125 So. 580 | La. | 1929
Lead Opinion
[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *522
Defendant was indicted for murder. He filed a plea of present insanity and also one of insanity at the time of the commission of the crime, and prayed for the appointment of a commission to inquire into *523
his sanity, under the Code of Criminal Procedure. The court at first appointed a lunacy commission, under the provisions of that Code, but later changed its order by appointing one, under Act No. 17, Ex. Sess. of 1928, which was passed after the adoption of the Code. Act No. 17 was later declared unconstitutional by this court in State v. Lange,
The superintendent of the hospital for the insane at Jackson, who was appointed, as required by the Code, a member of the commission, was unable to act, and therefore, availing himself of article
After this report was made, following a futile attempt to bring the matter to this court, under its supervisory jurisdiction, *524 relator moved the district court to order him sent to the East Louisiana hospital for the insane at Jackson. This motion was refused. Relator then, acting under articles 271 and 272 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, ruled the district attorney to show cause why he should not be discharged as sane. The trial judge refused to order the district attorney to show cause why relator should not be discharged, and refused to commit him to the insane asylum, and declared his intention of holding relator for trial by jury on the question of his guilt or innocence and of permitting him to urge any legal defense at the trial, including insanity. The district judge refused to grant either order, because of his doubts concerning the constitutionality of the articles of the Code, relative to the plea of insanity, and because he thought that the articles referred to do not cover the conditions here met with.
In his answer to the rule nisi, which was issued herein by this court, the district judge, who was the Honorable Columbus Reid, sets forth specifically his reasons for not granting the order, sending relator to the insane asylum, and for not granting the rule to show cause. Those reasons are substantially as follows: That the third paragraph of article
The articles of the Code of Criminal Procedure relative to the plea of insanity read as follows:
"Art. 267. Whenever insanity shall be relied upon either as a defense or as a reason for defendant's not being presently tried, such insanity shall be set up as a separate and special plea and shall be filed, tried and disposed of prior to any trial of the plea of not guilty, and no evidence of insanity shall be admissible upon the trial of the plea of not guilty.
"Art. 268. Whenever any plea of insanity shall have been filed, the presiding judge shall at once notify in writing the Coroner of the Parish, the Superintendent of the Hospital for the Insane at Jackson and the Superintendent of the Hospital for the Insane at Pineville. The said Coroner and the said Superintendents shall together form a Commission of Lunacy to inquire into the sanity of the accused; provided that each of said Superintendents may designate and require to act in his place on said Commission any competent physician.
"The Commissioners, as soon as practicable after said notification, shall meet at the parish seat, and proceed with the investigation into the sanity of the accused, and, for that purpose, shall have the right of free access to him at all reasonable times and shall have full power and authority to summon witnesses and to enforce their attendance.
"The findings of the Commission or of a majority of its members shall, upon being filed in court, constitute the report of the Commission of Lunacy. If said report be that the accused is presently insane, or was insane at the time of the commission of the crime, he shall forthwith be committed to the *527 criminal ward of a hospital for the insane, there to remain until discharged in due course of law. But if the report be that the accused is presently sane and was sane at the time of the commission of the crime, the trial of the plea of insanity shall be proceeded with as provided in this Chapter.
"Art. 269. Every plea of insanity shall be triable by the judge without a jury, or by a jury of five, or by a jury of twelve, according as the charge in the indictment is triable, and the same number of jurors concurring shall be necessary to the finding of a verdict on this plea as would be necessary to a verdict on the charge in the indictment.
"Art. 270. If upon the trial of the plea of present insanity the judge or the jury, as the case may be, shall find that defendant is presently insane, he shall be committed to the criminal ward of a hospital for the insane, there to await trial until such time as his reason shall have been restored; provided that the district attorney having charge of the prosecution, whenever he believes the defendant no longer insane, may have the question of insanity again determined in the same maner in which it was originally determined.
"Art. 271. If upon the trial of the plea of insanity as a defense, the judge or the jury, as the case may be, shall find that the defendant was insane, at the time of the commission of the crime, he shall be committed to the criminal ward of a hospital for the insane, there to remain until discharged in due course of law; provided that no person committed under the provisions of this article shall be released otherwise than as pointed out in the next succeeding article.
