Court Opinion

ID: 9791124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:06:14.533952+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:34.282703
License: Public Domain

Hill, J.
This appeal arises out of a crime which was widely publicized in the Pacific Northwest—the kidnapping of Charles Hyde, III, near Tacoma, Washington. A ransom of $45,000 was paid, the lad returned to his home unharmed.
The participants in the kidnapping either surrendered voluntarily or were speedily apprehended—the appellant, Dean Allen Bromley, in Arkansas.
The three were tried together. Tilford G. Baker, who forced the boy into the “kidnap” car, and the appellant Bromley, who drove the car, were both found guilty of kidnapping in the first degree. The jury, however, did not impose the death penalty. The third defendant, James Edward Evans, who did not participate in the actual “taking” of the boy, was found guilty of conspiracy to kidnap.
Neither Baker nor Evans appealed his conviction; however, Bromley has appealed making 9 assignments of error.
A majority of the court agrees that there was such an accumulation of matters of dubious propriety that a fair trial was denied the appellant Bromley and that he must be granted a new trial, despite the fact that he concededly drove the “kidnap” car, accepted part of the ransom money, and fled to Arkansas with his wife and child.
We will consider the accumulated items separately. With one exception all members of the court are agreed that it was prejudicial error to permit Dr. Harlan McNutt to testify in rebuttal that, in his opinion, Bromley was not a person who could be easily coerced.
To fully understand the importance of this testimony, it must be understood that the actual participation of the *152defendants Baker and Bromley in the physical act of kidnapping was not denied. Each of the three defendants entered a plea of insanity, but Bromley withdrew his plea during the trial. Bromley (and Evans) claimed coercion by Baker who, Bromley testified, had threatened to kill him and his wife unless he cooperated in the kidnapping. This, in the final analysis, was his only defense.
Bromley, by reason of his original plea of insanity, had been required to submit to an examination by Dr. McNutt, the state’s psychiatrist.
It is conceded that the state could not 'have used Dr. McNutt’s testimony against Bromley, in its case in chief, but it was admitted to meet his defense of coercion.1 The defense contends that it was devastating, but urges that it was not admissible.
It smacks of compelling a defendant to furnish testimony against himself, and of proving a trait of character by the opinion of an expert instead of by the proof of *153reputation in the community. Bromley having been required to submit to an examination by the psychiatrist to enable the state to meet the defense of insanity, and that defense having been withdrawn, the state should not have been permitted to make any further use of the testimony of the psychiatrist against the appellant.
As we said in State v. O’Brien, 66 Wash. 219, 223, 119 Pac. 609 (1911),
It has ever been the law that one who offers himself as a witness is bound to disclose his motive and disposition. But the rule which allows this inquiry on cross-examination is not inconsistent with, but is in harmony with the rule that, if others speak of the general character of a person, it must be by way of reputation. To hold otherwise would be to substitute the judgment of a witness for that of the jury.
Certainly, the effort by the state here was to substitute the judgment of Dr. McNutt for that of the jury on the issue of whether Bromley was coerced.
In the language of the caption of an article in 102 U. Pa. L. Rev. 980 (1954), by Judson F. Falknor and David T. Steffen,2 the state would take the determination of the appellant’s susceptibility to coercion “from the ‘Crucible of the Community’ to the ‘Couch of the Psychiatrist’.”
The general rule is well stated by Mr. Justice Jackson in Michelson v. United States, 335 U.S. 469, 93 L. Ed. 168, 69 Sup. Ct. 213 (1948):
The witness may not testify about defendant’s specific acts or courses of conduct or his possession of a particular disposition or of benign mental and moral traits; nor can he testify that his own acquaintance, observation, and knowledge of defendant leads to his own independent opinion that defendant possesses a good general or spe*154cific character, inconsistent with commission of acts charged. The witness is, however, allowed to summarize what he has heard in the community, although much of it may have been said by persons less qualified to judge than himself. The evidence which the law permits is not as to the personality of defendant but only as to the shadow his daily life has cast in his neighborhood, (p. 477)
Except where the defense is insanity, or in sexual deviation cases, the instances in which psychiatrists have been permitted to testify to the likelihood of a defendant’s specific trait of personality or character have always been, in the first instance at least, on behalf of the defendant. Thereafter it may well become a battle of the psychiatrists.
We find no authority to support the trial court’s permitting the state to inaugurate the battle.3 As a matter of interest, the only case involving the offer of expert testimony as to the likelihood of a defendant having been coerced, which we have been able to find, is People v. Villegas, 29 Cal. App. 2d 658, 85 P.2d 480 (1938). In that case, the defendant called a psychologist and offered to prove by her that she had known him for 14 years,
. . . and that by reason of her study of psychology she was in a position to testify that appellant’s will power was weak, that his physical condition was bad, and that he therefore was without sufficient force to “resist the impulse of this other boy to take him out on these robberies”. (p. 663)
The trial court sustained an objection to the prof erred testimony. The court of appeals affirmed, saying:
It was both incompetent and immaterial, and she was entitled only to testify, as she was permitted under the court’s ruling to do, concerning the general reputation of appellant in the community in which he lived for the traits involved in the offenses charged, (p. 663)
