Court Opinion

ID: 9725003
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:24:35.962287+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:08.874616
License: Public Domain

SMITH, J., dissenting. I do not believe that insanity is the basic issue in this case “from the standpoint of substantial justice,” or for that matter from any standpoint. Neither do I understand its characterization as one of the “mixed issues,” along with “waiver of counsel,” when the latter is not even discussed, and only mentioned in passing as one of the “unique” facts. True, insanity was alluded to in defendant’s opening statement, but the simple fact is that this issue was never developed and I am not persuaded in the least that the testimony so excluded was probative of this or any other developed issue. Counsel’s assurance in opening statement that insanity would be the defense does not create the context for this testimony. The context can only be created by proof, probative of that issue, before the introduction of the evidence now ruled admissible can be permitted. Let me make my meaning more precise. Standing alone, the excluded evidence was probative of nothing so far as this indictment is concerned. One can thumb the pertinent sections of the Annotated Code on Justifiable Use of Force: Exoneration, and not find a single annotation much less language which justifies or exonerates or excuses the stabbing of wives by husbands because they are pregnant by another — with or without knowledge at the time of marriage. It could become probative of the defense of insanity, but that issue must first be developed, that is, framed, before we can let happenstances such as this intrude on trials as we know them. Were it otherwise, the trial of criminal cases would soon become quagmires of collateral circumstances, remote incidents, and assorted trivia, with the central issues slipping out of sight into the ooze. There are prescribed and readily available avenues by which this issue can be raised. Although it is not stated as such, I detect the majority looks askance at even the delimitation on cross-examination of the victim when on the stand as a witness for the People. I need only say in passing, that the People are under no duty to negate in chief, the affirmative defense of insanity, and pari passu, the defendant is prohibited from injecting the issue on cross-examination, unless it does relate to direct. No one would seriously resist the notion that if insanity is in issue, the ambit of inquiry broadens considerably, much as concentric circles radiate from a point where a pebble is dropped onto an otherwise placid pool. But as a precondition for such concentricity, there must be a pebble, or in our context, the establishment or development of such issue. This issue is not raised here, in my opinion, by this somewhat scandalous tidbit. Can it be seriously contended that such rises to the stature of framing the issue that on the night of December 23, defendant was not responsible for his conduct because he lacked “substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his conduct” or to conform the same “to the requirements of law,” “as a result of mental disease or mental defect ?” While I might concede that insanity is a controversial area, I think it an unwarranted expression, that “jurists, advocates and laymen are asked to define ‘conduct’ within a statutory rule that is difficult if not incomprehensible to the most experienced forensic psychiatrist.” I do not believe this at all and while I would be the first to agree that extreme caution must guide the administration of public justice, I do not think caution dictates digressions of this sort, which can only result in wide misunderstanding and cause the sensible and judicious to grieve. Indeed, only recently the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in adopting Section 4.01 of the Model Penal Code, almost identical to our “statutory rule,” spoke of the same as, “permitting the utilization of meaningful psychiatric testimony”; “couched in sufficiently precise terms to provide the jury with a workable standard,” and that it was “comprehensible to laymen.” United States v. Freeman, 357 F2d 606, 34 US Law Week 2478 (1966). Had the issue of insanity been raised by the evidence, I would be the first to concur, that what otherwise might be considered remote or collateral, could become germane. Even then, I would be loath in most situations, to make the sweeping “determination” called for in the majority opinion, that “we must examine the person, his history, his relationship with the victim, prior mental illnesses, and other intervening factors of causation.” This statement I consider fraught with the same dangers noted above, for it would seem to give an imprimatur that once somebody mentions insanity, the trial is open for an interminable excursion apropos of the “person,” his “history,” his “relationship with the victim,” “prior mental illnesses,” and “other intervening factors of causation,” whatever that means. I can only assume that they all mean an open sesame for all sorts of irrelevancies and immaterialities and I am sure that they will be latched onto as such by the disingenuous, but ingenious. This, indubitably, is not going to improve the administration of public justice. I think, too, that it is a mistake to say that “intervening factors of causation” must be examined before a “proper determination” can be made. Does this imply that the sources and causes of crime (imponderables though they be) are now germane in determining whether a crime has been committed? It, of course, can be pertinent, if causation can be equated with motive, but certainly not otherwise, because motive and causation, conceptually, are two different things. For a crime to exist, there must be a voluntary act coupled with the requisite state of mind, by which we mean that one can choose not to do something if he opts. Otherwise, the cause or source of criminal “conduct” while certainly of vast interest to all of us who are interested in the progress of civilization, is of no consequence whatsoever in making a proper determination that a particular person committed a particular offense. At least on this side of the ocean we have rejected the notion of determinism in the ordering of man’s affairs. Of course, if there was no issue of insanity, as I have concluded, then the refusal of defendant’s tendered instruction on this issue was quite proper. While it might seem, to be consistent, that I should now outlaw the giving of the People’s instruction on the presumption, I can appreciate that the pretense of an issue of insanity could properly engender in the mind of the prosecution the apprehension that such pretense might be accepted as fact unless rebutted, or rather, neutralized. Thus, I think that the defendant opened the door to the giving of this instruction in his opening statement, which is not to say that I approve, simply that I don’t think it was reversible error. I do not wholly understand the digression that presumptions, while admittedly legal fictions, are of “little value to a lay jury.” Without belaboring the point, I fail to see any “niceties” in, say, the presumption of innocence, nor do I think that presumptions generally, including the presumption of sanity, are of little value to a lay jury. Presumptions, in my opinion, to paraphrase Judge Prettyman, are something more than mere “pious platitudes recited to placate the shades of venerated legal ancients.” See Billeci v. United States, 184 F2d 394. As I would affirm the judgment, I therefore dissent.