Court Opinion

ID: 9453858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:26:23.701565+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:50.302087
License: Public Domain

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
I dissent. While I agree that it is preferable that the Government, when it *140is seeking to have its own psychiatrist examine an accused who has pleaded insanity as a defense, make a motion to the court for specific leave to do so, it is not necessarily unfair or damaging to a defendant, or reversible error per se, if the Government, instead, calls a psychiatrist who has previously examined an accused under § 4244, provided, as in this case, the alienist can, because of the completeness of his original examination, qualify to give an opinion on the mental competency of the accused at the time the offense was committed. Jones v. United States, 109 U.S.App.D.C. 111, 284 F.2d 245, 249 (1960). Actually a thorough examination under § 4244 of one awaiting trial almost inevitably includes the disclosure of sufficient information and material out of his recent past to warrant the expert’s conclusion as to the accused’s sanity at the time the offense was committed. See Birdsell v. United States, 346 F.2d 775, 780 (5 Cir.) (by Friendly, J., sitting by designation), cert. denied 382 U.S. 963, 86 S.Ct. 449, 15 L.Ed.2d 366 (1965).
But limiting § 4244 to the special purpose for which it was designed and requiring the Government to make a separate motion for an examination as to the accused’s mental condition at the time of the offense is a more orderly procedure and has the added advantage of affording the trial court an opportunity to make provisions concerning the time and place of the examination and other attendant circumstances, which in particular cases may appear necessary. The court should have wide discretion in this area and should fashion such protection for the parties as the varying circumstances may require.
It is perhaps, therefore, inadvisable for the Government to take the risk that some rights of the defendant may be impaired and that he may have suffered prejudice as a result, but in the present case I can see no damage or likelihood of prejudice to Driscoll from the Government’s use of Dr. Abrahamsen or from any of his testimony. The appellant points to the Doctor’s disclosure of Driscoll’s statements to him regarding his family, education, lack of friends, eating, sleeping and smoking habits, etc. These are certainly answers to routine questions and have nothing to do with the elements of the offense charged. He also argues that Dr. Abrahamsen’s testimony that at the examination Driscoll “was very alert and was able to answer this question very well,” was, in effect, telling the jury that the accused intended to perform the unlawful acts and did so wilfully. But this is not so. Psychiatric examinations are not at all concerned with the question of whether or not the accused performed the criminal act or acts charged but whether he had sufficient mental capacity to be held responsible for his acts under the measure adopted by this court in United States v. Freeman, 357 F.2d 606 (2 Cir. 1966). Of the elements of the offense those of intent and wilfulness have the closest relationship to mental capacity, but even there the psychiatrist is concerned, not with the factual issue of whether or not the accused intended to perform the act or did it wilfully, but whether or not he had the mental capacity to form the requisite intent.
The majority opinion is based entirely on the unfairness of the use by the Government of Dr. Abrahamsen’s thorough examination of Driscoll without notice to the defense. It assumes that the defendant was disadvantaged by the lack of such notice and suggests that he might have been provided in advance with procedural safeguards such as having his own representative at the examination or an order assuring him that he would be provided with a transcript of the examination or preliminary coaching by his counsel for constitutional protection purposes or for other reasons. But the appellant has been unable to point out anything about Dr. Abrahamsen’s examination which violated the limitations imposed by § 4244 or actually prejudiced Driscoll in the slightest. There is no *141statement by counsel of what he might have instructed Driscoll to say or do which would have changed anything that was said or done. It is also my opinion that an accused has no right to have defense counsel or his own expert present while the court appointed psychiatrist is making his examination nor is .the defense entitled to a transcript of the examination, though the court might require an exchange of the reports of the experts representing each of the parties. United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967), is not in point because the psychiatric examination is not concerned with the question of whether or not the accused was guilty or innocent of certain criminal activity and the examination can in no sense be considered a “critical prose-cutive stage.”
The cases cited by the majority do not support the proposition that the defendant is entitled to notice of the dual purpose of the examination. Winn v. United States, 106 U.S.App.D.C. 133, 270 F.2d 326 (1959) holds only that because the issue of mental incompetence to stand trial differs from the issue of criminal responsibility, in the absence of a showing that the examination was sufficiently thorough to form a basis for an opinion regarding responsibility, the psychiatrist should not testify on that issue. There is nothing in that opinion, or in Johnson v. United States, 344 F.2d 401, 403-409 (5 Cir. 1965) and Rollerson v. United States, 119 U.S.App.D.C. 400, 343 F.2d 269, 271-276 (1964), to suggest that the reason the order should clearly specify the scope of the examination is in order to provide the defendant with notice. In Winn, although there was a likelihood that the accused’s mental state at the commission of the crime would be a critical issue at the trial, the district court’s order was restricted to a competency examination. On appeal the court expressed disapproval of the narrow order only because the more extensive responsibility examination “is required not only to protect the rights of the accused, but also to protect ‘society’s great interest’ in hospitalizing the accused, if his violent act sprang from mental disorder * 270 F.2d at 327. In Johnson and Roller-son, the courts indicated that the scope of the examination and the issues involved should be clearly and fully identified to the examining psychiatrist only so that he may adequately perform his job and so that his incomplete examination will not inconvenience the court or prejudice the accused’s rights by serving as an insubstantial basis for the psychiatrist’s testimony on responsibility.
I see no merit in the appellant’s claim that an examination by the Government’s psychiatrist of the accused’s mental condition as of the time of the offense charged would imperii his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. The authority to permit the Government to examine the accused, when he has or will raise the insanity defense, stems from the inherent power of the courts, United States v. Albright, 388 F.2d 719 (4 Cir. 1968); Alexander v. United States, 380 F.2d 33 (8 Cir. 1967); Pope v. United States, 372 F.2d 710, 719 (8 Cir. 1967); Winn v. United States, supra, and in exercising it, the court should limit the Government’s right to the use of the evidence by borrowing and applying the safeguard provided in § 4244 which is: “No statement made by the accused in the course of any examination into his sanity or mental competency provided for by this [order] * * * shall be admitted in evidence against the accused on the issue of guilt in any criminal proceeding.” See United States v. Albright, supra.
The remaining points raised by the appellant have no merit and call for no discussion. The judgment below should be affirmed.