Opinion ID: 1405581
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: The State's Rebuttal Evidence

Text: ¶ 47 In rebuttal, the State called the arresting officer and four County employees who had contact with Defendant after his arrest. These witnesses noticed nothing strange about Defendant, although the intake specialist did refer him for a mental health interview after he said he was hearing voices. The arresting officer thought that Defendant was intoxicated but not drunk. The jail librarian testified that, on September 11, 1991, Defendant asked for the Arizona criminal code and materials on murder, aggravated assault, and endangerment. The State did not call a mental health expert. The State's rebuttal evidence was as ineffective as that in State v. Overton, 114 Ariz. 553, 562 P.2d 726 (1977), where, [t]o establish sanity, the State introduced the testimony of police officers who based their opinions on observations and interrogations after the commission of the crime. Id. at 556, 562 P.2d at 729. We held that such testimony was not competent to rebut evidence of insanity because, if the State relies on lay testimony to establish sanity, there must have existed an intimacy between the witness and the defendant of such a character and duration that the witness' testimony is of probative value to establish that defendant knew the nature and quality of his act and that he knew it was wrong. That Defendant was talking normally after he was in custody does not negate the more subtle and insidious forms of insanity with which the mind may be possessed. Id. To be competent to offer an opinion on sanity, a lay witness must have had an opportunity to observe the past conduct and history of a defendant. State v. Zmich, 160 Ariz. 108, 111, 770 P.2d 776, 779 (1989). None of the State's rebuttal witnesses met that foundational requirement. (Some of the witnesses in the State's case-in-chief did meet it.)