Opinion ID: 833872
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Prosecution's Burden

Text: The prosecution presented very little evidence on the issue of defendant's sanity. It did not present a single mental health expert. Instead, it attempted to impeach the mental health experts who testified in support of defendant. However, the experts would not budge on their determination that defendant was legally insane. In closing argument, the prosecution suggested to the jury that the testimony of one of the mental health experts, Dr. Heffner, that defendant faked good during the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Test (MMPI) confirmed that defendant was not insane. This flies in the face of Murphy, where the prosecution also tried to use the results of the MMPI to undermine the defendant's insanity claim. [32] This Court stated that an abnormal MMPI is not evidence of sanity. [33] Therefore, the results do not help the prosecution meet its burden. Furthermore, this argument is particularly disingenuous in this case. Faked good sounds like defendant tried to fake a mental condition. But Dr. Heffner explained that faked good is a trade term used by psychologists to mean that the subject is denying the presence of problems. So, what defendant did here was pretend that she was sane. If she had tried to fake that she was insane, she would have attempted to make the doctor think she was worse off than she really was. Dr. Heffner explained that this is called faking bad. The fact that defendant tried to underplay her mental problems to Dr. Heffner actually supports the defense theory of insanity, not the prosecution. [34] The prosecution also attempted to use the testimony of the arresting police officers to meet its burden. Deputy Phil Green testified that, although defendant had a hockey bag hanging from the front of her car, defendant stayed in the correct traffic lane during most of the chase. But he admitted that she accelerated erratically, slammed on her brakes, swerved her vehicle, failed to stop for the police, and drove into oncoming traffic. Deputy Green also testified that, although defendant did not pull over right away, her driving was not like that of a person trying to flee and elude the police. The fact that defendant followed some traffic laws is not sufficient to overcome the substantial evidence that defendant could not conform her conduct to the requirements of the law. Some competent evidence of sanity may suffice when a defendant has introduced only token evidence of insanity. However, this same evidence of sanity may be totally inadequate when the defendant's evidence of insanity is substantial. [35] The prosecution also argues that defendant did not become delusional until after she had committed the offenses. This simply is not supported by the evidence. Thirteen witnesses in all testified at trial. All 13, including the prosecution's own witnesses, offered evidence that defendant was delusional. Three of the witnesses were mental health experts. All three mental health experts found that defendant was legally insane at the time of the offense. Perhaps most persuasive of all, the state of Michigan's own forensic center, which evaluates thousands of individuals a year for the insanity defense, found defendant legally insane at the time of the offense. The lay testimony and circumstantial evidence supported the experts' determination. Defendant drove straight into a garage wall and then back out onto the street, oblivious to a duffel bag attached to the car and lawn chairs dragging beneath. Defendant's actions after the incident were no better: mumbling incoherent phrases about nuclear disaster and millions of years from now. This behavior is explicable in light of defendant's history of mental illness. It is not credible, as the prosecution contends, that defendant had a moment of lucidity amidst all this behavior, during which she committed the offenses in question. The prosecutor's moment of clarity theory also flies in the face of defendant's diagnosed Bipolar Disorder I. The disorder is specifically characterized by manic episodes lasting at least seven days. Defendant began exhibiting delusional symptoms three days before the incident with police. Medical experts testified that a person can continue mundane, routine behaviors, such as obeying traffic signals, when suffering from a manic episode. The prosecution's theory that defendant became sane in the middle of a manic episode, only to slide back in after she committed criminal acts, flies in the face of the evidence. Unsupported speculation is not evidence that defendant was sane. The evidence offered by the prosecution was wholly insufficient to convince any rational trier of fact that the defendant was sane beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecution failed to meet its burden of proving that defendant was sane.