Opinion ID: 307716
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: practical problems of the defense and the disposition of this case

Text: 348 In a distressing number of recent cases this Court has been asked to consider questions unrelated to the substantive test of responsibility, but which have, as a practical matter, far greater impact on the operation of the defense than the language of the rule. The Court's decision to abandon Durham-McDonald in favor of ALI-McDonald does nothing to obsolete these questions or the Court's responses to them. If our paramount goal is an improvement of the process of adjudication of the responsibility issue, our attention should be focused on these questions rather than on the ultimate definition of the test. Obviously, these questions cannot all be resolved by one opinion. But the Court's approach to the disposition of this case offers some indication of the manner in which these questions will be handled in the future. 349 1. The one consistent note in the Court's analysis of our experience under Durham is the objection to domination by the experts accomplished through the productivity requirement. We attempted to deal with that problem in Washington v. United States by barring conclusory, expert testimony on the issue of productivity. Virtually all of the expert witnesses at Brawner's trial agreed that he was suffering from an abnormal condition of the mind. The issue in dispute was productivity-the ultimate issue for the jury. And the transcript is riddled with conclusory, expert testimony on that issue. It is hard to imagine a case which could make a stronger appeal for enforcement of the Washington rule. 350 After hearing one of his expert witnesses state that Brawner had a personality disorder connected with epilepsy, the prosecutor asked the witness: 351 Did you also come to any opinion concerning whether or not the crimes in this case were causally related to the mental illness which you diagnosed? 352 After defense counsel's objection to the question was overruled, the prosecutor asked again: 353 What was your conclusion as to whether or not there was a causal relationship between the two matters? The witness replied: 354 It was my conclusion that there was no causal relationship between his mental disorder and the alleged offense. 355 Transcript at 464. To be sure, this testimony was not phrased in terms of product, but the jury could hardly avoid the message that causality was the cutting edge of the responsibility test and that at least some of the experts were convinced that causality did not exist in this case. Nevertheless, the Court refuses to overturn the conviction despite this patent violation of the letter and the spirit of the Washington rule. 356 I suggested above that the abandonment of the term product may have some beneficial effect in reducing the mystique that surrounds the causality question in this jurisdiction. But I also noted that the Court has made available a new handle for conclusory testimony on the issue of causality-result-and at the same time it has lifted the ban on conclusory testimony on this issue. The transcript of Brawner's trial offers a glimpse of what we can expect from responsibility trials under the ALI test. The Court's unwillingness to reverse Brawner's conviction on this ground makes clear that this Court and the trial courts no longer have any weapons to combat the problem of conclusory testimony and the resulting domination by experts. 53 357 2. Since 1895 the federal courts have taken the position that if the defendant introduces some evidence of insanity, the issue will be submitted to the jury and the government will bear the burden of proving responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt. Davis v. United States, 160 U.S. 469, 484, 16 S.Ct. 353, 40 L.Ed. 499 (1895). Yet as the responsibility defense has developed under our case law, it has become increasingly clear that the defendant carries an overwhelming practical burden which is not acknowledged in the traditional rule. As a practical matter, the defendant often has very great difficulty obtaining adequate expert assistance to gather the information necessary for the presentation of a significant defense. If he can obtain such information, his defense will often prove vulnerable to attack unrelated to the real merit of his responsibility claim. And even if the attack is very weak the defendant will rarely be entitled to a directed verdict. See United States v. Eichberg, 142 U.S.App.D.C. 110, 112-113, 439 F.2d 620, 622-623 (1971). 358 With limited access to expert psychiatric assistance, indigent defendants normally rely on the government to provide an adequate psychiatric examination at the hospital to which the defendant is committed for observation. In a large number of cases the government's experts are called to testify on behalf of the defense, and their testimony has often proved inadequate. In one recent case, for example, the trial court concluded that the testimony of a government expert testifying for the defense was completely unacceptable under the principles of Washington v. United States, and he struck the testimony as inadmissible. Yet the trial court refused to grant the defendant's motion for a mistrial or a new mental examination by experts capable of explaining their findings to a court. And this Court affirmed that ruling. United States v. Alexander & Murdock, 152 U.S.App.D.C. ____ at ____ - ____, 471 F.2d 923 at 952-957 (April 21, 1972) (Bazelon, C. J., dissenting). See also United States v. Leazer, 148 U.S.App.D.C. 356 at 362, 460 F.2d 864 at 870 (Jan. 19, 1972) (Bazelon, C. J., concurring). If an indigent defendant relies on the government for assistance in preparing his case and if there is no remedy when the government's assistance is legally inadequate, it will be little consolation to the defendant that the government still carries the burden of persuasion on that issue. 