Court Opinion

ID: 9709182
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:42:04.104677+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:46.607907
License: Public Domain

NEBEKER, Associate Judge,
with whom Associate Judges GALLAGHER and HARRIS join, concurring:
In my view the majority does not adequately respond to the government’s argument that the statutory placement of the burden of proof to the accused to prove non-responsibility distinguishes Burks v. United States, -U.S.-, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978). The government argues that the directed verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity “was like that which was held not to bar retrial in [United States v. Scott, -U.S.-, 98 S.Ct. 2187, 57 L.Ed.2d 65 (1978)] in that it was not based ‘on the trial court’s conclusion that the Government had not produced sufficient evidence to establish the guilt of the defendant.’” Supp.Mem. at 2, quoting United States v. Scott, supra at 2195. The government likens this case to Scott, where the accused sought to avoid conviction not because of deficient proof but because of a legal claim pretermitting guilt. It says that there has been no evaluation of proof and a determination that it was insufficient.
It seems to me that this argument must fail since Burks decided that a determination that the accused was not guilty by reason of insanity has the legal effect of holding that the evidence was insufficient to sustain a verdict of guilty. While there is much to be said for the notion that an “insanity acquittal” is in reality a verdict of “guilty but not responsible,” that concept seems to be limited in applicability to jury deliberations, where insanity is not considered until all elements of the offense are proved. In Burks it is clear that for double jeopardy purposes an insanity acquittal has the same effect as “a resolution, correct or not, of some or all of the factual elements of the offense charged. United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., 430 U.S. 564, 571, 97 S.Ct. 1349, 51 L.Ed.2d 642 (1977).” Burks v. United States, supra 98 S.Ct. at 2147.
Moreover the double jeopardy bar applies not only to the government’s burden of convincing the fact-finder to convict but also to its burden of getting its case to the fact-finder in the first instance. If the trial court erroneously excludes vital government evidence, with the result that a judgment of acquittal is or should be granted, retrial is barred. Sanabria v. United States, - U.S. -, 98 S.Ct. 2170, 57 L.Ed.2d 43 (1978). Such exclusion and resultant acquittal is not a failure of proof but a failure to persuade the trial court to put the factual issue to the fact-finder. In the instant case the government was not successful in its effort to have the factual issue of insanity submitted to the jury. *516The trial judge, in effect, ruled that reasonable men could not differ about Tyler’s insanity. That action, erroneous or not, had the same evidentiary effect as the exclusion in Sanabria — the issue was no longer one for the jury. The distinction between the federal insanity burden and ours is a jury-related distinction — i. e., who bears the ultimate burden of persuasion once the defense is broached. Yet this distinction doesn’t affect what must be the government’s burden in every case — convincing the trial judge to send evidence to the jury for resolution. Failure in that burden bars retrial.