Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In New Jersey, we adhere to the general proposition that a defendant who has the mental capacity to know basic societal mores that distinguish objectively between right and wrong is legally responsible for his criminal conduct. See State v. Sikora, 44 N.J. 453, 470,
[t]he question is not whether the defendant, when (he/she) engaged in the deed, in fact actually thought or considered whether the act was right or wrong, but whether defendant had sufficient mind and understanding to have enabled (him/ her) to comprehend that it was wrong if defendant had used (his/her) faculties for that purpose.
[Ibid.]
Thus, the test hinges on a defendant’s general knowledge of society’s mores and objective expectations about behavior. In State v. Worlock, 117 N.J. 596,
In September 2005, defendant Boyce Singleton Jr. killed his pregnant girlfriend, Michelle Cazan. He was indicted and tried in June 2008, on a charge of first-degree murder and other related offenses, including tampering with evidence and hindering. Defendant has never disputed
Defendant’s insanity defense proved unsuccessful as the jury convicted him of murder, as well as the other charged offenses. In a motion for a new trial, defendant claimed for the first time that the jury should have been provided with a variant of the insanity-defense jury charge informing the jury that a defendant can be found not guilty by reason of insanity if he lacks the capacity to understand that his actions are morally wrong, even if he understands that they are legally wrong. In Worlock, supra, we recognized in dicta that such a jury charge might be necessary in cases where a defendant claims to have been compelled by a “command from God.” 117 N.J. at 611,
Defendant appealed and a panel of the Appellate Division reversed the conviction and remanded for a new trial based on finding the insanity-defense jury charge to have been incomplete. State v. Singleton, 418 N.J.Super. 177, 204-05,
The State filed a petition for certification, which was granted. 207 N.J. 188,
I.
A. Background
Defendant’s expert in forensic psychology and the State’s expert agree that defendant suffers from schizoaffective disorder.
Defendant’s mental illness significantly manifested itself during his relatively brief period of attendance at college. In 2003, he turned to religious study for guidance, discipline, and a means of control over his life, but soon developed a preoccupation with the Bible and God and became obsessed
According to defendant, over time, he became convinced that he was a “soldier” for God. He testified that he came to believe that God communicates with him, although he does not claim to hear a distinct voice speaking or commanding him. Rather, he receives messages or communications from God while asleep.
On another occasion, during the spring of 2005, defendant threatened the gay friend of his younger sister Shakia, who was staying at their parents’ home. Defendant claimed that he “heard something say to me go downstairs and kill him because he was homosexual.” Shakia’s friend left the home without being physically harmed, but by July 2005, defendant’s beliefs and behaviors had become too extreme for his mother and siblings. Although defendant had not yet acted on his beliefs, he was asked to leave the home.
On July 27, 2005, he moved in with Michelle Cazan, a friend of Shakia and a participant in the same bible studies group as defendant’s mother and Shakia. The relationship became intimate within one week’s time and, on September 12, 2005, Cazan told defendant that a home pregnancy test had confirmed that she was pregnant. Defendant killed her the next day. We turn next to the murder and subsequent events.
B. Cazan’s murder
On September 13, 2005, while Cazan was at work, defendant went with a friend to an Air Force and Army recruiting center to discuss enlistment, which he explained was motivated by a desire to help his “family,” meaning his parents and siblings who were struggling, not Cazan. He claimed that he trusted in God to look after Cazan and the baby that was on the way. Still, he was conflicted about enlisting even to help his parents and siblings because he would be working for money,
That afternoon defendant picked up Cazan from work later than she expected, causing her to miss an appointment she had scheduled with an organization that might have provided a source of employment for defendant. He knew that she was not happy about missing the appointment, but testified that they did not argue about it. However, there was tension between the two and they had a discussion during which he considered leaving Cazan’s vehicle, but did not. Instead, he agreed to accompany her on a visit to her hometown of East Rutherford to see places that were important to her, including her brother’s gravesite.
