Opinion ID: 307716
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the trial record

Text: 265 The facts underlying this appeal are simple. After spending an afternoon drinking wine, appellant went to a party at the apartment of three friends. During the evening several fights broke out. Appellant was hit in the jaw and knocked down; he left the apartment immediately. During the next hour he was seen by several friends, who described him as dizzy, unclear of speech and bleeding from the mouth. He refused to go to a hospital for medical attention, and told his friends he had been jumped. Pounding on a mailbox with a fist, he said that someone-perhaps himself-was going to die. Returning to the building in which the party had been held, appellant fired five shots through the closed door of the apartment. Two of the shots struck and killed one of the occupants. Appellant was arrested nearby shortly afterward. 266 On his own motion appellant was committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital for observation. The standard commitment order asked the Hospital to report on both his competence to stand trial and his responsibility at the time of the act charged. 6 With respect to responsibility, the Hospital was asked whether the defendant, at the time of the alleged criminal offense, committed on or about September 8, 1967, was suffering from a mental disease, or defect which substantially affected his mental or emotional processes and substantially impaired his behavior controls, and if so, whether his criminal act was the product of his mental condition . . . . 7 The Hospital's summary report stated that appellant was competent for trial; that he was mentally ill at the time of the act; and that the act was not causally related to his illness. 267 At trial, four expert witnesses from the staff of the Hospital testified on the issue of responsibility. All four agreed that appellant was mentally ill at the time of his unlawful act. They used various labels, 8 but in general they agreed that he had an organic brain pathology and an associated explosive personality disorder. The organic damage was indicated by a history of epileptic seizures, an abnormal electroencephalogram test, and a pattern of responses to psychological tests characteristic of persons with organic impairment. The explosive personality disorder was indicated by psychological testing and by psychiatric interviews and observations. 268 All four experts went into commendable detail in describing the nature of appellant's disorder and its effect on his behavior. Each expert in turn stated that appellant's disorder was manifested in an inability to deal with provocation. 9 Appellant was said to have severe feelings of inadequacy, 10 and to be easily threatened. He would respond to a felt threat without control; his behavior would be explosive, and out of proportion to the situation. 269 The only conflict in the expert testimony arose in the course of the prohibited inquiry into productivity. Dr. Stammeyer and Dr. Hamman testified that in their view appellant's unlawful act was the product of his explosive epileptoid personality disorder. Dr. Weickhardt and Dr. Platkin, on the other hand, testified that appellant's act in shooting through the closed door of an apartment was not the product of his illness but rather the product of a normal desire to retaliate for a broken jaw. That is, even if appellant had not been ill, he would have retaliated in this way. Dr. Platkin's notes in the Hospital records describe the act as a more or less legitimate response to a situation in which he had been severely injured in a fight and was very vindictive. Dr. Platkin testified that I think I would, too, under the same circumstances want to get even with somebody who broke my jaw. 270