Opinion ID: 1740065
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Objective Element of Provocation

Text: Bird also argues that Gratzer's testimony is relevant to the objective element of the provocation defensethat is, whether a person of ordinary self-control would have been provoked under like circumstances. In essence, Bird asserts that the under like circumstances language of Minn.Stat. § 609.20(1) should be read in conjunction with the person of ordinary self-control language to allow the factfinder to consider whether a delusional person of ordinary self-control would have been provoked by words or acts similar to those that provoked the defendant. The state argues that reading under like circumstances to encompass a defendant's peculiar mental characteristics undermines the objective element of section 609.20(1) because under such a reading, a defendant's conduct would no longer be measured by that of the person of ordinary self-control. In State v. Thunberg, we held that a district court erred when it used the words  sober person of ordinary self-control in a jury instruction for heat-of-passion manslaughter. 492 N.W.2d 534, 536-37 (Minn. 1992). Following Thunberg, we stated in Buntrock another case involving a defendant who was intoxicated at the time of the alleged offensesthat our inquiry focused on whether the victim's conduct would be sufficient to provoke an ordinary person under similar intoxicants in similar circumstances. 560 N.W.2d at 387 (emphasis added). The legislature subsequently amended section 609.20 in 1995 to state that a `person of ordinary self-control' does not include a person under the influence of intoxicants or a controlled substance. Act of June 1, 1995, ch. 244, § 13, 1995 Minn. Laws 2326, 2334. Nevertheless, Bird argues that Thunberg is still good law to the extent it indicates that the circumstances a jury may consider generally include the peculiar mental or physical characteristics of the defendant. Bird does not identify any authority for his argument aside from cases involving intoxication, and the extent to which a jury may otherwise consider a defendant's peculiar mental characteristics in deciding whether his heat of passion was reasonable appears to be a question of first impression for our court. Given the absence of Minnesota case law on the foregoing question, we find it helpful to consider the law of other jurisdictions, the traditional formulation of the provocation defense, and the Model Penal Code (MPC) approach. Professor Wayne LaFave observes that  it is quite uniformly held that the defendant's special mental qualitiesas where, because of a sunstroke or head injury, he is particularly excitableare not to be considered when evaluating the adequacy of provocation in heat-of-passion cases. 2 Wayne R. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law § 15.2(b)(10) (2d. ed.2003) (emphasis added) (footnote omitted). The majority approach described by LaFave reflects the traditional formulation of the provocation defense, under which a defendant's claim that he reacted [to an external stimulus] because of his behavioral predisposition itself sets him at odds with the reasonable person standard. Thus, under the traditional approach to provocation, the defense operates through consideration of [stimuli] external to the psyche or behavioral propensities of the defendant, rendering his infirmities irrelevant to whether he was actually provoked, and at odds with the reasonableness inquiry that follows. Nita A. Farahany & James E. Coleman, Jr., Genetics and Responsibility: To Know the Criminal from the Crime, 69 Law & Contemp. Probs., Winter/Spring 2006 at 115, 157. In contrast to the traditional formulation, the MPC approach, according to some observers, introduc[es] the actor's actual state of mind into the previously rigidly applied provocation defense by allowing the trier of fact to evaluate reasonableness from the viewpoint of the actor. Id. But the language of MPC § 210.3(1)(b) is considerably different from Minn. Stat § 609.20(1). Model Penal Code § 210.3(1)(b) provides that manslaughter is a homicide committed under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance for which there is reasonable explanation or excuse. The reasonableness of such explanation or excuse shall be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the actor's situation under the circumstances as he believes them to be. (Emphasis added.) Moreover, we have previously compared section 609.20(1) to the foregoing MPC language and concluded that Minnesota's manslaughter statute allows for less subjectivity in the reasonableness determination. Thunberg, 492 N.W.2d at 536-537. In light of the foregoing analysis, we agree with the state's reasoning that interpreting the phrase under like circumstances in section 609.20(1) to encompass the unique mental characteristics of a particular defendant would too greatly infringe on the objective element of section 609.20(1). See Hannon, 703 N.W.2d at 510 (discussing the subjective and objective elements of the provocation defense under section 609.20(1)). Because the reasonableness of a defendant's provocation is an objective determination, the jury must necessarily ask whether ordinary persons of reasonable self-controlnot psychotic persons of reasonable self-controlwould be provoked under similar circumstances. We therefore conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it ruled that Gratzer's testimony is inadmissible on the question of whether Bird was reasonably provoked to a heat of passion by words or acts preceding the shooting.