"Art. 272. Whenever it shall be alleged that any person committed to a hospital because insane at the time of the commission *528 of the crime, has regained his reason, a rule to show cause why such person should not be released shall be taken upon and tried contradictorily with the district attorney of the parish from which such person shall have been committed, which rule shall be tried by the Judge, or by a jury of five, or by a jury of twelve, according as the charge in the indictment is triable, and the same number of jurors shall be necessary to the finding of sanity as would be necessary to a verdict on the charge in the indictment.
"Art. 273. No ruling of the court made on the trial of any plea of insanity shall, before sentence, be reviewable by any other court, either under its appellate or supervisory powers."
In considering the various grounds urged by the respondent judge for not granting either of the orders demanded by relator, we shall not consider them in the order in which they are stated above, which follows the order in which he has stated them, but shall consider them rather in inverse order.
The last position taken by respondent is that the case against relator must be proceeded with under the law in existence before the enactment of the Code, which remains in force, since that law is not in conflict with the provisions of the Code, as relates to the present case, where the commission found the accused sane at the time of the investigation, but insane at the time of the commission of the crime. The law, as it stood prior to the adoption of the Code, required, in accordance with the common law of England, that insanity, as a defense, be tried under the plea of not guilty, and necessarily with it. Therefore respondent intends to try defendant on the plea of insanity as a defense at the same time that he tries him on the plea of not guilty, and this upon *529 the theory that the Code does not conflict, in such a case as this, with the old method of trial.
Our brother of the lower court has fallen into error in taking this position. The very first article of the Code, on the plea of insanity, article 267, prescribes that the plea of insanity, as a defense, shall be separately and specially pleaded, and disposed of prior to the trial of the plea of not guilty, and that, upon the trial of the plea of not guilty, evidence of insanity shall not be admissible. Therefore, by reason alone of the provisions of article 267 of the Code it cannot be correctly said that the articles of the Code, relative to insanity as a defense, do not conflict with the method of procedure, as to that defense, existing prior to the promulgation of the Code. Moreover, the Code clearly provides what shall be done, as appears from the third paragraph of article 268 thereof, if the commission or a majority of its members report, as was the case here, that the accused is presently sane, but was insane at the time of the commission of the crime. The Code makes this clear, for it provides, in the paragraph cited, that: "If said report be that the accused is presently insane, or was insane at the time of the commission of the crime, he shall forthwith be committed to the criminal ward of a hospital for the insane, there to remain until discharged in due course of law." (Italics ours.) The disjunctive "or," which we have italicized, was placed between the words "presently insane," and "was insane at the time of the commission of the crime," for the obvious purpose of showing that the accused, even though the report be that he is presently sane, but was insane at the time of the commission of the crime, shall be sent to the criminal ward of an insane asylum and there kept until he be discharged in due course of law, and *530 vice versa, that is, that, if he be reported sane at the time of the commission of the crime, but presently insane, he shall likewise be sent there and so kept.
The interpretation that the accused should be sent to the criminal ward of an insane asylum, if reported insane at the time of the commission of the crime, but presently sane, is reinforced by article 271 of the Code. There it is provided that: "If upon the trial of the plea of insanity as a defense, the judge or the jury, as the case may be, shall find that the defendant was insane, at the time of the commission of the crime, he shall be committed to the criminal ward of a hospital for the insane, there to remain," until discharged as provided in article 272 of the Code. This means, in those cases, where the plea of insanity is urged as a defense only, and is prescribed upon the assumption that the accused concedes his present sanity. What shall be done if, upon the trial of the plea of present insanity, the judge or the jury, as the case may be, finds the accused presently insane, is prescribed by article 270 of the Code. Whenever an accused, it may be said here, has been committed to an insane asylum, because insane at the time of the commission of the offense, he cannot be released, as appears from article 272 of the Code, until it be found that he has regained his sanity by the judge or jury, according as to how the crime committed is triable, upon the trial of a rule filed by him. It may also be said, in this connection, that the Code contemplates that, whenever an accused has been reported insane at the time of the commission of the crime by the lunacy commission or upon the trial of the plea of insanity as a defense, had upon the finding of the commission that he was sane at the time of the commission of the crime, the judge or the jury, as the case may be, finds that he *531
was insane at that time, the state is precluded from ever bringing the accused to trial on the indictment, or, in other words, from ever prosecuting the criminal charge, as much so, to say the least, as it would be barred from prosecuting a prescriptible offense, where it is found, before trial of the plea of not guilty, that the offense is prescribed. Code Cr. Proc. art.
