Court Opinion

ID: 9861955
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:55:48.402889+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:29:51.026915
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HEIPLE, dissenting: I have but a single objection to the majority opinion and it is a simple one. The case has been wrongly decided. On the unique facts of this case, justice demands that the so-called attorney-client privilege must fall. The truth-seeking function of a trial deserves to be given precedence. The defendant has raised an insanity defense pertaining to a killing which occurred in 1984. This opinion bars the disclosure of a psychiatric examination of defendant which took place in the month following the killing. Subsequent to that examination, defendant pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced. Now, 10 years later, her conviction has been set aside and a new trial is to be held. Defendant does not deny killing her mother. Rather, she claims that she was insane at the time of the killing. One question arises. Which is the more credible evidence of the defendant’s mental state on November 28, 1984: the psychiatric examination conducted in the month following the killing or a psychiatric examination conducted 10 years later? With the defendant’s plea of guilty to murder, the State had no reason to seek its own psychiatric examination of defendant to determine her mental state at the time of the killing. Now, 10 years later when faced with a trial, it is highly questionable, indeed, highly doubtful, whether a credible psychiatric inquiry can be made as to that event. Had the case proceeded to trial at any reasonable period of time following the killing, had the prosecution any reason to obtain a psychiatric examination at that time and neglected to do so, and if the evidence which the State now seeks regarding the defendant’s sanity could credibly and reasonably be obtained in any other way, it would be reasonable and just to uphold the defendant’s claim of privilege. Those circumstances, however, do not prevail. Justice belongs not alone to a defendant but to the public as well. The truth-seeking function of a trial should not be written off or incautiously disregarded. That is precisely what the majority opinion does. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent. CHIEF JUSTICE BILANDIC joins in this dissent.