A majority of the court are also of the view that the trial court erred in instructing the jury that when a defendant claims coercion or duress as a defense, he must prove it by the greater weight of the evidence.
*155It is believed that such defense need only be established to the extent of creating a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors as to the guilt of the one accused of the crime charged. State v. Pistona, 127 Wash. 171, 219 Pac. 859 (1923) (alibi); State v. Rosi, 120 Wash. 514, 208 Pac. 15 (1922) (alibi). In the Rosi case, supra, we said:
As to all such affirmative defenses we have always held that the burden is upon the accused to support his defense to the extent of establishing a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors as to the guilt of the accused of the crime charged, (p. 518)
It is interesting that the United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit (in Thomas v. United States, 213 F.2d 30 (9th Cir. 1954)), says that by the stated law in six circuits even our Rosi case, supra, places too much of a burden on a defendant.
The state cites no case to support its position, save State v. Collins, 50 Wn.2d 740, 314 P.2d 660 (1957), where we said that the burden was on the defense to estabish the defense of insanity by a preponderance of the evidence. Such a case starts with a presumption of sanity which the defense must overcome, and it is not at all comparable to such defenses as alibi, self defense, entrapment, and duress.
The appellant rightfully claims that there were portions of Baker’s confession which served no purpose except to inform the jury of the criminal record of the appellant. The usual instructions were given that Baker’s confession could not be considered as evidence against a codefendant who was not present when it was made. However, it would appear that there were portions of the confession admitted which served no purpose save to suggest that the appellant Bromley had been involved in other crimes. We quote from the confession:
Q. Mr. Baker is it true that you had been shown a picture that you positively identified as being the same person as the Dean [the appellant] that you referred to in this statement of yours?
A. Yes.
*156The questioner then had the identification that he desired, but he didn’t stop there.
Q. Mr. Baker is it also true that the picture that you identified as being the Dean [the appellant] that you referred to in your statement, has on the face of the same picture an identifying Pierce County Sheriff #18403?
A. Yes.
This last question had no purpose of further identification; its sole object was to prejudice Bromley by reference to a county-sheriff number on his photograph, implying some prior crime. The harpoon had now been placed and sharpened; it pierced the victim (Bromley) when it went into evidence as part of the confession. Bromley’s counsel objected, but to no avail.
In State v. Goebel, 36 Wn.2d 367, 218 P.2d 300 (1950), we refer to the minute peg of relevancy being obscured by the dirty linen hung upon it. Here the minute peg of relevancy, as part of Baker’s confession, is obscured by the picture hung upon it, which picture just happens to bear “Pierce County Sheriff #18403.”
We do not need to discuss whether or not this was prejudicial error in this case, as on appellant’s new trial Baker will not be a party and his confession will not be admissible.4 State v. Nelson, 65 Wn.2d 189, 396 P.2d 540 (1964).
In any event, it did nothing to enhance the appellant Bromley’s chances for a fair trial; and neither did the reference to the Lindbergh, Mattson and Weyerhaeuser kidnappings in the prosecution’s arguments to the jury, of which the trial judge said: “I think it’s too bad it was said.”
We do not agree with appellant’s contention that Bromley was entitled to be included with Evans in the conspiracy-to-kidnap instruction. Unless Bromley sustained his defense of coercion, he was guilty of kidnapping.
Only one other assignment of error merits discussion.
*157Counsel for Bromley, the only one of the defendants who had a prior criminal record, desired to try the “technique”5 of first advising each juror that Bromley had previously been convicted of a crime or crimes, and then to inquire as to whether this fact would prejudice the juror in his determination of Bromley’s guilt or innocence in the present case. After the second juror had been examined in pursuance of this technique, the trial court sustained objections to its further pursuit.
It is urged that this was error and deprived counsel for Bromley of information which could have led to a more intelligent and effective use of the peremptory challenges available to him.
No case authority is cited for the privilege claimed by Bromley. Indeed, the case authority is contra in regard to a somewhat similar technique. We have an 1896 decision (State v. Everitt, 14 Wash. 574, 45 Pac. 150), in which the defendant attempted to ascertain on the voir dire of the jurors whether the fact that he was charged with cattle stealing would prejudice them against him as a witness. We held that objections to the inquiry were properly sustained, saying:
Again, as to the other phase of the question, when the defendant enters a witness stand he enters it under the same rules and on the same footing as any other witness, and he has no right to attempt to ascertain in advance what the jury may think of his credibility as a witness. All questions of this character would simply have a tendency to confuse and entrap jurors and render the selection of a legal juror almost impossible, (p. 576)
The trial court advised counsel, in this case, that in the event Bromley became a witness the jury would be instructed as to the effect and purpose of the admissibility of evidence of prior convictions. The jury was so instructed, and there were no exceptions to the instruction.
The trial court must be allowed considerable latitude in the exercise of a sound discretion in determining questions *158which may be asked on voir dire. State v. Hunter, 183 Wash. 143, 48 P.2d 262 (1935).
There was no abuse of that discretion in this case.
For reasons heretofore indicated, appellant Dean Allen Bromley was not accorded a fair trial, and the judgment and sentence appealed from is set aside and the cause is remanded to the Superior Court for Pierce County for a new trial.
Donworth, Weaver, Rosellini, Hunter, and Hamilton, JJ., and Denney, J. Pro Tem., concur.

