Opinion ID: 1772790
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 16

Heading: DID THE LOWER COURT ERR IN REFUSING INSTRUCTIONS D-3, D-4, and D-5, ON INSANITY?

Text: The trial judge refused all three of Johnson's instructions on insanity on the basis that there was a presumption of sanity and that no evidence of insanity had been put before the court. Johnson's lawyer argued that Johnson had been submitted to Whitfield for examination, but no doctors had been called to testify from Whitfield. He also pointed out the lay witness testimony that Johnson heard voices, laughed uncontrollably, was depressed and had headaches, and otherwise acted weird and that that was sufficient to put the insanity issue before the jury. In Gambrell v. State, 238 Miss. 892, 902, 120 So.2d 758 (1960), the Court, quoting from Cunningham v. State, 56 Miss. 269 (1879), stated the following rule: Every man is presumed to be sane, and, in the absence of testimony engendering a reasonable doubt of sanity, no evidence on the subject need be offered; but whenever the question of sanity is raised and put in issue by such facts, proven on either side, as engender such doubt, it devolves upon the State to remove it, and to establish the sanity of the prisoner to the satisfaction of the jury, beyond all reasonable doubt arising out of all the evidence in the case. (Emphasis added), (citations omitted). Since there is a presumption of sanity, the initial burden is on the accused to introduce evidence creating a reasonable doubt as to his sanity. Edwards v. State, 441 So.2d 84, 86 (Miss. 1983). Johnson did not meet her initial burden. Since instructions should not be given that are not applicable to the facts developed in the case during the trial, it was not error to refuse the three insanity instructions. See Pittman v. State, 297 So.2d 888, 893 (Miss. 1974), and Lancaster v. State, 472 So.2d 363 (Miss. 1985).