Opinion ID: 2218270
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: issues

Text: Defendant interposed an insanity defense. One of the court-appointed psychiatrists, Dr. Birkson, testified that, in his opinion, the defendant could not conform his conduct to the requirements of law and, at one point, he acknowledged that the defendant's conduct was, in a sense, based upon impulse. The trial court refused the defendant's tendered instruction on impulse, but gave Instruction No. 19. The rejected tendered instruction and Instruction No. 19, the one given, were as follows: DEFENDANT'S TENDERED INSTRUCTION [REJECTED] You are instructed that under the law of this State a person may have sufficient mental capacity to know right from wrong and to be able (sic) to comprehend the nature and consequences of the act, and yet not be criminally responsible for his action; for an irresistible impulse of a person accused is a lawful excuse for the commission of an act, otherwise a crime, where the person committing it, though he is capable of knowing right from wrong, lacks in consequence of a diseased mind, the will power to resist an impulse to commit crime. TRIAL COURT'S FINAL INSTRUCTION NO. 19 Under the Defendant's plea of not guilty there is an issue as to his sanity at the time of the alleged offense. The law does not hold a person criminally accountable for his conduct while insane, since an insane person is not capable of forming the intent essestial (sic) to the commission of a crime. The sanity of the Defendant at the time of the commission of the alleged offense is an element of the crime charged and must be established by the State beyond reasonable doubt, just as it must establish every other element of the offense charged. A Defendant is insane within the meaning of these instructions if, at the time of the alleged criminal conduct, as a result of mental disease or defect he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. Defendant contends that this instruction did not include irresistible impulse as among the conduct for which one could not be held criminally responsible and cites Fuller v. State, (1973) 261 Ind. 376, 304 N.E.2d 305, as requiring that, upon request, an instruction be given on the irresistible impulse test. We do not agree that Fuller so holds. In the Fuller case the appellant assigned error in the giving of an insanity instruction which did not adequately state the irresistible impulse concept, and this Court rejected the claim of error because the concept was adequately explained in another instruction, which instruction was quoted in full and included a specific reference to irresistible impulse. We did not, however, say that such a specific inclusion was required. In Hill v. State, (1969) 252 Ind. 601, 251 N.E.2d 429, we embraced a modified version of the American Law Institute's (ALI) definition of insanity, which was sufficiently incorporated into Instruction No. 19. In so doing we observed that our rule theretofore, which was the McNaghten rule in part but modified to include the irresistible impulse test, was too restrictive because the term implied that the impulse must be sudden and overwhelming and did not include cases involving reflection or brooding. The definition from Hill, however, while accommodating circumstances not contemplated by the irresistible impulse test, did not eliminate it. Rather, the definition was simply expanded so as to include both the irresistible impulse manifestations and those that were the result of other overpowering of the mind. The lack of substantial capacity to conform one's conduct to the requirements of law is equally as definitive of an irresistible impulse as it is of any other inability to conform one's conduct. There was, therefore, no need for the refused instruction, the substance thereof having been included in Instruction No. 19.