Dr. McNutt testified in part as follows:
“Q. Well, describe his personality for me as you see it, Doctor?
“A. Mr. Bromley is, as I say, a young man, I will try to be as concise as possible, and not historical. I think that he is emotionally quite unstable. I would think that he is easily aroused by any offense directed towards him.
“I think that he could, and would give a good account of himself if he was irritated.
“I might say this is my personal observation from talking with him, not taking anyone else’s word.
“He showed emotional response of a very remarkable kind when I was talking with him.
“This is essentially his personality, I am not offering it as a diagnosis. You asked about his personality.
“Q. Could you tell me whether or not in your opinion this defendant, Bromley, is dangerous?
“A. Yes, sir, he could be dangerous.
“Q. Now, with this type of personality that you describe as to Bromley, would you say, could you tell me whether or not he could be easily coerced into committing a crime against his will?
“Mr. Briggs: To which I will have the same objection, Your Honor.
“The Court: Objection will be overruled.
“A. I think Dean would be rather difficult to coerce.”

The authors, the former well known in this state as legislator and Dean of the University of Washington Law School and an outstanding authority on Evidence, express considerable concern over the opinion in People v. Jones, 42 Cal. 2d 219, 266 P.2d 38 (1954), wherein a trial court was reversed for not permitting the defendant in a sex-deviation case to call a psychiatrist who would testify that, as a result of examinations, he reached the conclusion that the defendant was not a sex deviate.

Views contra are expressed in “Expert Psychiatric Evidence of Personality Traits,” 103 U. Pa. L. Rev. 999 (1955).

Baker could, of course, be a witness; but the confession could be used then only for the purpose of impeachment.

Rothblatt “Successiul Techniques in the Trial oí Criminal Cases.” (1961)