Opinion ID: 1700511
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Assertion of Insanity Defense

Text: Ryan contends in issue 12 that his trial counsel unreasonably asserted an insanity defense over his objection, in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and article I, § 11, of the Nebraska Constitution. Although Ryan testified at his postconviction hearing that he was adamantly opposed to the insanity defense and objected repeatedly to its assertion, he admitted that he cooperated with a psychiatrist who examined him on his own behalf, as well as one who examined him for the State. Ryan further conceded that at a pretrial thing at Falls City, he told his attorneys to do whatever you think you've got to do, but ... I'm not going to go any further with your insanity crap. During direct examination of Ryan at trial, the following exchange took place between Ryan and Goos: Q: Do you think that you are crazy? A: Me? Q: Yes. A: No, I don't. Q: Do you think you were crazy back when James Thimm was killed? A: No. I was doing what I felt we was told to do whether it was what I wanted or not. Q: You know that Mr. Ligouri and I filed a notice of insanity defense in this case? A: Yeah, and you know I argued with you about it. Q: Well, were we successful finally in getting you to agree that we put the question to the jury even though you objected to our doing so? A: I finally told you,  If that's what you wanted to do, do it,  but it was at my objection, and that's what you done. (Emphasis supplied.) Goos testified that he had no memory of Ryan repeatedly stating to trial counsel that he did not wish to raise the insanity defense. Rather, Goos testified that Ryan was very cooperative with the insanity defense and made no objection to it even after the trial was over. Ligouri testified that while Ryan was not in favor of the insanity defense, he did consent to its use in his behalf. Ligouri stated that he found Ryan to be a cooperative client who entrusted the decision on the use of the insanity defense to his defense attorneys. Both attorneys testified that Ryan cooperated with the psychiatrists utilized in connection with the case. The postconviction trial judge, in refusing Ryan relief on this issue, stated that Ryan objected to being called crazy, but authorized his counsel to use the [insanity] defense. A case directly on point with the present case is Gacy v. Welborn, 994 F.2d 305 (7th Cir.1993). In that case, the defendant was convicted of the serial killing of 33 young men whom he lured to his home for homosexual liaisons. Gacy restrained his victims, strangled them to death, and then disposed of most of the bodies in the crawl space of his home. Gacy relied on an insanity defense, but was convicted of 33 counts of murder and was sentenced to death for 12 of the killings. During the course of the trial, Gacy announced to the court that he was `against the insanity defense from the beginning.' 994 F.2d at 317. In his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, Gacy claimed that his defense counsel had raised the insanity defense over his objections, thus depriving him of the ability to control decisions vital to his defense. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected this argument, stating: As for the contention that counsel barged ahead with an unwanted insanity defense ... the evidence gets in the way. Gacy cooperated with extended interviews and tests by six experts for the defense and another six for the state, not the behavior you would expect of a person who wanted to stand on a plain denial of guilt. 994 F.2d at 317. We note that two psychiatrists and a clinical psychologist testified on Ryan's behalf at trial. Dr. William S. Logan, a psychiatrist, had conducted two interviews with Ryan, the first lasting approximately 8 hours and the second lasting approximately 1 hour. Dr. Logan testified that there were only one or two times when Ryan refused to answer his questions. He stated that he personally did not do any psychological testing of Ryan. The other psychiatrist who testified on Ryan's behalf, Dr. Maurice K. Temerlin, had interviewed Ryan for approximately 3 hours. Although Dr. Temerlin testified that Ryan was initially tense and angry, Dr. Temerlin never indicated that Ryan had failed to cooperate with the interview. In fact, both Dr. Logan and Dr. Temerlin were able to obtain enough information from Ryan to evaluate him and to form a medical opinion as to his psychiatric condition. Dr. Robert Schulman, a clinical psychologist who testified in Ryan's behalf, testified that he had conducted a 4-hour interview with Ryan in order to perform a battery of intellectual and personality tests. According to Dr. Schulman, he used at least eight separate evaluation techniques, including a Rorschach test, on Ryan. He was also able to arrive at a diagnostic conclusion on the basis of his testing. Dr. Emmett M. Kenney, a psychiatrist, evaluated Ryan