Court Opinion

ID: 9564629
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:04:33.516472+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:34.928748
License: Public Domain

Foster, J.
• (concurring) — While I join in the court’s opinion, I have re-examined the issues herein because three days after oral argument in this case the United States Court of Appeals (10th circuit) decided Fitts v. United States, 284 F. (2d) 108.
One month after Fitts was alleged to have committed the crime charged, he was adjudged “mentally ill” and committed to a state hospital by a state court. On his trial for the federal offense, no evidence was offered by either side on the question of his insanity. The court said that the presumption of sanity is a rule of law which stands in the place of evidence if there is none. The court commented:
“ . . . While a diagnosis of mental illness, even necessitating confinement in a mental institution, may not have the probative effect of providing mental irresponsibility by whatever test may be applied — whether Durham or Mc-Naghten — at the same time, no one can doubt that confinement in a mental institution upon an adjudication of mental illness is sufficient to generate in the minds of all of us a doubt sufficient to provoke inquiry. ...”
The court held:
“Viewed in this light, it becomes reasonably clear that a diagnosis of mental illness necessitating commitment to a mental institution a little more than a month after the commission of the crime, is legally sufficient to raise the issue of mental capacity to commit the offense. In any event, we hold that the proof was sufficient to dissipate the presumption of sanity and to inject the issue of insanity as an element of the offense charged. In the absence of com*675petent evidence of criminal responsibility, the accused was entitled to a directed verdict of acquittal. . . ’ . ”
The record presented to us herein may be distinguished by our decision in State v. Myers, 47 Wn. (2d) 840, 290 P. (2d) 253, in which we said:
“ . . . Contained in that file was a certificate of discharge as recovered, signed by the superintendent, which was sufficient to rebut the presumption of continuing insanity.”
While Bonner was only paroled and Myers was discharged by the superintendent, we think the distinction is not important because the superintendent in each instance acted under RCW 72.23.140 (formerly RCW 71.02.610), which provides as follows:
“Whenever in the judgment of the superintendent of any state hospital, any patient shall have so far recovered as to make it safe for such patient and for the public to allow him to be at large, the superintendent may parole such patient and allow him to leave such hospital, and whenever in the judgment of the superintendent any patient has been restored his mental health and is probably free from danger of relapse or recurrence of mental illness, the superintendent shall discharge such patient from the hospital. ...”