Opinion ID: 1498122
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: the rejection of the doctrine of diminished responsibility

Text: Appellant also contends that it was error for the trial court to refuse to instruct the jury that the testimony introduced on the issue of insanity could be considered on the issues of premeditation, deliberation, and malice. His argument rests upon the circuit court's announcement in United States v. Brawner, supra, 153 U.S.App.D.C. at 30-34, 471 F.2d at 998-1002, that henceforth expert medical testimony concerning a defendant's mental abnormality might be admissible, irrespective of a defense of insanity, for purposes of determining the existence of the mens rea required for the charged offense. [40] We conclude that the trial court was not bound by Brawner's concept of diminished responsibility, and that adoption of its principles would be unwarranted. [41] Prior to Brawner, the circuit court in this jurisdiction consistently had rejected the argument that, short of the question of complete exoneration under a defense of insanity, expert medical evidence should be admitted toward negating the mental state requisite for a conviction. [42] In Fisher v. United States, 80 U.S.App.D.C. 96, 149 F. 2d 28 (1945), affirmed, 328 U.S. 463, 66 S.Ct. 1318, 90 L.Ed. 1382 (1946), the circuit court upheld a denial of instructions which would have applied the evidence of mental abnormality toward the existence of specific intent. [43] The court stated ( id. at 97, 149 F.2d at 29): The instruction confuses the issue of insanity with the question whether the psychopathic characteristics of the appellant prevented him from forming the deliberate intent necessary to constitute first degree murder. While the court acknowledged that the law's requirement of a morally absolute conclusion of responsibility is ill-adapted to contemporary psychiatric theories, it nonetheless concluded that the traditional principles of criminal culpability should not be disturbed ( ibid. ): [I]t is obvious that brutal murders are not committed by normal people. To give [such] an instruction . . . is to tell the jury that they are at liberty to acquit one who commits a brutal crime because he has the abnormal tendencies of persons capable of such crimes. [Footnote omitted.] The Supreme Court affirmed, principally on the ground that such matters are for local determination. It stated (328 U.S. at 473 and 476, 66 S.Ct. at 1323 and 1324): [W]e think it is the established law in the District that an accused in a criminal trial is not entitled to an instruction based upon evidence of mental weakness, short of legal insanity, which would reduce his crime from first to second degree murder.       For this Court to force the District of Columbia to adopt such a requirement in criminal trials would involve a fundamental change in the common law theory of responsibility. . . . Such a radical departure from common law concepts is more properly a subject for the exercise of legislative power or at least for the discretion of the courts of the District. [44] Despite the major changes in the law of insanity wrought by Durham and its progeny, the rejection of the diminished capacity doctrine has withstood numerous challenges. See, e.g., Stewart v. United States, 94 U.S.App.D.C. 293, 297, 214 F.2d 879, 883 (1954); Stewart v. United States, 107 U.S.App.D.C. 159, 166, 275 F.2d 617, 623 (1960) (en banc), rev'd on other grounds, 366 U.S. 1, 81 S.Ct. 941, 6 L.Ed. 2d 84 (1961); Stewart v. United States, 129 U.S.App.D.C. 303, 304-05, 394 F.2d 778, 779-80 (1968). As recently as two months before the circuit court announced its decision in Brawner, it reaffirmed the Fisher rule. United States v. Bryant, 153 U.S.App.D.C. 72, 78, 471 F.2d 1040, 1046 (1972), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1112, 93 S. Ct. 923, 34 L.Ed.2d 693 (1973). Thus, under the previously discussed principles of M.A.P. v. Ryan, supra , Fisher remained valid precedent in our court system on the issue of the admissibility of expert testimony concerning appellant's mens rea. We are convinced that the principles of diminished capacity should not be incorporated into our rules of criminal adjudication. In support of the doctrine, appellant relies heavily on the rationale of the Brawner court's dicta on the subject, the principal theme of which may be characterized as logical relevance. The court began with the premise (153 U.S. App.D.C. at 30, 471 F.2d at 998): An offense like deliberated and premeditated murder requires a specific intent that cannot be satisfied merely by showing that defendant failed to conform to an objective standard. [Footnote omitted.] It then reviewed the case law concerning the defense of voluntary intoxication, [45] and expressed the following conclusion ( id. at 31, 471 F.2d at 999): Neither logic nor justice can tolerate a jurisprudence that defines the elements of an offense as requiring a mental state such that one defendant can properly argue that his voluntary drunkenness removed his capacity to form the specific intent but another defendant is inhibited from a submission of his contention that an abnormal mental condition, for which he was in no way responsible, negated his capacity to form a particular specific intent, even though the condition did not exonerate him from all criminal responsibility. Pursuant to such reasoning, the court determined that the Fisher rule should be cast aside and the mens rea issue opened to expert testimony on an abnormal mental condition which would be insufficient for complete