During the trip north, the two quarreled over their future. Cazan was concerned about his ability to provide for the baby. As for defendant, he had reached the conclusion that he would not enlist in military service because he was uncomfortable with the idea of serving “a God other than my God” by earning “evil” money. And, he became increasingly disturbed over Cazan’s change of heart from earlier discussions in which they had talked about going “into the woods” and living apart from a money-based civilization. He felt she had turned from the religious beliefs and principles he thought they shared. He grew more upset with Cazan during that conversation because he felt as though she had not fully adopted his religious beliefs and, worse, she was driving a wedge between him and God. He testified that he began to view Cazan “[a]s a prostitute,” because “she was prostituting herself to another God.” Defendant said he “didn’t trust her,” and that he “didn’t want to be around her ... [or] with her anymore.” Moreover, on arriving in East Rutherford, defendant did not respond favorably as Cazan showed him the area. He said he became “enraged” by her “stories of mob activity” that allegedly had occurred in the vicinity. He regarded her as “bragging” about it, which offended him.
At approximately 10:30 p.m., the two arrived home at Cazan’s condominium in Mansfield. Defendant claims that, at this point, he was very upset. After using the first-floor bathroom, he went upstairs to the bedroom where Cazan was and asked her to give him the keys to her BMW. She refused. He admitted at trial that had she given him the keys he would have left. However, when she would not give him the car keys, he pulled a revolver from his waistband and shot her four times, emptying the gun. One bullet went through her face and out behind her ear, another entered her chest and passed through her rib cage, chest cavity, and lungs, exiting through her lower back. Forensic evidence showed that Cazan was shot twice more in the back while on her hands and knees. One bullet traveled through her trachea and exited through her neck. Cazan began to choke on her own blood. Defendant said he “didn’t want her to suffer,” so he stabbed her, four times, in the chest and abdomen, one of which pierced her lung. The stab wounds were between three and six inches in depth. She died within minutes.
Defendant took the knife, but left behind the handgun, and drove Cazan’s car to the home of his friend William Britt, where both William and his brother John were. There he washed his hands of blood and gunshot residue and changed his clothes. During the next few hours, defendant and his friends drank alcohol and smoked marijuana. Although defendant told William and John that he had killed Cazan, neither believed him.
Early the next morning, defendant left Cazan’s car around the corner from Britt’s home in Trenton and walked to Morrisville,
According to defendant, after determining that no police or others were in or around Cazan’s home, he went inside, retrieved his gun, wiped down the door handles, and otherwise attempted to clean the blood splatter. He placed the gun and the cleaning materials he had used in a garbage bag and left, returning to Lakeisha’s car. He asked her to take him to Britt’s home. Along the way she convinced him to go instead to their parents’ home in Morrisville. There he told his father what he had done and fled the area, intending to go to a family member’s home in North Carolina, along the way retrieving his duffle bag from Britt’s home. In his later statements he explained that the police were his enemy because, if he was captured, he could not serve God. However, when he reached Baltimore, he abandoned his plan and returned home after talking with his mother.
Arriving back at his parents’ home, he told his family that he planned to turn himself in but wanted to “hold Cazan” before doing so. So, on September 15, he drove Cazan’s BMW to her home. His brother, Damon, rode with him, and Lakeisha and his mother followed in a separate car. Damon testified that during the trip defendant “was talking to someone” other than him. Defendant entered Cazan’s home alone, repositioned her body and clothing, and placed a stuffed animal, sprayed with perfume, at her side. Concerned by the amount of time that had elapsed, Damon entered the condo and said that he found defendant holding Cazan’s body, “trying to wake her [and] telling her [to] wake up.” Meanwhile, defendant’s mother had arranged for the police to be contacted by one of Cazan’s neighbors.