359 The practical burden on the defendant is greatly enhanced by the ease with which defense testimony can often be torn to pieces on cross-examination. Where a psychiatrist testifying for the government asserts that the defendant did not suffer from any abnormal condition which could impair his mental processes or behavior controls, defense counsel must have considerable expertise in psychiatry to pick out the weak points in the analysis. Yet very few attorneys, if any, possess the requisite expertise, and we have no automatic procedure for enabling them to consult with psychiatric experts in the preparation and conduct of the defense. United States v. Leazer, 148 U.S.App.D.C. 356 at 363, 460 F.2d 864 at 871 (Jan. 19, 1972), (Bazelon, C. J., concurring). Even where the defendant has obvious symptoms of mental disorder, defense counsel is frequently helpless to rebut the suggestion by government psychiatrists that the defendant is malingering. If he produces testimony from a private psychiatrist that the defendant is not a malingerer, he is almost sure to find that the government and its expert witnesses will disparage that testimony on the grounds that it was based on an insufficient period of observation. See, e. g., United States v. Bennett, 148 U.S. App.D.C. 364 at 366-367, n. 4, 460 F.2d 872 at 874-875, n. 4 (Jan. 19, 1972), United States v. Schappel, 144 U.S.App. D.C. 240, 445 F.2d 716 (1971); Rollerson v. United States, 119 U.S.App.D.C. 400, 343 F.2d 269 (1964). 54 360 There are other grounds on which the testimony of defense psychiatrists is extremely vulnerable. A psychiatrist or psychologist who testifies that the defendant suffered from some mental illness exposes himself to what the Court appropriately terms know-nothing appeals to ignorance. Majority opinion at 1004. For example, by requiring the witness to describe in isolation the most minute 'symptoms' on which the diagnosis rests-the defendant's answer to a particular question or his reaction to a particular ink-blot-the prosecution may succeed in making these symptoms seem trivial or commonplace. United States v. Leazer, 148 U.S.App.D.C. 356 at 363, 460 F.2d 864 at 871 (Jan. 19, 1972), (Bazelon, C. J., concurring). At Brawner's trial, the prosecutor ridiculed the testimony of a defense psychologist in his summation to the jury: 361 Ladies and gentlemen, then we came to that ink blot, and the doctor said, well, the usual thing about that was those anatomical things, and how many of them were there. Well, let's see, and he counts, and there are four. How many responses? Fourteen of them. Fourteen responses and four of them turn out to be anatomical things-hearts or whatever it happened to be. Is there something unusual about that? Is a man crazy when he sees a heart or something else four times, four different anatomical things or maybe the same things in those little drawings, these little ink blots? After all, they are just blots of ink. Is a man crazy when he sees them? 362 Transcript of closing arguments at 36-37. We have seen almost identical efforts to ridicule defense experts in other cases. See United States v. Alexander & Murdock, 152 U.S.App.D.C. ____ at ____ - ____, 471 F.2d 923 at 955 (April 1972), (Bazelon, C. J., dissenting); United States v. Leazer, 148 U.S.App.D.C. 356 at 363-364, 460 F.2d 864 at 871-872 (Jan. 19, 1972) (Bazelon, C. J., concurring); United States v. McNeil, 140 U.S.App.D.C. 228, 231-235, 434 F.2d 502, 505-509 (1970) (Bazelon, C. J., concurring). The difficulty of presenting credible expert testimony is a major part of the burden on the defendant. 363 The defendant might be able to cope with these obstacles to the successful use of the defense if we were willing to set aside jury verdicts unsupported by the evidence. In fact, we have been extremely reluctant to overturn a jury verdict even in the face of substantial evidence that the defendant's act was the product of a condition which impaired his mental or emotional processes and behavior controls. See, e. g., United States v. Eichberg, 142 U.S.App.D.C. 110, 439 F.2d 620 (1971). If the burden of proof does rest on the government, then acquittal should be required not only when non-responsibility is proved, but also when there is a reasonable doubt about responsibility. 364 At Brawner's trial, both the prosecution and the defense offered evidence that the defendant was suffering from an abnormal condition of the mind which could impair behavior controls. While the testimony on productivity was expressed largely in conclusory terms, the record does contain a substantial amount of evidence which could support the view that the act was very closely tied to the impairment. In my view, there are two theories which can explain our failure to reverse the conviction on the grounds that a reasonable man must have had a reasonable doubt about the defendant's criminal responsibility. First, our deference to the jury's resolution of this issue may be attributable to its special role in evaluating the defendant's impairment in light of community concepts of blameworthiness, to determine whether that impairment makes it unjust to hold him responsible. See United States v. Eichberg, 142 U.S.App.D.C. 110, 114-115, 439 F.2d 620, 624-625 (1971) (Bazelon, C. J., concurring). But it becomes increasingly difficult to rely on that explanation