Court Opinion

ID: 9667462
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:46:19.384343+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:38.102393
License: Public Domain

WAHL, Justice
(dissenting).
I must respectfully dissent. A defendant charged with murder in the first degree must be permitted to offer relevant and competent expert psychiatric opinion testimony on the issues of premeditation and specific intent. To hold otherwise would be to violate the defendant’s constitutional right to present evidence. Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 18-19, 87 S.Ct. 1920, 1922, 18 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1967); Hughes v. Mathews, 576 F.2d 1250, 1255-56 (7th Cir. 1978), cert. dismissed sub nom. Israel, Warden v. Hughes, 439 U.S. 801, 99 S.Ct. 43, 58 L.Ed.2d 94 (1978).
In State v. Hoffman, decided by the court today, the trial court, in a unitary trial, admitted expert psychiatric opinion testimony which was relevant to both the defense of insanity and the issues of premeditation and intent, then, by instruction, limited the jury’s consideration of that testimony to the insanity defense. In Bouwman, the state moved before trial to limit the testimony of defendant’s expert psychiatric *707witnesses to the issue of insanity and to suppress all testimony of these witnesses on the issues of premeditation and intent. The trial court denied the motion, concluding that Rule 702 of the Minnesota Rules of Evidence permits expert testimony if it will assist the untrained trier of facts in formulating intelligently a correct resolution of a particular fact issue and that premeditation and intent are facts in issue in determining whether defendant committed murder in the first degree as charged or a lesser included crime. The trial court then certified to this court, as important and doubtful, the following question:
May the court admit, at the trial of a defendant charged with murder in the First Degree, expert psychiatric opinion testimony (not offered to establish a defense under Minn.Stat. § 611.026) that the defendant, at the time of the alleged crime, lacked the mental capacity to premeditate the killing or to form the specific intent to kill?
The majority of jurisdictions which have considered this question have allowed the use of psychiatric testimony on the issues of intent and premeditation.1 The basic premise of criminal law is that without the necessary mens rea, or guilty mind, there can be no criminal liability.2 W. LaFave & A. Scott, Jr., Handbook on Criminal Law 192 (1972). The mens rea requirement is usually described as an intent to accomplish a specific purpose. In Minnesota, for example, a person is guilty of murder in the first degree if he “[cjauses the death of a human being with premeditation and with intent to effect the death of such person or of another.” Minn.Stat. § 609.185 (1980) (emphasis added). An actor is said to have intended the crime when he “either has a purpose to do the thing or cause the result specified or believes that his act, if successful, will cause that result.” Minn.Stat. § 609.02, subd. 9(3) (1980).
The majority opinion fails to consider the person who is unable, because of some mental disorder, to form the intent required by our statutes. It is not a question of partial responsibility for the offense but of a defendant taking full responsibility for a lesser grade of the offense. As Weihofen notes in his article advocating the use of psychiatric testimony for purposes other than the insanity defense,
the person is relieved from liability for murder in the first degree, not because the courts are dealing with him less harshly than with others, but because, judged by exactly the same standard, his act, being without “deliberation,” or “premeditation” (his condition rendering him incapable of these states of mind) was not murder in the first degree, but some lesser offense.
Weihofen, Partial Insanity and Criminal Intent, 24 Ill.L.Rev. 505, 514 (1930) (footnote omitted).
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled, in 1972, that “expert testimony as to a defendant’s abnormal mental condition may be received and considered, as tending to show * * * that defendant did not have the specific mental state required for a particular crime or degree of crime.” *708United States v. Brawner, 471 F.2d 969, 998 (D.C.Cir.1972). The court noted that the doctrine “has nothing to do with ‘diminishing’ responsibility of a defendant because of his impaired mental condition, but rather with determining whether the defendant had the mental state that must be proved as to all defendants.” Id. (footnote omitted).
It is true that in 1946 the United States Supreme Court held that it was not error for a trial court in the District of Columbia to refuse to instruct the jury that they should consider evidence of the defendant’s mental deficiency, concededly not amounting to legal insanity, to determine whether he was guilty in the first or second degree. Fisher v. United States, 328 U.S. 463, 66 S.Ct. 1318, 90 L.Ed. 1382 (1946). In 1978, however, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear a case in which the lower court had reached the opposite conclusion. Hughes v. Mathews, 440 F.Supp. 1272 (E.D. Wis.1977), aff’d 576 F.2d 1250 (7th Cir.1978), cert. dismissed, sub nom. Israel, Warden v. Hughes, 439 U.S. 801, 99 S.Ct. 43, 58 L.Ed.2d 94 (1978). Hughes v. Mathews was a habeas corpus action brought in federal court after the Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to allow evidence of the defendant’s abnormal mental condition on the issue of intent. Hughes v. State, 68 Wis.2d 159, 227 N.W.2d 911 (1975). In granting the habeas corpus writ, the district court concluded that, in Fisher, the United States Supreme Court had relied on District of Columbia law and had not ruled on the question of a defendant’s constitutional rights to a jury instruction which would allow consideration of evidence of defendant’s mental capacity on the issue of intent.3
The Supreme Court of Wisconsin then allowed the admission of psychiatric testimony on the issues of intent and premeditation, Schimmel v. State, 84 Wis.2d 287, 267 N.W.2d 271 (1978), until 1980, when it expressly overruled Schimmel, holding that a court can properly exclude “from introduction at the guilt phase of the trial * * * expert opinion testimony tending to prove or disprove the defendant’s capacity to form the requisite criminal intent.” Steele v. State, 97 Wis.2d 72, 98, 294 N.W.2d 2, 14 (1980). The court reasoned that the American Law Institute (ALI) insanity standard, which is used in Wisconsin, is very similar to the test for demonstrating a defendant’s inability to form intent, or “diminished capacity,” and that “the use of the causative doctrine in the guilt phase of the trial would vitiate the purpose of the bifurcated trial.” Id. 97 Wis.2d at 88, 294 N.W.2d at 9.
Our criminal responsibility statute provides that a person “shall not be excused from criminal liability except upon proof that at the time of committing the alleged criminal act he was laboring under such a defect of reason * * * as not to know the nature of his act, or that it was wrong.” Minn.Stat. § 611.026 (1980). A defendant in Minnesota may choose to bifurcate his trial in order to try the guilt and insanity issues separately. Minn.R.Crim.P. 20.02, subd. 6(2) (1982). The election is that of the defendant, not of the state. A defendant will ordinarily choose to bifurcate trial of the guilt and insanity issues when there is some possibility of failure of the state’s proof that defendant was indeed the one who committed the crime. In fairness then, the defendant is not asked to say to the jury, “I did not commit the crime, but if I did I was crazy.” Furthermore, in this case, as in the Hoffman case, where the defendants chose not to bifurcate, none of the arguments for exclusion is valid. Allowing psychiatric evidence on the issues of intent and premeditation would not undermine the bifurcated trial procedure or threaten a defendant’s fifth-amendment rights. See Hughes v. Mathews, 576 F.2d at 1259.
The use of psychiatric testimony on the issues of intent and premeditation has been compared by some courts with the defense of voluntary intoxication. Hopt v. People, *709104 U.S. 631, 26 L.Ed. 873 (1881); Brawner, 471 F.2d at 999; State v. Padilla, 66 N.M. 289, 294, 347 P.2d 312, 315 (1959). It is hard to disagree with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals that
[njeither logic nor justice can tolerate a jurisprudence that defines the elements of an offense as requiring a mental state such that one defendant can properly argue that his voluntary drunkenness removed his capacity to form the specific intent but another defendant is inhibited from a submission of his contention that an abnormal mental condition, for which he was in no way responsible, negated his capacity to form a particular specific intent, even though the condition did not exonerate him from all criminal responsibility.
Brawner, 471 F.2d at 999.
Although voluntary intoxication' is no excuse for crime, “it may in many instances be relevant to the issue of intent. One class of cases where drunkenness may be relevant to the issue of intent is the category of crimes where specific intent is required.” Heideman v. United States, 259 F.2d 943, 946 (D.C.Cir.1958) (footnotes omitted). In Minnesota, voluntary intoxication is a defense if specific intent is an essential element of the crime in question. State v. Kjeldahl, 278 N.W.2d 58 (Minn.1979). Psychiatric evidence which bears on the question of a defendant’s ability to form specific intent is, to my mind, as relevant, significant and admissible as is evidence of voluntary intoxication.
There are imperfections in our system, none of them more troublesome than those in the area where psychiatry meets the law. We must, however, continue to learn from psychiatry and to reflect in the law the best of what is known about the human mind. Difficult as it is, we must try, particularly when we are confronted with a right as basic as the defendant’s right to have the state prove beyond a reasonable doubt each element of his alleged crime and to, himself, present evidence to rebut the state’s proof.

