Opinion ID: 1762922
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the issue of the defendant's sanity

Text: The evidence of the State presented at the trial consisted entirely of the taped recordings made during the course of the police interviews with the defendant. These particular tapes were made over a four-day period from June 11, 1978, to June 14, 1978. In each succeeding tape the defendant related more and more honestly the details of his involvement in the murder, correcting earlier tapes and lies and adding new details and admissions. The defense counsel's presentation of evidence of the defendant's insanity consisted of the testimony of: defendant's wife, his maternal grandfather, his father, his mother, his brother and his sister. Each of these members of his family testified that the defendant was not having an affair with Roxanna Barrilleaux. It is important to point out, however, that on cross-examination the defendant's brother and sister testified firmly that they had never thought that their brother was insane. In addition to the foregoing, the principal witnesses presented in behalf of the defendant were Dr. Nathan Lubin, a psychologist, and Dr. Kenneth Ritter, a psychiatrist. By stipulation with the State each doctor was qualified as an expertDr. Lubin as an expert psychologist and Dr. Ritter as an expert in the field of psychiatry. Each of the two doctors affirmatively stated that he had concluded that the defendant was psychotic, a schizophrenic and paranoid type, and that he had been so for at least ten years. Dr. Lubin refused to define the defendant's mental illness in terms of the ability to discern right from wrong but he did testify that the defendant was unable to function in the right fashion and could not control his actions. Dr. Ritter, on the other hand, specifically found that the defendant did not know the difference between right and wrong on the night of the homicide and that he was legally insane. The State presented no rebuttal testimony on the sanity question after the defense rested. The defense took the position that this amounted to a failure to present any evidence to refute the contention that the defendant was insane at the time he committed the crime, as required by State v. Poree, 386 So.2d 1331 (La.1980). (On rehearing). However, although in Poree the State did present certain rebuttal witnesses on the sanity issue, the Poree court did not find that the jury's finding of sanity necessarily had to be restricted to evidence presented on the State's rebuttal nor even restricted to evidence presented by the State. The Poree court merely held that the record must contain some evidence of sanity, capability of distinguishing right from wrong. Poree, supra, at 1339. Accordingly, it cannot herein be concludedsimply because evidence tending to indicate sanity did not surface during rebuttalthat such evidence cannot be weighed. And furthermore, this court specifically has held that all the evidence, including both expert and lay testimony and conduct and action of the defendant, should be considered by the jury in determining sanity. State v. Daigle, 344 So.2d 1380 (La.1977). However, it must be observed that there has been some refinement of the standard of review with regard to the Poree concept of some evidence. More precisely, the concept has been implicitly qualified by State v. Roy, 395 So.2d 665 (La.1981), in which this court applied Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), to the affirmative insanity defense. The Jackson case held that due process requires the jury verdict of sanity be overturned if viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution... the defendant established the affirmative defense of insanity by a preponderance of the evidence, and that no rational fact finder could have found him sane on the record evidence. In Roy, supra (in Per Curiam denying Rehearing), this qualification subsequently was clarified by this court: ... When we said that Roy had proved his insanity by a preponderance of the evidence, we meant simply that, applying Jackson v. Virginia ... we determined, under the facts and circumstances of the case, that a rational fact finder, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, could not have concluded that defendant had failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he was insane at the time of the offense. See also: State v. Hathorn, 395 So.2d 783 (La.1981); State v. Claibon, 395 So.2d 770 (La.1981), both decided this day. An examination of the record evidence in the present case indicates that the strongest evidence of the defendant's sanity comes from his own mouth. The jury listened to approximately 100 transcript pages of the various taped interviews of the defendant talking and confessing to the police. Although Dr. Ritter testified that these tapes were not inconsistent with someone's suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, to a lay person the defendant's thought processes do not appear at all inconsistent with sanity. Following, for example, are excerpts indicating some of the defendant's own reflections upon his acts: A No. Just once I did itstabbed her one time. I don't know what happened. I just couldn't stop. Q Now don't cry. It's over. A (Unintelligible). Q Pardon me? A Everything thats happened to me, its not really happening to me. Its happened. Its going to take a toll on everybody else. Q A lot of people are going to suffer, that's true. All of your friends and your wife, your family are going to suffer from this. That's very true. A There ain't no way to get rid of me? Q No, we can't do that. We cannot ... A Didn't they say they was bringing the death penalty back?