertain and determine whether Bechtel was mentally ill at the time of the hearing, rather than at the time of the crime.
Bechtel shot a fellow student who was asleep in bed at approximately 3 a.m. If there were no other evidence, this one criminal act would not show him to be a man of criminal tendencies, but it is clear as crystal from Bechtel's own testimony that he should be placed in an institution for the mentally ill with criminal tendencies.
Bechtel informed the Commission that when he was in high school in Arizona he entertained thoughts of killing a boy who had threatened his life because "it was either he or I". During his junior year at Hill School he was sent to Norristown State Hospital for a short time. After 43. days in the Air Force he was given a medical discharge, the diagnosis being anxiety reaction, schizoid personality, paranoid personality, paranoid delusions. While he was in the Air Force he attacked another boy, believing, without reason, that the boy had stolen some of his records. He was in constant quarrels with the boys in his dormitory at Swarthmore College. He was so upset he decided to go home. On the way home he saw a sign "Norristown" and conceived the idea of going there and asking that he be locked up, but then gave up the idea. When he arrived home he was disappointed at not receiving from his mother proper consolation. He then took some books and 2 of his 5 guns and went back to his room at College, arriving there about 3 o'clock in the morning.
The Commission made, inter alia, the following findings from Bechtel's own testimony: "About half way back to 'College he decided to wipe out the 120 students in the dormitory, first thinking of using dynamite. After deciding on using the guns he intended to methodically take each room and shoot the boys. He went down the hall and saw a sign,. . . and thought he heard whispering in that room, so he went in the room and shot the boy. He was not sure who he was shooting . . . Then he fired three shots in the hall on the third floor, went down to the second floor and fired two more in the hall there, and finally fired a shot on the first floor . He stated that he has no feelings about the killing, feels no remorse, 'and is neither sorry or glad he did it. He could see no difference between war and Ms action . . The prisoner claimed Ms first sexual experience with a girl was when he was three years old; that he had another experience at four or five years of age; and has had sexual experience with some eight or ten girls since becoming an adult. . . . Based on the foregoing it is our opinion that this man is psychotic, with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia (dementia praecox) . . . He probably has experienced hallucinations . . . He is delusional. . . His statement that dynamiting the dormitory would have 'been the 'most efficient' way of handling the matter, together with his walking down the hall with a rifle in his hands, a revolver, a hunting knife, flashlight and cartridge belt strapped to him, show his great defect in judgment and his complete lack of understanding of human problems and their solution. . . . During the examination . he was hostile toward the examiners and others in the room . . . His prognosis is extremely bad in view of the long history, and he will remain a potentially dangerous person."
One of the two major reasons for the Mental Health Act was to protect society from those who are mentally ill and have criminal tendencies. Bechtel certainly comes squarely within these provisions of the Act.
Defendant, being dissatisfied with the findings of a Commission which he petitioned the Court to appoint to determine his mental illness and with the Court's action in connection therewith, now contends that he was unlawfully deprived of his Constitutional right to a trial by jury. There is no merit in this contention.
Article 1, §6 of the Constitution provides: "Trial by jury shall be as heretofore, and the right thereof remains inviolate." Article 1, §9, upon which defendant mainly relies, provides: "In all criminal prosecutions the accused hath a right . . . and, in prosecutions by indictment . a speedy public trial by an impartial jury."
The Answer to Article 1, §6 is clear. No right to a trial by jury ever existed prior to the adoption of the Constitution in the case of an inquiry by a Commission or by a Court as to the mental illness of a person or whether he has criminal tendencies. Cf. Watson Appeal, 377 Pa. 495, 105 A. 2d 576. It is important to recall that the present proceeding is under the Mental Health Act of 1951 which was an amendment, revision and consolidation of the laws relating to Mental Health first enacted July 11, 1923, P. L. 998. Constitutional guarantee of trial by jury does not prevent the legislature (a) from creating or providing modes or tribunals other than a jury trial for the determination or adjustment of rights and liabilities which had not been triable by jury prior to the Constitution: Premier C. & B. Co. v. Pa. Alcohol P. B., 292 Pa. 127, 133, 140 A. 858; Commonwealth v. Jackson, 345 Pa. 456, 28 A. 2d 894; Watson Appeal, 377 Pa., supra; or (b) from creating new offenses and "prescribing what mode they please of ascertaining the guilt of those who are charged with it": Van Swartow v. Commonwealth, 24 Pa. 131, 134.
This petition for a commission to determine petitioner's mental health and the proceedings thereunder is not a criminal prosecution but a collateral proceeding to determine the mental health of the person involved for his benefit or for the benefit of the public or both. Cf. Com. v. Patskin, 375 Pa. 368, 100 A. 2d 472; Com. v. Iacobino, 319 Pa. 65, 178 A. 823; Com. v. Scovern, 292 Pa. 26, 140 A. 611. Inquiries into the mental health or sanity of a prisoner whether made before trial or after conviction and before sentence are "to inform the conscience of the judge". Com. v. Iaco bino, 319 Pa., supra; Com. v. Scovern, 292 Pa., supra. Where an inquiry is made into the mental illness or sanity of a defendant the purpose of which is solely to inform the conscience of the Court, the accused does not have under the Constitution a right to a trial of such issue hy a jury. Cf. Com. v. Iacobino, 319 Pa., supra; Com. v. Patskin, 375 Pa., supra.
The order of the Court below is affirmed.