exoneration. In the abstract, evidence of a mental disease or defect may be as relevant to the issue of mens rea as proof of intoxication or epilepsy, and the logic of consistency could compel a similar evidentiary rule for all such incapacitating conditions. [46] However, recognizing the unique position of the concept of insanity in the framework of criminal responsibility, and considering the substantial problems which would accrue from the adoption of the diminished capacity doctrine, we conclude that the argument of logical relevance is insufficient to warrant an abrogation of the Fisher rule. Our principal objection to the Brawner dicta is its apparent abandonment of traditional legal theory. The essence of the diminished capacity concept embraced in that decision is that the circumstance of mental deficiency should not be confined to use as an all-or-nothing defense. See Fisher v. United States, supra, 328 U.S. at 491-93, 66 S.Ct. 1318 (Murphy, J., dissenting); State v. DiPaolo, 34 N.J. 279, 168 A.2d 401, cert. denied, 368 U.S. 880, 82 S.Ct. 130, 7 L.Ed.2d 80 (1961). Prior to Brawner, however, the circuit court firmly had eschewed any notion of partial insanity. In Holloway v. United States, supra, 80 U. S.App.D.C. at 5, 148 F.2d at 667, it stated: [T]o the psychiatrist mental cases are a series of imperceptible gradations from the mild psychopath to the extreme psychotic, whereas criminal law allows for no gradations. It requires a final decisive moral judgment of the culpability of the accused. For the purposes of conviction there is no twilight zone between abnormality and insanity. An offender is wholly sane or wholly insane. Accord, United States v. Cain, 298 F.2d 934 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 370 U.S. 902, 82 S.Ct. 1250, 8 L.Ed.2d 400 (1962). The Brawner court avoided this troublesome distinction between law and medicine by positing the somewhat misleading premise that mens rea is not to be determined solely by objective standards. 153 U.S.App.D.C. at 30, 471 F.2d at 998. It is true, of course, that the existence of the required state of mind is to be determined subjectively in the sense that the issue must be resolved according to the particular circumstances of a given case. [47] However, this fact may not be allowed to obscure the critical difference between the legal concepts of mens rea and insanity. Cf. Diamonds, From Durham to Brawner, A Futile Journey, 1973 Wash.U.L.Q. 109. The former refers to the existence in fact of a guilty mind; [48] insanity, on the other hand, connotes a presumption that a particular individual lacks the capacity to possess such a state of mind. It is upon this distinction that the logic of the diminished capacity doctrine founders. The concept of mens rea involves what is ultimately the fiction of determining the actual thoughts or mental processes of the accused. See United States v. Currens, supra, 290 F.2d at 773. It is obvious that a certain resolution of this issue is beyond the ken of scientist and laymen alike. Only by inference can the existence of intent  or the differentiation between its forms, such as general or specific  be determined. See Banovitch v. Commonwealth, 196 Va. 210, 216, 83 S.E.2d 369, 373 (1954); 2 Wigmore on Evidence, §§ 242, 300, 302 (3d ed. 1940); cf. Meyers, The Psychiatric Determination of Legal Intent, 10 J. Forensic Science 347 (1965). The law presumes that all individuals are capable of the mental processes which bear the jurisprudential label mens rea; that is, the law presumes sanity. Moreover, for the sake of administrative efficiency and in recognition of fundamental principles of egalitarian fairness, [49] our legal system further presumes that each person is equally capable of the same forms and degrees of intent. Cf. Stewart v. United States, supra, 107 U.S.App.D.C. at 166, 275 F.2d at 623; United States v. Chandler, supra, 393 F.2d at 929. The concept of insanity is simply a device the law employs to define the outer limits of that segment of the general population to whom these presumptions concerning the capacity for criminal intent shall not be applied. [50] The line between the sane and the insane for the purposes of criminal adjudication is not drawn because for one group the actual existence of the necessary mental state (or lack thereof) can be determined with any greater certainty, but rather because those whom the law declares insane are demonstrably so aberrational in their psychiatric characteristics that we choose to make the assumption that they are incapable of possessing the specified state of mind. [51] Within the range of individuals who are not insane, the law does not recognize the readily demonstrable fact that as between individual criminal defendants the nature and development of their mental capabilities may vary greatly. Judge Levanthal, writing in concurrence in United States v. Moore, 158 U.S.App.D.C. 375, 415-16, 486 F.2d 1139, 1179-80 (en banc), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 980, 94 S.Ct. 298, 38 L.Ed.2d 224 (1973), concluded: The legal conception of criminal capacity cannot be limited to those of unusual endowment or even average powers. A few may be recognized as so far from normal as to be entirely beyond the reach of criminal justice, but in general the criminal law is a means of social control that must be potentially capable of reaching the vast bulk of the population. Criminal responsibility is a concept that not only extends to the bulk of those below the median line of responsibility, but specifically extends to those who have a realistic