Opinion ID: 2221692
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: THE VIOLATION OF SUBSECTION 20a(5) WAS CONSTITTIONAL ERROR

Text: Insanity is everywhere a defense to a charge of crime, for without a sound mind there can be no criminal intent. 2 Underbill, Criminal Evidence (5th ed.), § 450, pp. 1128-1129. [It is a] humane principle, existing at common law ... that to make a complete crime cognizable by human laws, there must be both a will and an act; and as a vicious will without a vicious act is no civil crime, so, on the other hand, an unwarrantable act without a vicious will is no crime at all. So that, to constitute a crime against human laws, there must be, first, a vicious will, and, secondly, an unlawful act, consequent upon such vicious will. [ Davis v. United States, 160 U.S. 469, 484, 16 S.Ct. 353, 40 L.Ed. 499 (1895) (internal quotation marks omitted)(quoting 4 Blackstone, Commentaries 21).] The Michigan Legislature enacted the present form of this state's insanity defense in 1975. [10] [I]nsanity and mental illness are separate defenses with different consequences.... The very definition of legal insanity contained in M.C.L.§ 768.21a; MSA 28.1044(1), [11] refers to the term `mental illness.' Insanity by definition is an extreme of mental illness. When a person's mental illness reaches that extreme, the law provides that criminal responsibility does not attach. To put it alternatively, the statutes provide that all insane people are mentally ill but not all mentally ill people are insane. ... Thus, if a defendant is found to be mentally ill, he may be found not guilty, guilty but mentally ill, or, if he lacks substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law, not guilty by reason of insanity. [ People v. Smith, 119 Mich.App. 91, 95 96, 326 N.W.2d 434 (1982).] A defendant wishing to establish insanity at the time of the offense must notify the court and the prosecuting attorney of that intention thirty or more days before trial. MCL 768.20a(1); MSA 28.1043(1)(1). The notice serves to forewarn the prosecutor. People v. Blue, 428 Mich. 684, 690, 411 N.W.2d 451 (1987). It also triggers the defendant's required examination by personnel at a center for forensic psychiatry or by other qualified personnel. MCL 768.20a(2); MSA 28.1043(1)(2). Failure to submit to the forensic examination and to fully cooperate in it bars a defendant from presenting an insanity defense. M.C.L. § 768.20a(4); MSA 28.1043(1)(4). Such preclusion does not violate a defendant's state and federal constitutional rights to present a defense. People v. Hayes, 421 Mich. 271, 283, 364 N.W.2d 635 (1984). That right is not absolute, but is subject to the established rules of procedure and evidence designed to assure both fairness and reliability in the ascertainment of guilt and innocence. Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 302, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973). The defendant is required to fully cooperate so that the examining psychologist can accurately determine the defendant's competency to stand trial and criminal responsibility at the time of the offense.... When ... the integrity of the evidence of insanity is threatened, the preclusion sanction is warranted. Hayes, supra at 282-283, 364 N.W.2d 635. The limitations of § 20a do not unconstitutionally infringe upon a defendant's right to present a defense if courts comply with them. If they do, defendants have notice of the definitive boundaries of the limitations. Section 20a forbids forensic examiner testimony on issues other than insanity, or on any issue at all, if the insanity defense is not ultimately raised. The truth-seeking function of trial courts would be substantially impaired if a defendant could raise an insanity defense, then assert the psychologist-patient privilege and preclude an examiner's testimony. People v. Howe, 445 Mich. 923, 925, 520 N.W.2d 338 (1994) (BOYLE, J., dissenting). By raising an insanity defense, the defendant has placed his mental state at issue and waived the privilege in that regard. [12] Id. However, the integrity of evidence of insanity is likewise threatened if the examining forensic psychologist is permitted to testify about matters other than the issue of defendant's insanity. If that were allowed, a defendant would be justified in refusing to provide full disclosure to the examiner, fearful that incriminating infor motion revealed would be used against him at trial. If the statute is ignored, the protections it affords are lost. When, as here, a court allows an examiner to impeach on an issue other than a defendant's mental state, it violates the defendant's constitutional right to due process of law. [13] To permit such testimony is to place the defendant between Scylla and Charybdis. The defendant must either forfeit his constitutional right to assert the insanity defense [14] or forfeit his constitutional right not to incriminate himself. [15] These alternatives are equally perilous. In Colorado v. Connelly, [16] the United States Supreme Court considered the confession of a mentally ill defendant who voluntarily admitted to having perpetrated a murder. It found that admission of the confession did not deny him due process, because there was no essential link between coercive activity of the State, on the one hand, and a resulting confession by a defendant, on the other. Id. at 165, 107 S.Ct. 515. Connelly confessed without the state exerting any coercion or other action on him. Id. at 160, 165, 107 S.Ct. 515. Here, by contrast, the state placed defendant in a coercive situation. The statute required him to fully cooperate with the examiner in a forensic interview in order to pursue his insanity defense. MCL 768.20a(2) and (4); MSA 28.1043(1)(2) and (4). Then, the court permitted the examiner to testify about matters other than defendant's mental state at the time the crime was committed. A plea of insanity is in the nature of confession and avoidance. By asserting it, defendant admits the charge but denies criminal culpability. But such admission extends only to the consideration of such plea; beyond that it has no efficacy in a criminal case. [2 Underbill, Criminal Evidence (5th ed., Supp. 1970), § 450, p. 370.] The admission of defendant's involuntary confession violated his right to due process of law. The aim of the requirement of due process is ... to prevent fundamental unfairness in the use of evidence whether true or false. Lisenba v. California, 314 U.S. 219, 236, 62 S.Ct. 280, 86 L.Ed. 166 (1941). [F]ailure to afford the petitioner a reasonable opportunity to defend himself against the charge ... [is] a denial of due process of law. In re Oliver, supra at 273, 68 S.Ct. 499. Restricting the use of statements made to a forensic examiner to those pertinent to a defendant's sanity is a measure to ensure a fair and reliable adjudication of the issue. The potential chill to a defendant's exercise of the right to present an insanity defense outweighs any potential gains to the truth-seeking process in discouraging or disclosing perjured testimony. James v. Illinois, 493 U.S. 307, 317, 110 S.Ct. 648, 107 L.Ed.2d 676 (1990). Thus, I disagree with the majority's opinion that the statutory preclusion of the forensic examiner's testimony involved only a privilege and that its violation was only an evidentiary error. This reasoning ignores the nature of the rights protected by the statute. The situation was coercive in that defendant's statements were coaxed from him in an interview that was a prerequisite to his ability to raise the insanity defense. By dint of the statute, the government promised that the evidence produced would be admitted only for a limited purpose. To permit it to use defendant's incriminating statements breaks the promise and implicates the Fifth Amendment prohibition against compelled self-incrimination. [17] See People v. Wyngaard, 226 Mich.App. 681, 695, 575 N.W.2d 48 (1997) (MARKMAN, J., dissenting), People v. Reagan, 395 Mich. 306, 235 N.W.2d 581 (1975).