Court Opinion

ID: 9743118
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:25:43.587816+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:39.434523
License: Public Domain

*38Boyle, J.
I dissent. The instructions on disposition were truthful and accurate. The rationale for dis-positional instructions where a claim of insanity is raised could not be better stated than it was by Judge William Beasley, in People v Thomas, 96 Mich App 210, 223; 292 NW2d 523 (1980):
"It is just as wrong and erroneous to mislead a jury into believing there is no public safety factor in either of those verdicts because a defendant will not be released until it is certain that he will not commit further violent crime as it is to mislead a jury into believing a defendant will automatically be released from a mental hospital within a very short time after either of these verdicts. The argument for the truth and accuracy of the jury instruction test rests on the practical assumption that under our adversary system the prosecutor and defense counsel will each indirectly and obliquely seek to persuade the jury of their respective, differing versions of what happens after a not guilty by reason of insanity verdict or a guilty but mentally ill verdict and that the best way to combat these efforts is by telling the jury what the law provides. Leaving the question of whether or not to give this jury instruction to the whim of the defendant imparts a kind of judicial gamesmanship to the trial. Confidence in the jury should override the fear that somehow knowledge of what happens to a defendant in the case of a not guilty by reason of insanity or a guilty but mentally ill verdict will result in an unjust verdict.” (Emphasis in original.)
Williams, C.J., concurred with Boyle, J.
Kavanagh, J., took no part in the decision of these cases.