Mansfield Patrolman Jason Abadía responded and, after backup arrived, he arrested defendant. Abadía testified that defendant stated, “I killed her. I killed her. Don’t leave her like that. Cover her up. I killed her.” Abadia read defendant his Miranda
Detective Sergeant Lindsey Cooper of the New Jersey State Police took over the investigation approximately one hour later. To obtain a recorded statement from defendant, Cooper reread the Miranda rights to defendant. During the interrogation, defendant admitted killing Cazan and claimed that he could see a vision of her smiling through the window of the squad car when he was first placed under arrest, and later from the vantage of the room in
C. Trial
Defendant was charged with first-degree murder, N.J.S.A. 2C:ll-3(a)(l) and (2); second-degree possession of a weapon (handgun) for an unlawful purpose, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-4(a); third-degree possession of a weapon (knife) for an unlawful purpose, N.J.S.A. 2C:39 — 4(d); third-degree unlawful possession of a weapon (handgun), N.J.S.A. 2C:39-5(b); third-degree hindering apprehension, N.J.S.A 2C:29-3(b)(l); and fourth-degree tampering with physical evidence, N.J.S A 2C:28-6(1).
At trial, in addition to the family members who testified, Dr. Maureen Santina, a clinical and forensic psychologist, testified as an expert for defendant. She diagnosed defendant with schizoaffective disorder which causes hallucinatory experiences and delusional perceptions.
I think that he knew that he was killing her but I don’t think that he understood the nature of his killing her. In other words, I think that he believed that he was supposed to kill her. Whether he wanted to or not, he was supposed to kill her. And that he was supposed to kill her because God was ordering it.
On redirect, Dr. Santina clarify,
As I said, [defendant] believed that God was telling him to do it. He said, I didn’t want to kill her. He in the past, had family members that he had said God was telling him to kill them because he was seeing these people as being bad. And saying I don’t want to do it but feeling he had to. He even talked to himself as not having the courage to do what God wanted.
So in that moment when he feels that God wants him to do it he says I have to do it, I’m supposed to do it because God wants me to do it. He believed that he was following God’s word. And God as being the supreme authority who has the right to decide what’s right or wrong.
The State’s expert, Dr. Elliot Atkins, agreed with Dr. Santina’s conclusion that defendant suffered from the severe mental illness of schizoaffective disorder. The State’s expert further agreed that defendant operated under a delusional system. However, Dr. Atkins disagreed with Dr. Santina’s conclusion that defendant was legally insane at the time of the killing. Dr. Atkins emphasized that defendant admitted to not hearing voices at the time of the killing. Rather, Dr. Atkins testified that defendant was merely acting on his
For example, he said that he only really heard the voices when he was sleeping. He said that most of these were really not voices, but just thoughts in his head. That he wasn’t even able to describe the voice. And he said to me it was probably just some subconscious thing going on rather than a voice.
That the last time God had spoken to him was two years before the killing. That although he indicated that the idea that he should hurt someone came from God, he said that that information had never been transmitted to him from any voices. And he said it was just my interpretation. I never heard the voice of God.
When I asked him whether he had heard any voices on the night of the incident, he said no. So, although I agree that he was mentally ill at the time, what was going on at that time was not a psychotic episode where a voice is saying this is what you’ve got to do.
When asked on cross-examination whether defendant believed he could talk to God, Dr. Atkins responded, “he clarified for me that he didn’t believe God was actually talking to him. But he believed in this delusional system that what he was thinking was God’s wishes or God’s will.”
Dr. Atkins also pointed to several considerations that, in his opinion, indicated defendant knew what he was doing was wrong. First, defendant had a history of violence and aggression toward women, pointing to defendant’s experiences with the mother of one of his children, and to the fact that he had been fighting with Cazan on the day of the killing. Second, defendant had stated that he stabbed Cazan, not to serve God, but to put her out of her misery. Third, Defendant drank alcohol and smoked marijuana at the Britts’ apartment, which could indicate that defendant sought to dull the guilt he felt. Last, defendant’s forensic evaluation test results indicated he was trying to “make himself look better ... by claiming that it was God that had him do this.” Dr. Atkins also noted that defendant’s decision to evade police was inconsistent with his claims of righteousness. Based on his evaluation of those considerations, Dr. Atkins opined that defendant was not acting in accordance with his delusional system at the time of the killing and that, therefore, “he knew that what he was doing was wrong.”
