283 P. 821 | Cal. Ct. App. | 1929
By an information filed on December 21, 1923, by the district attorney of Los Angeles County the defendant was charged with the crime of forgery, alleged to have been committed on December 11, 1923. The defendant interposed a plea of "not guilty" and also one of "not guilty by reason of insanity." His trial was set for February 11, 1924, but he absconded and was not re-apprehended until April 29, 1929. His trial upon the first plea came on for hearing on July 25, 1929, and on the second plea, on the day following. The jury returned a verdict of guilty and also found the defendant sane. The court denied his motion for a new trial and he is here upon *706 an appeal from the judgment and from the order refusing to vacate the verdict.
[1] The appellant raises but one question. During the first trial he offered testimony to show that his mental condition was subnormal, it being the contention of his counsel that there is "between the state where a person is normal mentally and the state where he is legally insane, a fixed twilight zone where he is neither insane nor normal mentally." This proof was tendered "for the purpose of showing that he was in such a state of mind he did not entertain an intent to defraud, which is the gist of the crime on which" the appellant was being tried. The quotations are taken from the offer of proof of counsel during the trial and clearly and succinctly set forth the theory he had in mind. And perhaps the question here will be made more clear if we also set down an excerpt from appellant's brief which concisely states the proposition, as follows: "The trial court erred in refusing to allow appellant to introduce evidence at his trial on his plea of not guilty regarding his subnormal condition, not amounting to insanity as affecting the question of the intent or lack of intent with which the alleged criminal act was committed."
Counsel for appellant, while recognizing the force of the opinion in People v. Troche,
"The trial court committed no error in strictly following the letter of the statute (Pen. Code, secs.
"It follows, therefore, that any evidence tending to establish the insanity of the defendant under his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity at the time of the commission of the homicide, other than evidence of the immediate circumstances of the offense, would have been irrelevant and immaterial on the trial of the general issue as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant raised by the general plea of not guilty. As the statute accorded the defendant his full right, and ample opportunity to submit to a jury his plea of insanity at the time of the commission of the offense, in excuse of his act and as a reason why no penalty of the law should be visited upon him, it follows that the trial court correctly excluded the evidence on the trial of the general issue.
"Furthermore, the only evidence admissible for the purpose of enabling the jury to determine whether the death penalty or life imprisonment should be imposed in the event the defendant should be found guilty of murder in the first degree was the evidence which the court did admit, and which concerned `the circumstances connected with the offense.' (People v. Golsh,
This apt language precludes the necessity of further discussion of the subject. However, there is another fatal defect. Counsel when asked by the court if he intended to show that appellant was in a subnormal state of mind at the time of the commission of the crime, responded: "Yes. Of course the only evidence I can produce though, tending to show that he was in that state of mind at the time of the commission of the crime is the evidence as to his present mental state, together with the testimony of a number of doctors to the effect that his mental condition is such that if it exists now it probably existed five years ago, five and a half years ago." It will, of course, be borne in mind that the trial was had on July 25, 1929, while the offense was committed December 11, 1923. In People v. Lazarus, supra, it was urged by the defendant that he was entitled under the general plea to offer evidence as to his mental condition prior to the commission of the offense charged as bearing upon his intent at the time it was committed. The court said: "The record discloses, however, that the evidence which said defendant thus desired to offer upon his plea of `not guilty' did not in any way involve the facts and circumstances immediately attending the commission of his crime, but related wholly to mental states and their causes existing and affecting the defendant during a period long preceding the date of his crime. As to this evidence the record discloses that he was allowed the fullest opportunity to present the same upon his trial upon the plea of `not guilty by reason of insanity,' and his case in that respect is thus brought directly within and is fully disposed of under the recent decisions of this court in the cases of People v. Troche,
The situations are sufficiently comparable as to warrant us in saying that the case is squarely in point.
Judgment and order affirmed.
Craig, Acting P.J., and Burnell, J., pro tem., concurred.