A careful analysis of the articles of the Code, relative to insanity, will show that provision is made as to the method of procedure and as to what shall be done as to every responsive report that the lunacy commission may make. The general theory of these provisions, which is carefully worked out, is that the state cannot contest the correctness of the report of the commission, while, upon the other hand, an adverse report of the commission is never binding upon the accused, but the correctness of the report is, in effect, tested before the judge sitting with or without a jury, according as to how the indictment itself is triable.
The provisions of the Code, relative to the plea of insanity, are therefore in direct conflict with the law, which regulated the method of trial, where insanity was urged, and which existed prior to the adoption of the Code. Hence, unless the provisions of the Code are unconstitutional, they must be enforced as written, for they are the legislative will.
We now approach the constitutional questions raised by the respondent judge. At the outset, we may say that the case of State v. Lange, supra,
The articles of the Code, relative to the plea of insanity, do not violate section 9 of article 1 of the Constitution 1921, relative to the right of trial by jury, in cases punishable at hard labor or with death. This section is a guarantee in favor of the accused only, and not of the state. The state possesses no such guarantee. Under the Code, as we have had occasion to point out, in every instance where the report of the commission is unfavorable to the accused, he is given the right of trial by jury, where the indictment is so triable, and where, as provided in this section, the indictment is triable before the judge alone, then *533 before him, sitting without a jury, according to the constitutional guarantee. Nor do the provisions of the Code, relative to the plea of insanity, violate section 41 of article 7 of the Constitution 1921, erroneously pleaded as section 42 of article 7 thereof. This section, that is, section 41, provides, among other things, that: "All cases in which the punishment may not be at hard labor shall, until otherwise provided by law, be tried by the judge without a jury. Cases, in which the punishment may be at hard labor, shall be tried by a jury of five, all of whom must concur to render a verdict; cases, in which the punishment is necessarily at hard labor, by a jury of twelve, nine of whom must concur to render a verdict; cases in which the punishment may be capital, by a jury of twelve, all of whom must concur to render a verdict." The provisions of the Code relative to the plea of insanity do not conflict with this provision, for, as we have seen, in every instance in which the report of the commission is adverse to the accused, and in which the crime charged against him is punishable with death or at hard labor, he is given, on the plea of insanity, a trial by jury. Even more than this, he is given a trial by jury, in such cases, on the plea of present insanity, which is not included within the intendment of either section 9 of article 1 of the Constitution 1921, or of section 41 of article 7 thereof. It is true that the state is not given, when the report of the commission is adverse to it, a trial by jury, but the Constitution guarantees no right of trial by jury to the state. It is also true that section 41 of article 7 of the Constitution 1921 establishes a tribunal for the trial of criminal cases, in providing for trial by jury, which is as binding on the state as it is upon the accused. But this section relates to the trial of criminal cases. The proceedings of the lunacy commission inquiring *534 into the sanity of the accused is not a trial, even of the plea of insanity, but is merely an investigation, made by a board, designated by law, into the sanity of the accused, followed by a report to the court, nor does the Code treat the investigation as a trial, but only as a preliminary step to a possible trial, for it appears from the closing sentence of article 268, and from the context of all of the articles on insanity, that the trial of the plea of insanity is to be proceeded with only in the event the report of the commission is that the accused is presently sane and was sane at the time of the commission of the crime, and then follows, in the succeeding article, the manner in which the plea is to be tried. It is also true, as we have had occasion to say, that, when the report of the commission is unfavorable to the state, it is bound by the report, and cannot contest its correctness. There are no constitutional objections to this. The Legislature, in the absence of constitutional restrictions, has a clear right to fix the conditions under which the state may prosecute, and may provide for a board to ascertain whether those conditions exist.