The jury instruction that the court and all parties agreed would be given in this matter was the Model Jury Charge for the insanity defense. Drawing from the model charge, the court instructed the jury as follows:
Apart from his general denial of guilt, the defendant maintains that he is not guilty of the crimes charged by reason of insanity____
A hostile act, that is an illegal act, may in one case spring from wickedness, and in another from some infirmity or sickness of the mind, which the individual did not design____
The law adopts a standard of its own as a test of criminal responsibility, a standard not always in harmony with the views of psychiatrist[s]. If, at the time of committing the act, the defendant was laboring under such a defect of reason from disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or if defendant did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong, defendant — the defendant is then legally insane, and therefore,not criminally responsible for his conduct.
As you can see, the law regards insanity as a disease of the mind. It may be temporary or permanent in its nature, but the condition must be a mental disease. An accused may have the most absurd and irrational notions on some subject. He may be unsound in mind and be a fit subject for confinement and treatment in a mental hospital, but if at the time of the offenses, the defendant had the mental capacity to distinguish right from wrong, and to understand the nature and quality of the acts done by him, he is subject to the criminal law.
The question is not whether the defendant, when he engaged in the deed, in fact actually thought or considered whether the act was right or wrong, but whether the defendant had sufficient mind and understanding to have enabled him to comprehend that it was wrong, if the defendant has used — had used his faculties for that purpose.
The jury rejected defendant’s insanity defense and convicted him of murder and the other charges. His post-trial challenge to the insanity-defense jury instruction was denied by the court. At sentencing, the court imposed a fifty-year term of imprisonment, with an eighty-five percent period of parole ineligibility, pursuant to the No Early Release Act, N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2, on the murder conviction, and a five-year prison term for the hindering conviction, to be served consecutively to the fifty-year term. The judge also imposed lesser terms that were made concurrent to the sentences for the murder and hindering convictions.
On appeal, the Appellate Division reversed the conviction and remanded for a new trial. Singleton, supra, 418 N.J.Super. 177,
We granted the State’s petition for certification. 207 N.J. 188,
II.
The State offers alternative arguments why the decision of the Appellate Division should be reversed. First, the State maintains that the evidence presented at trial supports the trial court’s decision to give only the model charge for the insanity
In the alternative, the State asks that we reject Worlock, “abandon the ‘deific decree’ variation of the insanity defense and abolish the distinction between legal and moral wrong.” The State argues that Worlock introduced uncertainty and subjectivity into the operation of the insanity defense. The State contends that reinterpreting the insanity test, so that a defendant who is able to understand the nature and quality of his acts can only invoke the defense if he is unable to comprehend that his acts are illegal, would create a more objective and workable standard.
Defendant argues that the Appellate Division correctly concluded that a Worlock jury charge was necessary in this matter. He points to several instances in the record, many relied on by the Appellate Division, where he claimed to have received direct communications from God. Defendant also contends that Worlock does not require a defendant to experience actual auditory hallucinations of the voice of God to secure a deifie-decree jury charge; rather, he argues that it is enough that a defendant delusionally believes that God wants him to kill. In this case, defendant claims that there is no real dispute that he “suffered from a relatively stable delusion, over a period of years, that he was communicating with God, and that God was telling him to kill those who violated the Word.”
In response to the State’s argument that the deific-decree jury charge should be abandoned, defendant contends that the charge is required by the statutory language of the test for legal insanity in New Jersey. Because the Legislature adopted that language, defendant argues that only the Legislature can discard the Worlock charge. Moreover, even if the courts were free to abandon it, to do so in this case would violate the Ex Post Facto clauses of the United States and New Jersey Constitutions. See U.S. Const. art. I, § 10, cl. 1; N.J. Const, art. IV, § 7, H 3.
III.
A.