We next address Bird's claim that expert psychiatric testimony is admissible on a particular element of domestic abuse murder as defined by Minn.Stat. § 609.185(a)(6). Section 609.185(a)(6) provides that a person is guilty of murder in the first degree if he causes the death of a human being while committing domestic abuse, when [he] has engaged in a past pattern of domestic abuse upon the victim or upon another family or household member and the death occurs under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to human life. (Emphasis added.) Bird argues that in determining whether he shot his wife under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference, the jury would have been helped by Gratzer's testimony that Bird suffered from a condition causing hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thinking. More specifically, Bird asserts that Gratzer's testimony would have illuminated whether Bird knew of and consciously disregarded the risk of causing his wife's death. The state argues that extreme indifference is a state of mind that the jury must infer from the circumstances surrounding the crime and that expert psychiatric testimony should not be admissible on the issue of extreme indifference when it is inadmissible on other states of mind, such as premeditation and intent. We conclude that the phrase circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to human life in section 609.185(a)(6) denotes recklessness or at minimum, gross negligenceboth of which are mental states. See State v. Schmitz, 559 N.W.2d 701, 704 (Minn.App.1997) (reasoning that the use of indifference in the state's domestic abuse murder provision suggests a lack of concern and is related to negligence or recklessness), rev. denied (Minn. Apr. 15, 1997); see also Margaret C. Hobday, Note, A Constitutional Response to the Realities of Intimate Violence: Minnesota's Domestic Homicide Statute, 78 Minn. L.Rev. 1285, 1292-93 (1994) (Although the meaning of [the extreme indifference clause] invites some confusion, it appears to signify an aggravated form of recklessness. (footnote omitted)). Furthermore, we can identify no basis for admitting expert testimony as to the effects of psychosis on a defendant's capacity for negligence or recklessness when we categorically exclude such testimony as to the effects of psychosis on a defendant's capacity for specific intent or premeditation. Bird contends that a person responding to psychotic stimuli cannot be acting with the extreme indifference required for a domestic abuse homicide, but he fails to explain why this is so, particularly in light of the well-settled principle that a psychotic person can act with specific intent. See State v. Wilson, 539 N.W.2d 241, 245 (Minn.1995) ([T]his court has only reversed one murder conviction where a defendant suffered from both paranoid schizophrenia and delusions.). Absent a principled basis for treating some states of mind differently from others when determining the admissibility of expert psychiatric testimony, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it excluded Gratzer's testimony on the issue of whether Bird acted with extreme indifference to human life under Minn.Stat. § 609.185(a)(6).
As previously noted, we have identified two exceptions to the rule that expert psychiatric testimony on the general effects of a mental illness is inadmissible. Provost, 490 N.W.2d at 103-04. We stated in Provost that such testimony may be admitted: (1) under the very rare circumstance when the defendant's mental illness is characterized by the formation of a particular subjective state of mind inconsistent with the pertinent mens rea; or (2) when the defendant has a past history of mental illness and that history helps to explain the whole man as he was before he committed the alleged offense. Id. Bird argues that Gratzer should have been allowed to testify regarding the general effects of his psychosis under both of the foregoing exceptions. As to the first exception, Bird asserts that psychosiswhich is characterized by the formation of a mental state that includes hallucinations and delusionsis inconsistent with the mental state of extreme indifference that the state must prove to secure a conviction for domestic abuse murder. In its simplest terms, Bird's argument appears to be that a person who is psychotic is incapable of acting negligently or recklessly. We disagree because Bird's argument is not supported by our case law. We have long accepted that a psychotic mental state is not inconsistent with specific intent, see, e.g., Wilson, 539 N.W.2d at 245, and Bird provides no authority for the proposition that a psychotic mental state is per se inconsistent with negligence or recklessness. More specifically, the fact that Bird suffered from hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thinking would not appear to prevent him from committing a range of potentially negligent or reckless acts that could have culminated in the shooting of his wife. As to the second Provost exception, Bird asserts that (1) his clinical mental health history includes a diagnosis of and treatment for psychosis; and (2) Gratzer's testimony as to the general effects of psychosis would have helped the jury to put Bird's bizarre conduct in context and thereby understand and appreciate him as he was before the shooting. The state argues that the second Provost exception does not apply because, among other reasons, Gratzer's opinions were inconsistent with Bird's pre-indictment clinical record and were therefore inadmissible under Griese, 565 N.W.2d 419, and State v. Persitz, 518 N.W.2d 843 (Minn.1994). In Griese and Persitz, we concluded that the second Provost exception does not include the testimony of an expert psychiatric witness whose evaluation of a defendant is based only on post-indictment clinical records. Griese, 565 N.W.2d at 426; Persitz, 518 N.W.2d at 848. But Gratzer's evaluation of Bird was based partly on a clinical record, including a 2001 diagnosis of substance-induced psychosis, which preceded the offense. The state asserts that Griese and Persitz nonetheless prohibit Gratzer's testimony because Gratzer diagnosed Bird as having, in the days before the shooting and at the time Bird gave his statements to the police, an unspecified psychotic disorder rather than a substance-induced psychosis. More specifically, the state asserts that because Gratzer's testimony would have conflicted with the diagnosis in Bird's pre-indictment mental health record, the testimony would not have helped to explain the whole man. We conclude that Bird's argument on the second Provost exception misses the mark because the expert psychiatric testimony that may be admitted under this exception concerns the defendant's past history of mental illness as evidenced by a clinical mental health record. Therefore, to the extent that Bird cites Provost as a basis for Gratzer to testify about Bird's psychosis at the time of the shooting, he overstates what Provost allows. See Griese, 565 N.W.2d at 426 (discussing Provost, 490 N.W.2d at 103-04). Having concluded that Bird's proffered expert psychiatric testimony is inadmissible under the second Provost exception for the reason set forth above, we need not and do not address the state's argument that Gratzer's testimony is inadmissible because it is inconsistent with Bird's pre-indictment clinical record. For all of the foregoing reasons, we hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it excluded some of Dr. Gratzer's proposed testimony. Affirmed.