Court Opinion

ID: 9445028
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:18:33.994139+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:06.270566
License: Public Domain

FAHY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The evidence of insanity should be dis-positive of the case. The homicide, for which Askins was tried in 1955, occurred December 28, 1938. He was arrested the next day. Because of his mental condition he was admitted to Gallinger Hospital February 3, 1939. Examinations and observations between then and March 15, 1939, led to a lunacy inquisition. As a result, on March 31, 1939, he was formally found to be insane. He was admitted to St. Elizabeths Hospital in April, 1939, where he remained continuously as a mental patient for thirteen years, until February 20, 1952. On June 1, 1954, he was indicted for another crime, and on June 25, 1954, the District Court ordered him recommitted to St. Elizabeths in order to determine his competency to stand trial. On October 4, 1954, the court found that he was competent to stand trial. Accordingly he was transferred to the jail. On November 9, 1954, the indictment for the other crime was dismissed on motion of the United States; but meanwhile, on November 1, 1954, he had been reindicted for the 1938 homicide. He was tried January 31 to February 8, 1955.
Three doctors testified at the trial. All agreed Askins had been suffering from dementia praeeox. The most important testimony on his mental condition was that of the doctor who was chief psychiatrist at Gallinger in 1939. He had conducted the examination of Askins during the period from February 3, 1939, less than a month and a half after the homicide, to March 15, 1939. He testified that Askins was insane when he committed the homicide December 28, 1938. One of the other doctors testified without having made a personal examination of appellant and without having examined the records at St. Elizabeths. He apparently relied solely upon the Gallinger records and upon information given him by the United States Attorney’s Office. The thrust of his testimony was that on the basis of the records submitted to him “there was nothing to indicate * * * psychotic symptoms on that particular date [December 28, 1938].” The third doctor had no independent recollection of examining appellant, but the records indicated that he had been present at appellant’s admission conference at St. Elizabeths in June, 1939. He did not see the records of Gallinger Hospital. He testified that when he saw appellant at St. Elizabeths he had symptoms of dementia praeeox, but that from that examination he could not express an opinion as to appellant’s mental condition at the time of the alleged crime. He also testified that when he was asked for an opinion about the mental condition of an individual he “certainly usually examine [s] the person.” Somewhat paradoxically, however, in reply to a question which assumed the only relevant facts to be those with which he was familiar, he said, “there was nothing in the data of that hypothetical question that indicated to me that that person was suffering from any mental illness.”
*747All the testimony, of course, was given some sixteen years after the homicide. Considering the evidence as a whole, including the chronology of events which from a time shortly after the homicide carried appellant through approximately fourteen years of treatment as an insane person, I do not understand how it could reasonably be said that a jury in 1955 could find beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant was sane when the homicide occurred. He need not have been released from custody had he been acquitted solely on the ground of insanity. The statute in effect at the conclusion of the trial, § 24-301, D.C.Code (1951), provided that the court could certify the fact of such acquittal to the Federal Security Administrator, who could order him to be confined in a hospital for the insane.1 This provision should have controlled appellant’s custody, not the law applicable to the imprisonment of persons mentally responsible under the criminal law.
I must mention still another matter, although it has not been previously raised. The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution provides that an accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy trial.8 Appellant was originally indicted February 1, 1939 for the homicide here involved. He was never tried under that indictment. It was nolle prossed August 17, 1943, no doubt due to appellant’s mental condition. It was eleven years later, November 1, 1954, when he was reindicted. This was also two years after he had been discharged from St. Elizabeths, to which he was recommitted June 25, 3954. His trial, as has been said, was about sixteen years after the commission of the homicide and after the first indictment. Clearly appellant did not have a speedy trial; and clearly the delay prejudiced him in his defense of insanity; furthermore, several of the witnesses stated that they had no independent recollection of the events about which they were testifying, but had to rely on reports and records. The wisdom of the constitutional provision is illustrated by this case and the provision should be made effective. While the delay was not the fault of the United States, as it was held to be in Petition of Provoo, D.C.D. Md., 17 F.R.D. 183, affirmed without opinion United States v. Provoo, 350 U.S. 857, 76 S.Ct. 101 and was due primarily to the insanity of the accused, there was not a speedy trial in fact, and I think it follows in the circumstances here disclosed that there was not a speedy trial in law. It cannot be said Askins waived his constitutional right by not requesting an earlier trial, for he was committed to St. Elizabeths within a few months of the homicide and the indictment then pending was nolle prossed in 1943. He was not reindicted until 3954. He certainly did not forfeit his constitutional right by not himself initiating a request to be tried either while he was insane, or after the elapse of fifteen years, when he was reindicted.2
3

. An amendment of August 9, 1955 provides that the court must order such a person to be confined in a hospital for the mentally ill. Pub.L. No. 313, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., 69 Stat. 609.

. “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial * * *.” O.S.Const. amend. VI.

. The date appellant was formally found to be insane, March 31, 1939, and the facts we have set forth regarding his indictment for another crime, his recommitment, the finding of competency to stand trial, his transfer to jail, and the dismissal of said indictment, are not shown by the record now before us but are in the records of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, of which I take judicial notice.