14 Conn. App. 511 | Conn. App. Ct. | 1988
The defendant appeals from the judgment of conviction following a jury trial on a charge of assault in the first degree, a violation of General Statutes § 53a-59 (a) (1). The sole error claimed by the defendant is the refusal of the trial court to charge the jury on the defense of insanity.
Evidence was offered from which the jury might have found that on the afternoon of September 24, 1984, on a city sidewalk on Main Street in Bridgeport, the defendant had struck an elderly woman on the head with a hammer. There was no apparent reason for the attack. A policeman who had been looking from the window of a nearby coffee shop saw the defendant strike the victim, and the policeman subdued the defendant and placed him under arrest.
The defendant testified in his own behalf. He denied having struck the victim and said that he had been at home or going to the store with his mother at the time of the assault. He said that he had been arrested and handcuffed at the bus station, and not at the scene of the assault. He also testified that on the previous day he had turned himself in to the police because he was
Counsel for the defendant claims that the defendant’s version of events seems incredible when measured against that of the policeman. He claims that the attack was so bizarre and the defendant’s version of events so incredible that he was entitled to a charge on a defense of insanity. We disagree.
Under General Statutes § SSa-lS,
Whether a defendant has succeeded in putting sanity in issue is a question of law for the trial court. State v. Rossier, 175 Conn. 204, 209, 397 A.2d 110 (1978). In this case, the evidence of an apparently unprovoked attack by the defendant furnished no proof of mental disease or defect. His own denial is of no more assistance, and neither the jury nor this court is at liberty to speculate about what he was taking Mellaril for or indeed what he had been doing at Fairfield Hills,
Furthermore, Practice Book § 4065 (d) (1) requires that a party claiming error in the trial court’s refusal to charge as requested print in his brief or appendix a verbatim statement of the relevant portions of the charge as requested and as given by the court, and any relevant exceptions to the charge as given. The defendant has not complied with this rule and this failure would preclude review in any event.
There is no error.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
General Statutes § 53a-13 provides: “lack of capacity due to mental DISEASE OR DEFECT AS AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE.
“(a) In any prosecution for an offense, it shall be an affirmative defense that the defendant, at the time he committed the proscribed act or acts, lacked substantial capacity, as a result of mental disease or defect, either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to control his conduct within the requirements of the law.
“(b) It shall not be a defense under this section if such mental disease or defect was proximately caused by the voluntary ingestion, inhalation or injection of intoxicating liquor or any drug or substance, or any combination thereof, unless such drug was prescribed for the defendant by a licensed practitioner, as defined in section 20-184a, and was used in accordance with the direction of such prescription.
“(c) As used in this section, the terms mental disease or defect do not include (1) an abnormality manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise antisocial conduct or (2) pathological or compulsive gambling.”
General Statutes § 53a-12 provides: “defenses; burden of proof.
“(a) When a defense other than an affirmative defense, is raised at a trial, the state shall have the burden of disproving such defense beyond a reasonable doubt.
“(b) When a defense declared to be an affirmative defense is raised at a trial, the defendant shall have the burden of establishing such defense by a preponderance of the evidence.”
“Fairfield Hills” refers to Fairfield Hills Hospital of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health, a state operated facility for the treatment of mental disorders.