Court Opinion

ID: 9718815
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:34:37.489116+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:02.688482
License: Public Domain

EVANS, Acting P. J.
I respectfully dissent.
Although the conclusion reached by the majority that the voters, by enacting Proposition 8 which added Penal Code section 25, subdivision (b), merely reestablished the “M’Naghten” standard for establishing criminal insanity as a defense is judicially and humanistically appealing, I cannot join in that conclusion.
The M’Naghten standard, traditionally referred to as the “right and wrong” test, was judicially stated to be “[T]o establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.” (M’Naghten’s Case (1843) 10 Clark & Fin. 200, 210 [8 Eng. Rep. 718, 722].) (Italics added.) I emphasize the use of the disjunctive to demonstrate what I perceive as the flaw in the judicial reasoning utilized by the majority in reaching their conclusion that the voters intended to merely reestablish the original M’Naghten standard for proving criminal insanity.
The text of Penal Code section 25, subdivision (b), demonstrates that the initiative enacted by the People imposes a far more stringent standard which requires proof that the accused suffered from both aspects of the M’Naghten test.
*1035Viewed from any intellectual position, the harshness of the result extracted by the clear, unambiguous language of the provisions of section 25, subdivision (b), is apparent. However, that harshness does not rise to prohibitive constitutional dimension or compel a statutory change by judicial decision; the fact that the statute compels a harsh result does not render it ambiguous and subject to interpretation. Merely because the language used results in the imposition of a strict standard for the defense of criminal insanity, we may not be permitted to indulge a judicial preference and conjure a judicial amendment to the statute by construing “and” to mean “or.”
The terms “and” and “or,” clearly conjunctive and disjunctive, may have at times in the past been erroneously used interchangeably by careless courts; however, that circumstance does not permit us to be so presumptive as to conclude the people, by their initiative process, didn’t mean what they clearly stated, that the conjunctive rather than the disjunctive be required and both prongs of the M’Naghten test be established in order to prove insanity as a criminal defense.
Even though the conclusion I reach may be simplistic when measured in the light of the dissertation presented by the majority on the historical development and effects of the various definitions of insanity used by the courts, I am forced to that conclusion by the compulsion of mandated judicial restraint when attempting to ascertain the intent of the voters in enacting, by the initiative method, this statute.
The proper point of beginning for a review of such a statute is by an attempt to ascertain the intent of the voters. In this instance, prior to the initiative election, Proposition 8 received widespread publicity. Newspaper, radio, and television editorials focused on its provisions and extensive public debate involving the proposition described the pros and the cons of the measure. Moreover, before the election, each voter received an election pamphlet containing the title and summary prepared by the Attorney General, a detailed analysis of the measure prepared by the legislative analyst, and a complete text of the proposed law. That text contains the entirety of the 10 sections of the Victims’ Bill of Rights and included in strikeout type the text of former article I, section 12, of the California Constitution. Each voter was additionally provided written arguments in favor of Proposition 8 and rebuttal thereto, and written arguments against Proposition 8 and rebuttal thereto. In those documents the analysis by the legislative analyst described the test of insanity in the conjunctive and stated, “These provisions could increase the difficulty of proving that a person is not guilty by reason of insanity.” In the argument submitted to the voters in favor of Proposition 8 was the statement, “[Y]ou will limit the ability of violent criminals to hide behind the insanity defense, ... [f] ... Of those con*1036victed of felonies, one-third go to state prison and the remaining two-thirds are back in the community in a relatively short period of time, [f] There Is Absolutely No Question That the Passage of This Proposition Will Result in . . . More Criminals Being Sentenced to State Prison, and More Protection for the Law-Abiding Citizenry. ...”
The defendant implicates the argument that the voters were misled or confused in requiring the more difficult standard of proving both prongs of the M’Naghten test. Such an argument can only be based upon the improbable assumption that the people did not know what they were doing. In our judicial review, we should not lightly presume that the voters were unaware of the consequences of their actions in approving Proposition 8. Rather, in accord with the Supreme Court’s mandated procedures, “we ordinarily should assume that the voters who approved a constitutional amendment ‘. . . have voted intelligently upon an amendment to their organic law, the whole text of which was supplied to each of them prior to the election and which they must be assumed to have duly considered . . . .’ [Citation.]” (Amador Valley Joint Union High Sch. Dist. v. State Bd. of Equalization (1978) 22 Cal.3d 208, 243-244 [149 Cal.Rptr. 239, 583 P.2d 1281].)
All insanity tests recognize distinctions among the mentally ill and exculpate only those whose illness results in an incapacity to meet the then minimum criterion for responsibility. Under any analysis, “sound mind” and “legal sanity” are not synonymous. The purpose of rules regarding insanity as a defense have traditionally been to separate the sane from the insane so far as criminal culpability is concerned. The mere fact that Penal Code section 25, subdivision (b), requires a most extreme and stringent test in order to establish the defense of criminal insanity does not rendfer it unconstitutional or invalid; nor may we say the voters did not mean what they said.
The section under challenge provides in pertinent part, “In any criminal proceeding, ... in which a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity is entered, this defense shall be found by the trier of fact only when the accused person proves by a preponderance of the evidence that he or she was incapable of knowing or understanding the nature and quality of his or her act and of distinguishing right from wrong at the time of the commission of the offense.” (Italics added.) I would conclude the trial court properly ruled the statute required defendant to prove both prongs of the insanity test by a preponderance of the evidence.
I can find nothing in the statute, the entire initiative, the arguments presented in favor of, in rebuttal to, or in explanation of the text of the initiative, that would imply that the voters did not intend the conjunctive to be *1037the requirement rather than by implication the disjunctive. Under the statute, criminally insane persons, that is those who know neither the nature of their act nor its wrongfulness, would presumably be unable to benefit from the punishment imposed by way of a criminal sentence or to be rehabilitated or deterred thereby. Conversely, persons who know the nature and consequences of their act, or know the act they are committing is wrong, could presumably benefit from or be deterred by the imposition of criminal punishment. As a result, the criminally insane as established under section 25, subdivision (b), are different than the noncriminally insane with respect to the legitimate purpose of the law.
Since the defendant failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that she met both standards enunciated in the statute, I would affirm the judgment.
A petition for a rehearing was denied August 27, 1984, and respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied October 4, 1984. Lucas, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.