Court Opinion

ID: 9571648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:33:51.708884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:45.267748
License: Public Domain

WYNN, Judge,
concurring,
On appeal, defendant argues “if this case does not call out for a directed verdict of [not guilty] by reason of insanity, then we might as well remove that defense from our jurisprudence.” The majority relies on State v. Dorsey in holding that trial courts are precluded from entering a directed verdict for a defendant based on a claim of insanity. State v. Dorsey, 135 N.C. App. 116, 118, 519 S.E.2d 71, 72 (1999). Bound by the holding of Dorsey, the majority correctly resolves this assignment of error by summarily discussing the events supporting defendant’s claim of insanity. I write separately to (1) point out additional facts in this case, and (2) respectfully request that our Supreme Court examine the application of the holding of this Court’s opinion in Dorsey to this case.
The record on appeal shows that upon graduating from Southern High School in Graham, North Carolina, defendant entered the United States Air Force. For five years, until his mid-twenties, defendant did *61not show any signs of mental health problems; defendant married, advanced to the rank of Sergeant, and lived a normal life.
In early 1997, defendant’s mental health began a serious, rapid, and documented decline into a state of psychosis. Defendant became a “Born-Again Christian”: One psychiatrist described defendant’s faith as “more religious than a reasonable person.” Over the next six months, Air Force records reveal defendant began experiencing a form of paranoia in which he felt discriminated against because of his Christianity. In June 1997, defendant “became fixated on the fact that he was the son of God”; believed “that by watching the weather channel, he could tell that the end of the world was coming”; and baptized himself in a military swimming pool.
When defendant’s wife became exceedingly concerned at defendant’s actions and beliefs, defendant called the military police reporting that his wife was crazy. When the military police arrived, defendant was in the front yard talking about religion, his hereditary relationship with God, and the end of the world. The military police took defendant to the hospital, where defendant was diagnosed as a psychotic. Defendant spent six weeks in the hospital and was placed on anti-psychotic medication. However, because it was defendant’s first psychotic episode, “the doctors decided not to keep him on his medicine and just see how he [would] do.” However, within one day of being back on the Air Force base, defendant hit two military officers, proclaimed he was the son of God, again, and was back in the hospital. After six months in and out of the hospital, “it became clear to the military that [defendant was psychotic].” Consequently the “[Air Force] decided to medically retire” defendant with a 30% mental disability rating. According to the testimony of Dr. Baroriak, a forensic psychiatrist employed by the State of North Carolina at Dorothea Dix Hospital, defendant “believed that he had been railroaded out of the Air Force, and that the issue of mental illness was used against him . . . [as] part of a plot.”
After his honorable discharge from the military, defendant returned to North Carolina in November 1998 and moved back home residing with his mother, Mary Frances Walker, and his mother’s husband, Timothy Walker. Defendant obtained employment at the Federal Bureau of Prison’s facility in Butner. However, defendant was placed on administrative suspension after the nature of his military discharge was discovered. After a short while, defendant realized that “one of his main career goals ... to be a correctional officer” was over. “[Defendant] thought he was [yet again] being railroaded out of *62the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and that this was part of a conspiracy based on his religious beliefs.”
Dr. Baroriak testified that “at this point [defendant] started experiencing [and] exhibiting psychotic symptoms.” On 22 October 1999, Ms. Walker, defendant’s mother, testified she began “to notice a great big difference” in defendant. Specifically, beginning on 22 October 1999, defendant stopped responding verbally, began staring off into space, was susceptible to spontaneous bouts of crying, and ceased sleeping at night. On the night of 27 October 1999, defendant watched the Atlanta Braves play the New York Yankees in the Major League Baseball World Series. “He thought the Yankees represented the white people, and the Braves represented people of color. And that the [Yankees] victory . . . was part of God’s statement” that the rapture was coming. Accordingly, defendant created a plan wherein defendant would get shot by police while wearing a Department of Justice uniform, and defendant reasoned that this would “alert[] the world to all the injustices that would be obvious to anybody investigating . . . that these conspiracies had happened to [him].”
Later that night, Ms. Walker awoke and noticed defendant in the bathroom. Ms. Walker knocked on the door, and defendant emerged with “no expression on his face.” At 1:30 a.m., Ms. Walker heard defendant’s “car crank up ... . [And] when [she] saw him again, it was over at the emergency room.” As summarized by the majority, from his home defendant drove to the Pantry Convenience Store wearing a uniform with Department of Justice insignia and carrying two semi-automatic pistols. Defendant asked the Pantry Clerk to call a “law man.” When the Graham Police arrived, defendant approached their squad car and said something in the following vein: “Do you think justice has been done in the world today?” Noticing defendant’s bizarre behavior, and his gun, the police drew their weapons, asking defendant to put his weapon down. Defendant stated “I’m immortal,” asked the officers if they believed in God, and, within seconds, defendant began shooting. Defendant repeatedly yelled that “he was the son of God and could not die.” The incident lasted between three and four minutes until defendant was shot, handcuffed, and taken to the hospital.
