Opinion ID: 2159325
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Did the charge on diminished capacity shift to defendant the responsibility of disproving the culpable mental state for murder?

Text: In State v. Breakiron, 108 N.J. 591 (1987), we revisited the doctrine of diminished capacity that the Court had first reviewed in State v. Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. at 267-70. In Breakiron, we upheld the constitutionality of the diminished capacity statute, N.J.S.A. 2C:4-2, to the extent that it imposes on a defendant the burden of proving the presence of a mental disease or defect that has the capacity of negating the culpable mental state that is an essential element of the offense charged. Breakiron, supra, 108 N.J. at 618. At the same time, we emphasized that the statute intends no more than it states  i.e., that the defendant need show only that the condition was present, not that it in fact negated the culpable mental state. To do otherwise would impermissibly shift to a defendant the burden of disproving an essential element of an offense. 108 N.J. at 610-11. For purposes of this appeal defendant must abide by our ruling in that case ( i.e., that the State need not disprove the existence of the disease or defect); nonetheless, he argues that the trial court's charge drew no distinction between the subsidiary [existence of the disease or defect] and    the ultimate [did it deprive defendant of knowledge or purpose] fact[s]    and in effect it set up a mandatory rebuttable presumption of the culpable mental state. We think not and find no error in the charge. Preliminarily, we note that the jury was presented with competent and reliable evidence on the existence of the mental disease or defect. Dr. Gerald Cooke, the clinical psychologist, and Dr. Robert Sadoff, the psychiatrist, both examined defendant and were effective and credible witnesses on his behalf. We surmise that any question the jury may have had about the tenor of these experts' testimony concerned the realities of the crime more than any mistaken burden of proof. Dr. Cooke, for example, reviewed defendant's mental troubles, his years of treatment in youth-service agencies, his broken home, his alcoholic and abusive parents, his broken marriage, and the death of his child. He traced defendant's decline through alcoholism and increased drug dependency to his deteriorat[ion] into a psychotic state marked by paranoid delusions. Thus, the psychologist lent credence to defendant's account that on the day of the crime, he had sought refuge in the basement of the apartment complex and then entered the victim's apartment because he had felt himself pursued by dogs and police. In his interviews with the psychologist, defendant claimed that because he had believed that Mrs. Berrisford was a police officer or that she might signal the police, he had drawn the blinds and then struck her to quiet her. When she fell unconscious, he had sought to revive her by putting her under the bathtub tap; after she was scalded, he had attempted to aid her by wrapping her in the sheet. Thus Dr. Cooke testified that in his opinion Zola did not intend to kill her. From his own contact with defendant, Dr. Sadoff repeated a similar account of the incident. In this psychiatrist's opinion, Zola could not have knowingly or purposely killed [the victim]. The doctors' thesis was sorely tested by the evidence: though Zola claimed to have struck the fully-clothed victim to quiet her, there was no blood on her clothes; her purse was never recovered; and Zola had sought refuge in the apartment of a tenant whose complaint had contributed to his termination. Indeed, Dr. Cooke admitted that if a rape had occurred, it would not be consistent with the state [of mind] we're talking about. The court was fair in its review of the presentation of these proofs to the jury. It ruled inadmissible, because of potential prejudicial effect, the evidence of a prior sexual assault committed by the defendant. It presented the diminished capacity issue to the jury with a straightforward charge generally drawn from the Model Jury Charge. In instructing the jury that in the absence of such evidence [of diminished capacity] you may infer that the defendant had no mental disease or defect which would negate    a [criminal] state of mind, the court expressed the structure of the diminished capacity statute that sanity, and not guilty knowledge or purpose, is presumed. See Breakiron, supra, 108 N.J. at 607. The one aspect of the diminished capacity charge that troubles us, other than its positioning in relation to the manslaughter counts, is the presence of language stating that defendant's burden is to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he suffered from a mental disease or defect which negates the state of mind which are elements of the offense. That is purposely and knowingly. (emphasis added). This element of the charge suggests that the defendant bore the burden of proving that at the time of the offenses a mental disease or defect did in fact negate his mental state. Taken in isolation, this would be counter to Breakiron. Previously, the court had charged the jury that even if defendant proved that he suffered from a mental disease or defect, that fact alone would not dispose of the [mental state] issues. In addition, the court had charged the jury, at the end of all the knowledge/purpose offenses (murder, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, burglary and robbery) that it need not consider the diminished capacity defenses if it found defendant not guilty of such offenses, then adding that [i]f you find that the State has proven beyond a reasonable doubt each of the elements of the offense and the defendant's participation in the offense, you must then consider the evidence as to the defendant's mental disease or defect. This too, by isolating the stages of the jury's deliberations, might be seen as suggesting, rather than an order of deliberation, a shift in the burden of proof. But we believe that the balance of the charge fairly conveyed to the jury its function. In the paragraphs immediately succeeding the which negates sentence, the trial court reemphasized the State's never-changing burden of proof: Keep in mind, however, that although the burden rests upon a defendant to establish the defense of mental disease or defect by a preponderance of the credible evidence, the burden of proving the defendant guilty of the offenses charged here beyond a reasonable doubt is always on the State. And that burden never shifts to the defendant. And the court added the qualification that the condition to be found need only be one that would negate the states of mind which are elements of murder and certain of the other offenses. (emphasis added). We recognize the continuing debate on the best manner of conveying the diminished capacity defense to the jury. See 121 N.J.L.J. 453 (March 10, 1988). We believe that the jury's understanding of this offense would be advanced by the suggestion offered before us in the Public Defender's brief. He proposed that in order to meet the constitutional requirement, the court should instruct the jury in words similar to these: The defendant must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he suffers from a mental disease or defect. However, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant's mental disease or defect did not negate the state of mind which is an element of the crime, that is, purposely or knowingly. In other words, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant acted purposely or knowingly despite his mental disease. Unlike the Breakiron defendant, who was denied any charge on diminished capacity, this defendant was given a balanced charge. We are satisfied that the only burden imposed on the defendant was to show the presence of the mental disease or defect that would or could negate the states of mind for murder, rape, or the other crimes charged. The State's burden, to establish the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, never shifted.