Court Opinion

ID: 9463839
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:17:31.94581+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:18.418361
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM P. GRAY, District Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I agree that the conviction must be reversed for the reason asserted in the opinion of the court. However, in light of all of the evidence presented at the trial, I do not see how any reasonable jury could possibly have found beyond reasonable doubt that Segna was sane. It is true that Dr. Gor-man testified to a contrary conclusion, but most of the factual assumptions upon which his opinion rested were thoroughly destroyed, and his “rather far-fetched speculation” to which the majority opinion refers bordered on the incredible. I think that a directed verdict on the insanity issue was indicated.
Also, it seems to me that one aspect of the prosecutor’s conduct deserves more attention than has thus far been accorded it in the opinion (see footnote No. 1). There was never any issue as to the fact that Segna shot and killed the decedent police officer shortly after the latter and a fellow officer drove in their patrol car to the scene of a disturbance that Segna had created.
Nonetheless, the prosecutor called as his first witness the widow of the decedent and began his interrogation by asking her if she was married (!). She responded that she was a widow and, in reply to further questioning, testified that she had been made a widow and her young children fatherless by *234the events of the day concerned, and that her husband had been in good health when he left for work that morning. In the course of such testimony, this unfortunate lady began to cry, thus fulfilling the obvious reason for her having been called to the stand. It seems to me that such an intentional injection of sympathy and prejudice falls far below the standard of conduct that should be expected of a responsible representative of the United States Attorney.