The provisions of the Code, under consideration, are not, as urged, violative of section 35 of article 7 of the Constitution 1921, vesting in district courts unlimited and exclusive original jurisdiction in all criminal cases, with certain minor exceptions. What we have said above, concerning the rights of the accused, when the report of the commission is unfavorable to him, and concerning the fact that the investigation of the commission is not a trial, shows that the codal provisions do not violate section 35. They prescribe when a prosecution shall not be had, but do not purport to withdraw anything from the jurisdiction of the district courts. Nor do these provisions violate this section of the Constitution by purporting to withdraw *535 any of the jurisdiction of district courts over the civil rights of persons. The commission is convoked by order of court, and, when the report is made, whatever it be, the court must act upon it, if favorable to the accused, by sending him to the insane asylum; if unfavorable to him, by proceeding with the trial of the plea of insanity. There is no constitutional reason why the Legislature could not fix the effect to be given to the report, when it is favorable to the accused. Nor do these provisions contravene section 10 of article 7 of the Constitution 1921 by purporting to withdraw from this court any of its jurisdiction in interdiction suits. Unless we are gravely in error, this is too clear to require discussion.
The objection that a district judge is without authority to commit a person to the insane asylum, when the commission reports that he is presently sane, but was insane at the time of the commission of the crime, cannot be sustained in view of the express provisions of the third paragraph of article 268 of the Code and those of article 271 thereof. The very purpose of the Code in ordering the accused, under those circumstances, committed to an insane asylum, is to remove him from society, as a menace, until it appears that he is sufficiently well to insure reasonably that his insanity will not return. The accused having been reported insane by the commission at the time he committed the crime, the law, based upon experience, requires that he be sent to the criminal ward of an insane asylum, and there kept until by the lapse of time and by observation it appears that, with reasonable safety, he may be released.
The objection that these provisions of the Code are repugnant to the objects had in adopting a Code, in that their effect is not to secure a better and more certain administration *536 of criminal justice, but to destroy the proper administration thereof, presents nothing for the courts to consider. As to whether these provisions are wise is a matter which addresses itself exclusively to the Legislature. They are clear and constitutional, and it is the duty of the court to enforce them. In holding that they are constitutional, we must not be understood as holding that section 273 of the Code, which attempts to prohibit this court from reviewing, prior to sentence, a ruling of a district court, touching a plea of insanity, even under our supervisory jurisdiction, is constitutional. Pretermitting the question of the right to appeal, prior to sentence, our supervisory jurisdiction is vested in us by the Constitution, and we must look to that instrument to ascertain our right to exercise it. Section 2, art. 7, Const. of 1921.
For these reasons it is ordered that the rule nisi, which issued herein, be made absolute, and accordingly that the respondent judge grant the order committing the relator herein to a criminal ward in the hospital for the insane at Jackson, to be there kept, until discharged as provided by law.
O'NIELL, C.J., dissents, assigning reasons.
Dissenting Opinion
My opinion is that the provisions in the Code of Criminal Procedure for the trial of pleas of insanity in criminal prosecutions are violative of the fundamental rule established in the Constitution of this and every other state; that, in prosecutions for a felony, the jury alone must decide all questions of fact on which depend the guilt or innocence of the defendant, and the judge alone must decide all questions of law and all questions of fact which do not determine the question of guilt or innocence, but which must be decided in order to rule upon a question of law. The question of sanity *537 or insanity of a person accused of crime, at the time of the commission of the act which, if committed by a sane person, would be a criminal act, is a question of fact on which depends the guilt or innocence of the person accused; and such a question must be decided by the jury who decides ultimately the question of guilt or innocence. The question of sanity or insanity at the time when the party accused is called for trial is a question of fact relating only to the matter of procedure, and has nothing to do with the question of guilt or innocence, and should be determined by the judge alone, before whom the case is to be tried.
According to the last paragraph of article