problem of substantial impairment and lack of capacity. . .. The criminal law cannot vary legal norms with the individual's capacity to meet the standards they prescribe, absent a disability that is both gross and verifiable, such as the mental disease or defect that may establish irresponsibility. The most that it is feasible to do with lesser disabilities is to accord them proper weight in sentencing. [52] [Footnotes omitted.] See also Stewart v. United States, supra, 107 U.S.App.D.C. at 166, 275 F.2d at 623. By contradicting the presumptions inherent in the doctrine of mens rea, the theory of diminished capacity inevitably opens the door to variable or sliding scales of criminal responsibility. Cf. United States v. Moore, supra, 158 U.S.App.D.C. at 381, 486 F.2d at 1145. We should not lightly undertake such a revolutionary change in our criminal justice system. We recognize that there are exceptions to the basic principle that all individuals are presumed to have a similar capacity for mens rea. The rule that evidence of intoxication may be employed to demonstrate the absence of specific intent figured prominently in the Brawner court's advocacy of consistency in the treatment of expert evidence of mental impairment. The asserted analogy is flawed, however, by the fact that there are significant evidentiary distinctions between psychiatric abnormality and the recognized incapacitating circumstances. Unlike the notion of partial or relative insanity, conditions such as intoxication, medication, epilepsy, infancy, or senility are, in varying degrees, susceptible to quantification or objective demonstration, and to lay understanding. As the Ninth Circuit observed in Wahrlich v. Arizona, 479 F.2d 1137, 1138 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1011, 94 S.Ct. 375, 38 L.Ed.2d 249 (1973): Exposure to the effects of age and of intoxicants upon state of mind is a part of common human experience which fact finders can understand and apply; indeed, they would apply them even if the state did not tell them they could. The esoterics of psychiatry are not within the ordinary ken. While the rationale for the diminished capacity dicta in Brawner rested heavily upon the concept of logical relevance, the court gave scant attention to the other general prerequisites to the admissibility of evidence, i.e., its reliability and the balance between its probative value and its potential impact upon the other interests which are critical to the adjudicatory mechanism. [53] The responsibility for ascertaining the legal relevance of the proffered medical testimony was left to the trial judge (153 U.S.App.D.C. at 34, 471 F.2d at 1002): The receipt of this expert testimony to negative the mental condition of specific intent requires careful administration by the trial judge. . . . The judge will [outside the presence of the jury] determine whether the testimony is grounded in sufficient scientific support to warrant use in the courtroom, and whether it would aid the jury in reaching a decision on the ultimate issues. [Footnote omitted.] See United States v. Peterson, 166 U.S. App.D.C. 75, 81-82, 509 F.2d 408, 414-15 (1974). Quite apart from our previously expressed reservations concerning the wisdom of burdening the medically-naive court with the administration of such an ad hoc standard, [54] the degree of sophistication of the psychiatric sciences and the validity and reliability of its evidentiary product are not beyond dispute. In Wahrlich v. Arizona, supra, 479 F.2d at 1138, the Ninth Circuit concluded: [T]he state of the developing art of psychiatry is such that we are not convinced that psychiatric testimony directed to a retrospective analysis of the subtle gradations of specific intent has enough probative value to compel its admission. Criticism of the use of medical proof in the determination of criminal responsibility has not been confined to the case law. One source has identified the problem as: a) extraneous qualities of psychiatric patients  such as their socio-economic class  may substantially influence psychiatric judgments; b) judges and juries usually defer to psychiatric judgments; c) psychiatric interview procedures are unstandardized; d) it is difficult for judges and juries to evaluate the validity of individual psychiatric judgments; and e) psychiatrists and behavioral scientists who have studied the reliability and validity of psychiatric judgments almost unamimously agree that such judgments are of low reliability and validity. [Ennis & Litwack, Psychiatry and the Presumption of Expertise: Flipping Coins in the Courtroom, 62 Cal.L.Rev. 693, 737 (1974). See also Schulman, To Be or Not To Be an Expert, 1973 Wash.U.L.Q. 57, 57-64.] The potential impact of psychiatric evidence in an area so critically close to the ultimate issue of responsibility cannot be minimized. The post- Durham struggle to preserve to the lay trier its full decisionmaking authority provides a clear indication of the inherent dangers in the unrestrained admission of expert testimony. See, e.g., Washington v. United States, supra . There is no reason to suppose that the problem will be any less acute where the issue is the subtle distinction between mental states such as those reflecting specific and general intent, as opposed to the question whether there existed a mental abnormality of sufficient magnitude to be labeled insanity. The Brawner court did indicate that for the time being the admission of psychiatric evidence of diminished capacity would be limited to the trial of offenses involving specific intent. 