Court Opinion

ID: 9458620
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:57:05.217045+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:49.937906
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
Sitting as a judge of the Ninth Circuit, I am constrained by the precedents of the Ninth Circuit to concur in reversing the convictions.
In Doyle v. United States, 366 F.2d 394 (9th Cir. 1966), it was held that the trial judge should determine, as a matter of law, that the presumption of sanity is not applicable; therefore, it was held that the instruction given in that case was erroneous because it allowed the jury to determine whether the evidence was sufficient to inject the insanity issue into the case. The instruction in that case was phrased in a manner more likely to mislead the jury into thinking that it must find sufficient evidence to dissipate the presumption of sanity than is the instruction in this case. However, in Doyle, the court relied on and cited with approval the case of Otney v. United States, 340 F.2d 696 (10th Cir. 1965). With reference to Ot-ney, the court said that there “the court had before it an instruction substantially the same as that given in the Doyle trial.” (p. 400) Thus, the clear inference from Doyle is that the court should reach the same result in the case of an instruction like that disapproved in Ot-ney, although, of course, that case would not otherwise control in this Circuit.
In Otney, the trial judge gave the following instruction on the insanity issue:
Under his plea of “not guilty” the defendant has raised the issue of his sanity at the time of the alleged offense. The law does not hold a person criminally accountable for his conduct while insane. Unless and until reasonable doubt of his sanity appears, the law presumes the defendant sane. But whenever, from all the evidence in the case, the jury has a reasonable *964doubt of his sanity, the defendant should be found insane. (Otney, supra, p. 698)
The instruction disapproved in Otney is almost verbatim the instruction given by the trial judge in this case. Therefore, the instruction was erroneous under the authority of Doyle.
Moreover, it should be noted that in this case the defense specifically pointed out the error of this instruction to the trial judge, who refused to give any further instructions. In this respect, this case is a stronger one for reversal than was Doyle, for there the defense did not object to the disapproved instruction.
I must add that, were I sitting in the Second Circuit, I would vote to affirm the conviction. Taking the charge as a whole, I believe it was clear to the jury that, if they had a reasonable doubt about Arroyave’s sanity, they must acquit him. This was tantamount to requiring the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Arroyave was sane at the time of the offense with which he was charged.