Opinion ID: 6930065
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether the jury instructions violated the holding in Humanik

Text: We agree with the district court that the jury instructions were constitutionally erroneous under Humanik. Humanik involved an appeal from the denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus following the petitioner’s New Jersey conviction for purposeful and knowing murder. In Humanik, the petitioner argued that the New Jersey statute, N.J.Stat.Ann. § 2C:4-2 (West 1982), pursuant to which the jury instructions on mental disease and defect were formulated, was unconstitutional. At the trial, the court charged the jury as follows: In connection with the question of the defendant’s mental state at the time in question, since the defendant has raised this defense, .that is, the defense that he had a mental disease or defect at the time which prevented him from having the state of mind the law says he would have to have, that is, a knowing or purposeful mental state in connection with the killing, he has the burden to prove that he had such mental defect or disease by a preponderance of the evidence Humanik, 871 F.2d at 435 (emphasis by the court in Humanik). In Humanik, we recognized that under New Jersey law the mental disease and defect defense was not an affirmative defense, but was relevant only to show that the defendant did not possess the requisite intent for committing the offense. Id. at 438-39 (citing State v. Breakiron, 108 N.J. 591, 532 A.2d 199, 208 (1987)). We then found that the instruction would lead “a rational juror attempting to attribute some significance to the instruction [to] conclude that the defendant’s evidence [on state of mind] should be considered only if the juror finds it to be more likely true than not true.” Id. at 442. We therefore concluded that the instruction im-permissibly altered the state’s burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the petitioner acted purposefully or knowingly when he committed the murder. At Kontakis’ trial the instructions were similar to those we rejected in Humanik. The court instructed the jury that when assessing whether the state had proven each element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt, it “need not consider the evidence as to the defendant’s state of mind;” if the jury finds each element proven beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury “must then consider the evidence as to the defendant’s state of mind;” if Kontakis suffered from a mental disease or defect at the time of the murder, negating the proof of his state of mind, “he cannot be said to have acted purposely or knowingly;” and “(i)f there is no preponderance of evidence as to mental disease or defect, negating state of mind, the defense fails.” These instructions unconstitutionally altered the state’s burden to prove that Kon-takis acted purposely when killing his wife, in that they could have caused “a rational juror attempting to attribute some significance to the instruction [to] ... conclude that the defendant’s evidence [on state of mind] should be considered only if the juror finds it to be more likely true than not true.” Hu-manik, 871 F.2d at 442. The instructions suggested that the jury should have ignored Kontakis’ defense that he did not possess the requisite state of mind unless “there is ... [a] preponderance of evidence as to mental disease or defect.” Thus, they permitted the jury to ignore Kontakis’ mental disease and defect evidence unless the jury found that evidence more probable than not. Consequently, the instructions failed to al-. low for the possibility that Kontakis’ mental disease and defect evidence, although not rising to the level of being more probable than not, created a reasonable doubt as to whether he had the requisite intent to commit the offense. We find, therefore, that the instructions unconstitutionally altered the state’s burden to prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt.