Opinion ID: 1446263
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: insanity trial

Text: [9] After the verdict had been returned by the jury on defendant's plea of not guilty, defense counsel moved for a determination of the present sanity of the defendant. (Pen. Code, § 1368.) This motion was denied and defendant claims that the trial court was guilty of an abuse of discretion in the denial of his motion. The motion was supported by the affidavit of defense counsel (the deputy public defender) in which he sets forth the belligerent conduct of the defendant when a photographer tried to take his picture just prior to the court's instruction of the jury. At that time defendant attacked newsmen, court attaches and a policeman and was restrained by handcuffing him throughout the instruction of the jury. The affidavit also sets forth irrational comments made by the defendant some of which were to the effect that an insurance company was paying the district attorney some one or three thousand dollars to convict him; that his ex-wife had tipped off the insurance company; that his step-daughter had framed him. It is also averred that while the jury was being instructed, defendant made the following statements to the jury: Give me the death penalty; I am not guilty, but give me the death penalty; The insurance company has bought off the jury just like they have homicide. That other statements made by the defendant were: Take me back to jail. I don't like these people; Where are my socks. There is no blood on them; Why are they charging me with robbery? Someone must have robbed me; The walls are closing in. My head is only this big. (Indicating a small circle with his thumb and forefinger.) He also made statements to the effect that his brain was numb and his ears were hot. While the above statements taken out of context would tend to show that the defendant was mentally deranged, a reading of the record as a whole discloses no abuse of discretion on the part of the trial court in denying the motion. Although at times the defendant was profane, belligerent, and most uncooperative, the trial court observed him in court and on the witness stand and was, apparently, of the opinion that there was no doubt as to his present sanity. The judgment of the trial court of first degree murder is modified and the cause remanded to the trial court with directions to enter judgment against defendant finding him guilty of second degree murder and thereupon to pronounce judgment upon him as prescribed by law.