Court Opinion

ID: 9611828
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:00:44.299374+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:31:33.976493
License: Public Domain

Finley, J.
(dissenting) — The majority opinion points out quite accurately that at this stage in the development of criminal law administration there are differing evaluations and views as to the social utility and desirability of the M’Naghten, the Durham, and the A.L.I. tests or rules in regard to the defense of insanity in the trial of serious criminal offenses. Conceding there is some truth in the majority’s discussion does not, in my judgment, justify “sweeping both the Durham and the A.L.I. rules neatly under the carpet” and, in effect, refusing peremptorily to consider the possibility of some revision and updating of our so-called M’Naghten test regarding the defense of insanity.
It is my belief that there is timely and deserved need for affirmative thinking and action regarding the problem and the potential for a more rational and better resolution in our state of the criminal defense of insanity. We are not living — and the law does not operate — in the best of all possible worlds. Even so, it has been and is, I think, the role and the responsibility not only of the courts but of the legal profession in its entirety to discard anachronistic— even long-standing and traditional — methods when better ways of doing things become convincingly apparent. There is nothing “newfangled” or shockingly inappropriate in this general operating principle in the law. Realistically, it has been the modus operandi from earliest times in the growth of our Anglo-American jurisprudence. In fact, it is, perhaps, one of the more basic underlying principles of the *460great common law tradition of Anglo-American law. Consistent with this principle, and because I agree with the dissenting views expressed by Justice Hunter that the A.L.I. test or rule “simply provides a better way of doing things,” I think this court should abandon the “M’Naghten rule” and approve and implement what I regard as a more rational procedure embodied in the A.L.I. rule or test. Consequently, I would reverse the judgment and grant a new trial with instructions to the trial court that the A.L.I. test should be used.
Assuming we have not reached the ultimate state of perfection in the administration of the criminal law, and, furthermore, assuming increasing sophistication of psychological-psychiatric knowledge, experience, and skill regarding treatment and rehabilitation of the criminally insane, there is no reason to presume that adoption of the A.L.I. test or rule should or will mark the “apex” of timely, reasonable, and responsible judicial response concerning the defense of criminal insanity. Professor Morris’ observation is relevant in this regard:
Most of the scholarly discussion about the insanity defense has related to the wording of the various tests of insanity. But, this can only be a beginning for a more profound consideration of the defense’s procedural context, leading ultimately to fundamental questions about crime and responsibility.
Morris, Book Review, The Insanity Defense and a “Jury” Experiment, 43 Wash. L. Rev. 623, 632 (1968).
Ideally, it seems to me that existing judicial procedures governing the defense of insanity in the trial of serious criminal cases may require further significant modification either legislative or by court rule where appropriate to insure a more rational trial format or forum for (a) determining the validity of a given assertion of insanity and (b) additionally for determining the duration of institutional custody — possibly permanent, lengthy, or temporary — and the social purpose or objective of custody. Potentially in hearings including such procedures and determinations *461would be questions as to proper rehabilitation or other treatment, or other methods of handling or disposition of those persons who successfully interpose the defense of insanity.
One productive modification to existing procedures might be adoption or institution of the so-called “bifurcated” trial,4 wherein the determination of whether or not the accused committed the alleged crime is separated from the determination as to the accused’s mental capacity at the time of commission of the crime.
Under such a procedure, the accused’s capacity to stand trial would be ascertained, as is presently done, prior to commencement of the trial on the substantive charge. Where determined that the accused is competent to stand trial, the trial would then be divided into two separate stages or phases. The first phase would be limited to a determination of whether or not the accused had actually committed the act charged. If the trier of fact determined that the accused did not commit the act, the proceeding would, of course, terminate. Where, however, the trier of fact finds the accused committed the act, the trial would continue or reconvene to allow the trier of fact to consider and determine both the accused’s mental competency at the time the criminal offense was committed, and the length, duration and hind of custody, if any, to be imposed.
A bifurcated trial procedure would allow the trier of fact *462to concentrate and focus attention upon the accused’s past, present, and possibly future mental condition, and to reach reasoned conclusions as to the nature of the mental condition of the accused, the potential for treatment, rehabilitation and release, or the lack of such potential, and the need for lengthy or permanent custody for the protection of society. Such determinations hopefully could be made absent mixed feelings and confusion regarding moral values and moral responsibility to society of the accused as perpetrator of the alleged criminal act.
In my judgment, some procedure such as the above, employed in cases involving the defense of insanity, could do much to foster a more rational and socially productive and protective approach to the problem of the defense of criminal insanity.

It is worthy of passing comment to note that the “bifurcated” or “two-step” system for the trial of cases involving the defense of insanity as presently employed in California has received generally unfavorable scholarly reaction. See, e.g., Louisell and Hazard, Insanity as a Defense: The Bifurcated Trial, 49 Calif. L. Rev. 805 (1961); and Comment, The Gradual Decay of the Bifurcated Trial System in California and the Emergence of “Partial Insanity": 1966, 3 Calif. W. L. Rev. 149 (1967).
However, the California procedure — instituted in 1927 — arose from a legislative conviction that the insanity defense was a “sham defense used by the obviously guilty to gull juries into verdicts of acquittal” (49 Calif. L. Rev., at 808), rather than from an enlightened attempt or desire to revise judicial administration of criminally insane persons to conform more closely with advances in the medical and psychological-psychiatric scientific fields.