for the State. Dr. Kenney examined Ryan for 1 hour 20 minutes and also relied on the report of a Dr. Strider, a psychologist who had evaluated Ryan upon Dr. Kenney's recommendation. Dr. Kenney testified that Ryan refused to talk to him about some things, including the events surrounding Thimm's death. Dr. Kenney also testified that according to Dr. Strider's report, one psychological test of Ryan was aborted because Ryan refused to follow the instructions, and another, the Rorschach or inkblot test, was invalid because Ryan did not provide a sufficient number of responses for the test to be interpreted. Ryan testified at his postconviction hearing that he did, in fact, agree to talk to Dr. Logan, although he claimed that he was uncooperative in Dr. Logan's testing of him. According to Ryan, he took part of them and got up and walked out.... They was looking at ink blots and things like this, and they had one that had ... hundreds of questions, and I done part of them and that was the end of it. I just left. Attorney Ligouri testified that in his opinion, Ryan was cooperative with both Dr. Logan and Dr. Kenney. He did not recall either Dr. Logan or Dr. Kenney asking Ryan to perform any tests. Attorney Goos also testified that Ryan cooperated with the many doctors who examined him. Ryan's testimony that he did not fully cooperate with Dr. Logan is inconsistent with the trial testimony of Dr. Logan, as well as with the postconviction hearing testimony of his trial attorneys. The testimony of Ligouri and Goos, as well as the trial testimony of the psychiatrists and the psychologist who examined Ryan, leads to the inescapable conclusion that Ryan did cooperate with the experts who were assisting him in his insanity defense and that it was only the State's experts that Ryan refused to cooperate with to some degree. We agree with the Gacy court that this is not the behavior one would expect from a defendant who is completely opposed to the assertion of an insanity defense. Moreover, Ryan's jury trial testimony reflects that although he did not think he was crazy and he objected to the insanity defense, he had agreed to let his trial attorneys proceed with the insanity defense if they wanted to. As the court noted in Gacy v. Welborn, 994 F.2d 305, 317 (7th Cir.1993), A statement such as `I was against the insanity defense from the beginning' is some distance from `I directed [trial counsel] to drop that defense, and he refused.' Being `against' a defense at the outset is consistent with yielding to the judgment of those who know better. We find that Ryan acquiesced in the assertion of the insanity defense. We hold that the insanity defense for Ryan was an objectively reasonable trial strategy. Goos and Ligouri were faced with the almost impossible task of defending a man who had repeatedly committed various acts of most horrible torture upon another human being; who did these acts in the name of an angry deity; who heard his deity speak audibly to him; who believed that every aspect of his life, as well as the lives of others in the group, was directed by that deity through an arm test; who believed he possessed the spirit of an archangel; who believed he could predict the future and read the minds of others in the group; who saw visions in the sky; who believed that a female group member's infant had been divinely conceived; and who stated that he was directed by his deity to marry four women, even though he was already legally married to another woman. It is an understatement to say that trial counsel was presented with an almost insurmountable set of facts. Goos testified that he could perceive no disadvantages to using the insanity defense that would outweigh its use, because the man was obviously either insane or he was unbelievably cruel and subhuman. Additionally, it is apparent from the record that the defense of factual innocence would have been unsuccessful, as were counsel's arguments in favor of a lesser-included offense. In determining whether a trial counsel's performance was deficient, there is a strong presumption that such counsel acted reasonably. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). See, also, State v. Lindsay, 246 Neb. 101, 517 N.W.2d 102 (1994); State v. Nielsen, 243 Neb. 202, 498 N.W.2d 527 (1993). When reviewing a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, an appellate court will not second-guess reasonable strategic decisions by counsel. State v. Johnson, 243 Neb. 758, 502 N.W.2d 477 (1993); State v. Nielsen, supra ; State v. Lyman, 241 Neb. 911, 492 N.W.2d 16 (1992). Given the facts of this case, we decline to second-guess the decision of Ryan's trial counsel to assert an insanity defense. Based upon the evidence in this case, we agree with the postconviction trial judge that the assertion of the insanity defense on Ryan's behalf was a reasonable strategic choice by counsel. Therefore, Ryan is not entitled to postconviction relief on this issue.