Opinion ID: 1202924
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Constitutionality of Sections 1016 and 1026 of the Penal Code Providing for Bifurcated Trials on Issue of Insanity

Text: At the inception of the trial, the deputy district attorney, while in chambers with the trial judge, the defendant, and defendant's counsel, announced his intention to question the prospective jurors on their attitudes toward pleas of not guilty by reason of insanity. Defendant claimed the right to have a separate panel try the insanity issue and urged that defendant would be prejudiced by such voir dire examination. The trial court said that this was the only time that the jury could be so interrogated. Defendant then withdrew his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Defendant contends that he was forced to make this election because the jury, if so questioned, could only have gained the impression that he was guilty. He sees a denial of due process and of a fair trial because a defendant is required, in the discretion of the court, to submit the issue of insanity to the same jury which passed on the question of guilt (Pen. Code, §§ 1016, 1026) and which might not be impartial. [39] However, it has long been held that the proper time for the examination of the prospective jurors on the issue of insanity is during their selection at the beginning of the trial. ( People v. Woods, 19 Cal. App.2d 556, 558 [65 P.2d 940]; People v. Foster, 3 Cal. App.2d 35, 39 [39 P.2d 271]; People v. Davis, 94 Cal. App. 192, 197 [270 P. 715].) [40] With regard to his assertion that the same jury could not approach the insanity issue objectively, the following language employed by this court in People v. Leong Fook, 206 Cal. 64, 78 [273 P. 779], is significant: We must assume that a fair and impartial jury of intelligent men and women would obey ... [their] instructions and would therefore hold in reserve their ultimate finding upon the issue of the defendant's sanity until that separate issue and the evidence supporting it had, in the prescribed order of the trial, been committed to it for determination. We are not to assume that such a jury will cease to be fair and impartial as the cause progresses upon its successive issues, but, on the contrary, we must assume, in the absence of any other showing, that the jury has retained its attitude of fairness and impartiality under the changed procedure as before until the whole cause ... has been determined. This answers defendant's basic premise that he would not have received an impartial trial on the insanity issue. Also, the same reasoning equally refutes defendant's supposition that the jury could only believe that he admitted guilt by offering the plea of insanity. While these precise fair trial and due process arguments have apparently not been advanced before, it is important to note that sections 1016 and 1026 of the Penal Code have long been held constitutional despite many similar objections. (See People v. Daugherty, supra, 40 Cal.2d 876, 893, and the cases therein cited.) [41] Again we cannot say that the withdrawal of the insanity plea was forced upon defendant or that he was not sufficiently advised of the consequences of his decision. He was present in chambers when his attorney, the prosecutor, and the trial judge discussed the possible prejudicial effect of the challenged voir dire examination. In response to questions posed by his own counsel, he expressed his desire to withdraw his insanity plea and stated that he understood what had transpired. He was also informed that he could not reinstate the plea as a matter of right during the course of the trial. He might well have been additionally advised on other matters such as the nonbinding effect of the reports of the court-appointed alienists, defendant's right to examine these experts and to produce his own witnesses to controvert their reports, and the jury's power to make an independent determination. However, defendant was represented by counsel who initially entered this plea over his client's objections. Surely, he must have explained to defendant the reasons for his actions. They must have weighed the probabilities of success on this defense in the light of the unanimous opinions of the three alienists to the effect that he was sane. Defendant and his counsel evidently decided that his cause would be better served by avoiding what they conceived to be the harmful effects of the proposed examination of the prospective jurors than by actually pursuing the insanity plea. This was a free and voluntary choice made by defendant with full advice of counsel. (See People v. Mendez, 27 Cal.2d 20, 22 [161 P.2d 929].)