153 U.S.App.D.C. at 34 n. 75, 471 F.2d at 1002 n. 75; cf. Annot., 22 A.L.R.3d 1228 (1968). We are not satisfied that the rule could be confined so easily. Assuming the competency of experts to testify as to an accused's capacity for specific intent, we see no logical bar to their observations as to the possible existence or lack of malice or general intent. Moreover, it does not appear to us that the balance between the evidentiary value of medical testimony and its potential for improper impact upon the trier would vary sufficiently as between the various degrees of mens rea to warrant such an artificial distinction. See United States v. Alexander, 152 U.S.App.D.C. 371, 396-400, 471 F. 2d 923, 948-52 (Bazelon, C. J., dissenting), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1044, 93 S.Ct. 541, 34 L.Ed.2d 494 (1972). The issue is far from inconsequential, for the unrestrained application of the diminished capacity doctrine would have a profound impact upon both the separate defense of insanity and the statutory scheme which governs claims of irresponsibility. In the provisions of D.C.Code 1973, § 24-301, Congress struck a careful balance between the interests of the individual and those of the community. [55] While there may be superficial appeal to the idea that the standards of criminal responsibility should be applied as subjectively as possible, the overriding danger of the disputed doctrine is that it would discard the traditional presumptions concerning mens rea without providing for a corresponding adjustment in the means whereby society is enabled to protect itself from those who cannot or will not conform their conduct to the requirements of the law. [56] Under the present statutory scheme, a successful plea of insanity avoids a conviction, [57] but confronts the accused with the very real possibility of prolonged therapeutic confinement. [58] If, however, psychiatric testimony were generally admissible to cast a reasonable doubt upon whatever degree of mens rea was necessary for the charged offense, thus resulting in outright acquittal, there would be scant reason indeed for a defendant to risk such confinement by arguing the greater form of mental deficiency. [59] Thus, quite apart from the argument that the diminished capacity doctrine would result in a considerably greater likelihood of acquittal for those who by traditional standards would be held responsible, the future safety of the offender as well as the community would be jeopardized by the possibility that one who is genuinely dangerous might obtain his complete freedom merely by applying his psychiatric evidence to the threshold issue of intent. [60] The Brawner court expressed satisfaction that the statutory procedures governing civil commitment would provide a shield against danger from persons with abnormal mental condition. 153 U.S. App.D.C. at 33-34, 471 F.2d at 1001-02. Cf. Millard v. Harris, supra, 132 U.S.App. D.C. at 150, 406 F.2d at 968; In re Alexander, 125 U.S.App.D.C. 352, 372 F.2d 925 (1967). We do not share their optimism. While confinement as a result of either a plea of insanity or a civil petition turns upon the existence of a similar degree of mental impairment, there exist significant procedural differences. [61] In the criminal context, the obtaining of therapeutic confinement in lieu of conviction and punishment depends upon the accused's successfully establishing his abnormality by a preponderance of the evidence. D.C.Code 1973, §§ 24-301(d) and (j). He thereafter cannot regain his liberty until the lack of danger to himself and society either has been determined through unopposed certification by the appropriate medical authorities or such recovery is established at a hearing at which the individual would bear the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence. D.C.Code 1973, §§ 24-301(d) and (e). On the other hand, civil commitment under D.C.Code 1973, §§ 21-541 et seq., requires that the petitioning authorities establish the dangerous abnormality by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. See In re Hodges, supra ; In re Ballay, 157 U.S. App.D.C. 59, 482 F.2d 648 (1973). The difference between the burden and standards of proof has been justified on the quite logical ground that under normal circumstances civil commitment is directed toward a potential threat to an individual or the community, while in the context of the criminal defense, harm in fact has occurred, and the commission of the act is tacitly acknowledged. See United States v. Brown, 155 U.S.App.D.C. 402, 407, 478 F. 2d 606, 611 (1973); Overholser v. Leach, 103 U.S.App.D.C. 289, 291-92, 257 F.2d 667, 669-70 (1958), cert. denied, 359 U.S. 1013, 79 S.Ct. 1152, 3 L.Ed.2d 1038 (1959). We see no justification for thwarting the legitimate policy objectives of the mandatory commitment provisions of § 24-301 by reopening the gap between the civil and criminal structures. [62] In our view, to do so would tear the fabric of the criminal law as an instrument of social control. Cf. United States v. Moore, supra, 158 U. S.App.D.C. at 416, 486 F.2d at 1180 (Leventhal, J., concurring). We conclude that the potential impact of concepts such as diminished capacity or partial insanity  however labeled  is of a scope and magnitude which precludes their proper adoption by an expedient modification of the rules of evidence. If such principles are to be incorporated into our law of criminal responsibility, the change should lie within the province of the legislature. See Stewart v. United States, supra, 107 U.S.App.D.C. at 166, 275 F.2d at 624.