. States which have made some provision for admitting psychiatric evidence on the elements of a crime include Arizona, State v. Shaw, 106 Ariz. 103, 471 P.2d 715 (1970); California, People v. Wells, 33 Cal.2d 330, 202 P.2d 53 (1949), cert. denied, 338 U.S. 836, 70 S.Ct. 45, 94 L.Ed. 511 (1949); Colorado, Battalino v. People, 118 Colo. 587, 199 P.2d 897 (1948); Connecticut, State v. Donahue, 141 Conn. 656, 109 A.2d 364 (1954), cert. denied and appeal dismissed, 349 U.S. 926, 75 S.Ct. 778, 99 L.Ed. 1257 (1955); Hawaii, State v. Santiago, 55 Hawaii 162, 516 P.2d 1256 (1973); Idaho, State v. Clokey, 83 Idaho 322, 364 P.2d 159 (1961); Iowa, State v. Gramenz, 256 Iowa 134, 126 N.W.2d 285 (1964); Kentucky, Mangrum v. Commonwealth, 19 Ky. LR 94, 39 S.W. 703 (1897); Nebraska, Starkweather v. State, 167 Neb. 477, 93 N.W.2d 619 (1958); New Jersey, State v. DiPaolo, 34 N.J. 279, 168 A.2d 401 (1961), cert. denied, 368 U.S. 880, 82 S.Ct. 130, 7 L.Ed.2d 80 (1961); New Mexico, State v. Padilla, 66 N.M. 289, 347 P.2d 312 (1959); New York, People v. Moran, 249 N.Y. 179, 163 N.E. 553 (1928); Ohio, State v. Nichols, 3 Ohio App.2d 182, 209 N.E.2d 750 (1965); Utah, State v. Green, 78 Utah 580, 6 P.2d 177 (1931).

. There is an exception for certain strict liability crimes that, by statute, require only an actus reus or bad act.

. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals in United States v. Brawner, 471 F.2d 969 at 999-1000 (D.C.Cir. 1972) reached the same interpretation of Fisher as did the Seventh Circuit.