Opinion ID: 1057307
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Defendant's Mental State and Culpability

Text: ¶ 24. Defendant next contends that the trial court abused its discretion in finding that his mental state did not significantly reduce his culpability. See State v. Ingerson, 2004 VT 36, ¶ 10, 176 Vt. 428, 852 A.2d 567 (reviewing sentencing decision for abuse of discretion). We find no abuse of discretion. The trial court had before it a great deal of evidence concerning defendant's mental state, including testimony and written reports from two doctors. Helzer and Drukteinis. The court found that their assessments were competing, and at times, frankly, agreeing. The court recounted the doctors' testimony at some length on the final day of the sentencing hearing, and ultimately found that defendant suffered from both diagnosable. . . conditional depression and bipolar II at the time of the offenses. Bipolar II, as the court found, is a milder version of bipolar disorder. Dr. Drukteinis testified, and the court found, that bipolar illness would not serve to alleviate, mitigate, reduce culpability: as such . . . it was not such a mental illness as would grossly impair and remarkably impair judgment. ¶ 25. The court then noted that the principal dispute between the experts was whether, at the time of the crimes, defendant was experiencing a dissociative disorder described by Dr. Helzer . . . as a `fugue state,' as a circumstance of detachment or removal from experience such that recollection and recall processing are impaired. Dr. Drukteinis did not believe that defendant was in such a state at the time of the murders, noting that defendant retained detailed memories of the murders and wrote those memories down while he was hiding in the woods. Drukteinis further opined that the fugue state diagnosis was inconsistent with the fact that defendant had no significant mental-health history of any kind, much less of memory loss or dissociation. The court agreed with Dr. Drukteinis, finding that defendant had a fairly detailed recollection of the events immediately leading up to the shootings, as evidenced by a note he wrote after the shootings, which the court found display[ed] a clear and rational mindset. Based on these findings, the court found that defendant, although he was in an emotionally distraught mental state, did not suffer from a dissociative disorder (i.e., he was not in a fugue state), and that his culpability was therefore not significantly reduced. ¶ 26. This careful weighing of the competing testimony is plainly not an abuse of discretion. Defendant's argument to the contrary is essentially an attack on the trial court's decision to credit Dr. Drukteinis' assessment, a decision that was squarely within the trial court's discretion, and which we decline to disturb on the record before us. Affirmed.