Court Opinion

ID: 9713433
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:15:22.329548+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:18.737082
License: Public Domain

Dell, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
On the issue of the defendant’s insanity, I think we have before us nothing but a pure question of fact which the lower court, on the evidence, was justified in deciding as it did.
Exceptionally able and experienced counsel for defendant in his brief states:
“Consequently the question here is whether or not the defendant was legally insane within the meaning of the statute [M. S. A. 610.10] as so interpreted in the Scott case.” (State v. Scott, 41 Minn. 365, 43 N. W. 62.)
The case was tried and decided in the lower court on this principle of law, namely: Was defendant laboring under such a defect of reason as not to know the nature of his act or that it was wrong? It was briefed and argued here on the same principle and I do not think we should go beyond that principle of law since to do so makes the test too fine and the consequences too grave and serious. If there is to be a change in the law, and this I do not advocate, it should come in a case where the issue is squarely presented and adequately briefed and argued — not as here where both parties and the court proceeded on the same theory under the principle above stated.
On June 11, 1952, the day after the killing, the defendant was interrogated by the county attorney and the questions and answers were taken down by a court reporter and transcribed. The transcript accounts for 46 pages of the printed record. A careful reading of it, in my opinion, fails to disclose any apparent mental weakness or deficiency. It appears to be coherent and the likely story of a premeditated murder. From it, in sequence, the following appears: Defendant’s deceased wife, in 1949, was the wife of Hjaimer Anderson. They were divorced in August of that year and in September, the following month, she married the defendant. While the wife of *557Anderson she made improper advances to the defendant and finally there were secret meetings. They slept together and had sexual relations before she was divorced. Anderson talked to the defendant concerning divorce. Before the divorce was granted defendant asked her to return to her husband but this she did not do. After their marriage defendant’s sister told him that Anderson claimed that defendant had stolen his wife. Defendant said that because of this talk his standing in the community had been lowered and he had been ridiculed. Their married life was not pleasant. There was frequent quarreling, nagging by her, and some difficulty over money matters. He felt that she had tricked him into marriage. He claimed that her relations with a named resort owner for whom he worked were improper. From what he described concerning her conduct, her treatment of him, and his experience with her while she was the wife of Anderson, it appears that there were reasonable grounds for his suspicion. There is nothing in the record to dispute or deny this claim. He had given some thought to doing away with her. The morning of June 10, 1952, they quarreled more than usual and he decided to kill her. He said that he needed some whiskey in order to commit the act so he went to town and, after going to the creamery, spent a long time in the liquor store where he consumed between seven and nine drinks of whiskey and made statements which, in the light of subsequent events, clearly showed that he was planning the murder. When he returned home his wife was sleeping. After further deliberation he shot and killed her while asleep. He then attempted to hitchhike to town so as to give himself up to the sheriff but was unable to obtain a ride. He gave one driver a dollar bill and asked him to call the sheriff. He walked to a resort where he drank three bottles of beer. Later he returned to his home and was arrested.
Seven people, acquaintances of his, who talked to and observed him that day either in the liquor store or at a resort described his actions and conversation as perfectly normal. One man had known him for nine years and another since defendant was a boy. The man who knew him from boyhood talked to him in the liquor store while they consumed three drinks of whiskey.
*558Dr. N. J. Berkwitz of Minneapolis, a specialist in psychiatry and neurology, examined the transcript prepared by the court reporter above referred to; the copy of the narrative statement given by the defendant to the authorities on June 10, the day of the killing; a transcript of the statement of the defendant taken at St. Cloud on June 18; a transcript of proceedings in the district court at Milaca on October 15; a copy of the note entitled “a request” dated June 18 ; and copies of the signed statements of the seven acquaintances above referred to. All of these instruments were made a part of the evidence by stipulation of the parties and were before the court for consideration in making its decision. Dr. Berkwitz, basing his opinion upon these instruments, stated that while defendant had a “paranoid condition,” “there was no evidence that his intelligence was impaired”; that the defendant’s vomiting shortly before he shot his wife “would seem to me to be the normal reaction of a person who had decided to do a bloody job of murder against which his very instincts revolted, which naturally would affect his digestive juices”; and that the evidence was such as to “convince me personally that he [defendant] knew exactly what he was doing”; also that “There is ample evidence that definite premeditation existed in his mind as he had mulled his plans prior to the commission of the crime.” He further said that “a paranoid state is a fairly common condition.”
Taking the record as a whole it seems to me that the court was justified in finding that at the timé the defendant killed his wife he was not suffering from such defect of reason or impairment of his mental faculties as to excuse his acts. The fact that he had paranoid trends is not in itself controlling for, as Dr. Berkwitz points out, it is common knowledge that many people have paranoid trends and yet are legally sane and accountable for what they do. And whether four months after the killing he was insane so as to be incapable of standing trial is beside the point. The question is what was his condition at the time of the killing ? Viewing the record as a whole and all reasonable inferences to be,drawn therefrom, it seems to me that the court could reasonably find that the defendant planned the murder, that he had a motive for it, that he knew what he was doing was not right but wrong, and that, in fact, his reason*559ing powers and mental condition were such, as to make him fully responsible for his acts under any theory. While the testimony of Dr. Burtrum C. Schiele would have permitted a finding to the contrary, it was not such, in the light of the entire record, in my opinion, as to compel such a finding. For these reasons I respectfully dissent.