Dr. Bruce Brian Hughes testified that he was the “on-call” psychiatrist for Alamance Regional Mental Health Authority on 28 October 1999. After the incident at the Pantry, Dr. Hughes was called-in to evaluate defendant’s mental health. During the course of his interview, defendant “revealed to [Dr. Hughes] that he felt he was the son *63of God, that he had a mission that evening .... He felt that he was immortal, and that... by drawing [gun] fire from . . . police officers and sustaining no injuries, he would show the world he was immortal, [and] the son of God here to redeem us.” Based on interviews with defendant, defendant’s family, and an analysis of his previous mental health problems, Dr. Hughes formed the opinion that defendant had a psychotic disorder which on 28 October 1999 prevented defendant from “know[ing] right from wrong.”
Dr. Patricia Hahn, a forensic psychologist employed by the State of North Carolina at Dorothea Dix Hospital, testified that she gave defendant a mental evaluation in March 2000. Dr. Hahn testified that “one of [my] main tasks [at Dorothea Dix Hospital] is to determine whether somebody is malingering a mental illness” because “we have a lot of people .. . trying to fake [insanity].” Dr. Kahn arrived at the conclusion that defendant “was psychotic at the time” of the incident. Dr. Kahn concluded that defendant was not faking his mental illness. Moreover, Dr. Peter Baroriak, also employed by Dorothea Dix, testified that in his medical opinion “[defendant] thought he was . . . doing something morally right when he fired his weapon on October 28 .... [And that defendant’s] psychotic episode ... impaired his ability to know the difference between right and wrong.”
Dr. Holly Rogers, a psychiatrist and professor employed by Duke University, testified that she diagnosed defendant with schizoaffec-tive disorder — a combination of manic depression and schizophrenia. Based on an analysis of defendant’s records, police reports, and extensive interviews, Dr. Rogers testified “with a reasonable medical certainty that [defendant’s] mental illness was definitely interfering with his ability to know right from wrong” on 28 October 1999.
Although the State cross-examined the defendant’s psychological and psychiatric experts, the State did not proffer any experts to contradict their testimony. At the close of the State’s evidence, and at the close of all the evidence, the defendant made a motion to dismiss. Apparently, defendant argued that the State failed to produce sufficient evidence of intent, because the State did not contradict defendant’s expert testimony regarding his inability to differentiate between right and wrong on 28 October 1999. The trial court denied the motion, and, today, we affirm this decision because of the precedent created by State v. Dorsey. Because I question this Court’s holding in Dorsey, I urge the Supreme Court to accept defendant’s probable request for discretionary review to re-examine that case and its application to the issue in this case.
*64In State v. Leonard, our Supreme Court held that:
The prosecution may assume, as the law does, that the defendant is sane.... If no evidence of insanity be offered, the presumption of sanity prevails. . . . Even if the evidence of insanity presented by the defendant is uncontradicted by the state, it is the defendant’s burden to satisfy the jury of the existence of the defense. The credibility of the defense witnesses in this case was a proper matter for the jury. A diagnosis of mental illness by an expert is not in and of itself conclusive on the issue of insanity.
State v. Leonard, 296 N.C. 58, 65, 248 S.E.2d 853, 857 (1978). Subsequently, in State v. Dorsey, this Court held that “[i]f evidence of insanity is offered by the defendant, even if un-controverted, the credibility of that testimony is for the jury and thus precludes the entry of a directed verdict for defendant on insanity.” State v. Dorsey, 135 N.C. App. 116, 118, 519 S.E.2d 71, 72 (1999). However, in announcing this principal, the Dorsey Court relied on Bank v. Burnette, 297 N.C. 524, 536-37, 256 S.E.2d 388, 395-96 (1979), in which our Supreme Court held that a directed verdict, for the party bearing the burden of proof, is proper when the credibility of the evidence is “manifest as a matter of law.” Seemingly, the Dorsey court should have held that Burnette left open the possibility of a “directed verdict” for a defendant pleading not guilty by reason of insanity “where the credibility of [the] movant’s evidence [of insanity] is manifest as a matter of law.” Id. at 537, 256 S.E.2d at 396 (emphasis in original). However, the Dorsey court went much further than Burnette and foreclosed the possibility of a directed verdict for a defendant on a claim of insanity.
Since I, like my colleagues who join in the majority opinion, am bound to follow the holding of Dorsey,1 I respectfully request our Supreme Court to re-examine this Court’s prior holding in Dorsey that a directed verdict is never permitted for the defendant on the issue of insanity. Indeed, the holdings of our Supreme Court in Leonard and Burnette indicate that a directed verdict should be permitted if the credibility of the insanity evidence is “manifest as a matter of law.” For that reason, I respectfully request that our Supreme Court re-examine the underlying basis of Dorsey, and determine if the facts of the case sub judice, warrant a reconsideration of our opinion issued today.

. In the Matter of Appeal from Civil Penalty, 324 N.C. 373, 384, 379 S.E.2d 30, 37 (1989). (“Where a panel of the Court of Appeals has decided the same issue ... a subsequent panel of the same court is bound by that precedent, unless it has been overturned by a higher court.”).