in the face of this Court's refusal to make the special function of the jury explicit in the jury instruction. And reliance on the jury's special function seems dangerously misplaced in a case, such as this one, where the testimony on the only issue in dispute was phrased in such conclusory terms that expert domination is almost inevitable. If we will not take meaningful action to curtail domination by the experts, then we should not rely, in upholding the jury's verdict, on the jury's supposed ability to make a kind of judgment that it almost surely did not make. 365 A second possible explanation for our refusal to set aside the verdict is that we have relaxed the standard of proof in responsibility cases. In fact, Congress enacted a statute in 1970 which purports to shift onto the defendant the burden of establishing insanity by a preponderance of the evidence. 24 D.C.Code Sec. 301 (j). Under that standard one could reasonably conclude that the verdict should not be set aside. But the constitutional validity of the statute is open to very serious question. United States v. Trantham, 145 U.S.App.D.C. 113, 120, 448 F. 2d 1036, 1043 (1971) (statement in support of rehearing en banc); United States v. Eichberg, 142 U.S.App.D.C. 110, 114, 439 F.2d 620, 624 (1971) (concurring opinion). See In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970). 366 The Court declines to consider the constitutionality of the statute and instead provides the district court with alternative instructions on the burden of proof. In my opinion, we should resolve at this time the question of the statute's constitutionality. If the statutory change is invalid and the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was responsible for his conduct, we can no longer pretend not to notice that defendants are being overwhelmed by an invisible burden of proof. And if the statute's attempt to shift the burden of persuasion onto the defendant is constitutional, then we must still take steps to facilitate the production at trial of meaningful information by both the government and the defense. 367 3. I applaud the Court's decision to overturn Fisher v. United States, 80 U. S.App.D.C. 96, 149 F.2d 28 (1945), aff'd, 328 U.S. 463, 66 S.Ct. 1318, 90 L.Ed. 1382 (1946) and Stewart v. United States, 107 U.S.App.D.C. 159, 275 F.2d 617 (1960), rev'd on other grounds, 366 U.S. 1, 81 S.Ct. 941, 6 L.Ed.2d 84 (1961), and to make clear that a defendant can introduce psychiatric and other expert testimony to negative specific intent. I suggested in two recent cases that Fisher and Stewart did not preclude our adoption of this doctrine, inaptly termed diminished responsibility, and that it was therefore unnecessary to overrule those cases. See United States v. Bryant, 153 U.S.App.D.C. -, 471 F.2d 1040 (April 21, 1972) (dissenting opinion); United States v. Alexander & Murdock, 152 U.S.App.D.C. -, 471 F.2d 923 (April 21, 1972) (dissenting opinion). Two panels of this Court rejected my view and concluded that the doctrine could not be accepted without an en banc decision of the Court. The Court now sits en banc and concludes that expert testimony is relevant to the determination of specific intent where the defendant is charged with murder in the first degree. 368 The Court points out, however, that it does not decide whether the doctrine is applicable to cases of second-degree murder, where the prosecution must prove that the defendant acted with a state of mind called malice. In Murdock, where the defendant was charged with second-degree murder, I discussed the argument against applying the doctrine so as to reduce the offense of seconddegree murder to manslaughter. The argument rests on the premise 369 that malice refers not to a state of mind, but to an objective set of circumstances; it can be negated by evidence of circumstances that would provoke a reasonable man to act in the heat of passion, but not by evidence of actual subjective provocation and passion.    In a recent series of cases, however, we reviewed with some care the concept of malice, and concluded, inter alia, that it is not entirely an objective matter, but has subjective elements as well. 370 152 U.S.App.D.C. at -, 471 F.2d at 950 (footnotes omitted). But even though the Court apparently concedes that in some cases malice is established on a subjective standard, it concludes that the matter    requires further analysis and reflection, and [t]he problem is [therefore] remitted to future consideration. Majority opinion at 1002 n. 75. 371 While I am convinced that the question can be resolved without delay, I would have no objection to the Court's cautious approach if the question had no application to the case before us. But it should be clear that the question is directly relevant to the disposition of this case. Although originally charged with first-degree murder, Brawner was acquitted on that count by the trial court before the case was submitted to the jury. He was convicted of murder in the second-degree. The Court thus resolves the question of diminished responsibility up to the point where it becomes relevant to this case, and it remits to future consideration the only aspect of the issue which could have any bearing on the outcome of the case before us. That bizarre result is justified with the comment that future consideration    will be aided by the availability of a specific factual context. Majority opinion at 1002, n. 75. The Court's refusal to consider the question in the case before us, where a specific factual context plainly exists, seems to me entirely inconsistent with the fair and efficient administration of justice.