The insanity defense exists in criminal law not to identify the mentally ill, but rather to determine who among the mentally ill should be held criminally responsible for their conduct. Sikora, supra, 44 N.J. at 470,
A person is not criminally responsible for conduct if at the time of such conducthe was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong. Insanity is an affirmative defense which must be proved by a preponderance of the evidence.
N.J.S.A 2C:4-1 codifies the common-law M’Naghten
The M’Naghten test provides two distinct paths for a defendant to demonstrate that he was legally insane at the time he committed an act and therefore not criminally responsible for his conduct. First, a defendant can show that “he was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing.” N.J.S.A. 2C:4-1. Second, even if the defendant did know the nature and quality of the act, he can still establish legal insanity if, because of a “disease of the mind,” “he did not know what he was doing was wrong.” Ibid.
In the century-and-a-half since the M’Naghten test was formulated, courts have recognized that the term “wrong” in the second part of the test is susceptible of multiple interpretations. See People v. Schmidt, 216 N.Y. 324, 110 N.E. 945, 946-49 (1915) (recognizing ambiguity and discussing possible interpretations); see also Diestel v. Hines,
However, a majority of states following the M’Naghten test have interpreted “wrong” as encompassing legal as well as moral wrong. See State v. Skaggs, 120 Ariz. 467,
B.
Our Court addressed the ambiguity in the term “wrong” for the first time in Worlock. In that case, the defendant was convicted of murder after shooting and killing two friends. Worlock, supra, 117 N.J. at 599-601,
We held that the term “wrong” embraces more than just the concept of legal wrong, id. at 610,
[i]n the vast majority of cases, if the defendant was capable of understanding that he was acting contrary to law, he would also have sufficient capacity to understand that he was acting contrary to the morals of society. Law is largely the crystallization of societal morals. Rarely would an allegedly illegal act not also be wrongful morally. Thus, “wrong” as used in the insanity defense will generally incorporate notions of both legal and moral wrong.
[Id. at 609-10,569 A.2d 1314 .]
Because legal and moral wrong are usually “coextensive,” especially when the criminal act at issue is murder, we held that a jury charge explaining that “wrong” encompasses both legal and moral wrong is almost always unnecessary and would more often than not only serve to confuse the jury. Id. at 610-11,
We observed that there is only one “generally-recognized” situation in which legal and moral wrong become sufficiently distinct to necessitate a jury charge defining the term wrong: when “the defendant contends that he or she knowingly killed another in obedience to a command from God.” Id. at 611,
Applying the above standard to the facts of the case, we held that Worlock had not demonstrated that he believed society would have approved of his killings. Id. at 614,
Recently, we had occasion to revisit the standard introduced in Worlock and again consider whether a defendant had presented the kind of insanity defense that would necessitate a jury charge defining the term “wrong.” In Winder, supra, the defendant shot and killed a cab driver outside of a police station, and immediately turned himself in to confess to the crime. 200 N.J. at 238,
On appeal, the defendant challenged the trial court’s decision to forego the Worlock charge, contending that his case presented one of the “ ‘other delusion-based exceptions’ ” that we intimated could necessitate a jury charge on the definition of “wrong.”
[o]ur reference to other delusion-based exceptions in Worlock was not meant to expand the narrow field of potential exceptions to the general understanding that legal and moral wrong, particularly in murder cases, are coextensive. The hurdle to overcoming societal disapproval of the killing of another human being cannot be accomplished easily by references to subjective beliefs, personal preferences, or even alternative notions of morality, unrelated to mental illness, that clash with the law and the mores of society.
[Id. at 250, 979 A.2d 312.]
We held that the defendant in Winder was not entitled to a Worlock charge because his actions immediately before and after the killing “demonstrated knowledge of the social unacceptance of his deed.” Id. at 249,
IV.
We dispense at the outset with the State’s argument that we should abandon Worlock’s recognition of a deifie-eommand exception to the general charge covering criminal insanity. Stare decisis and other stabilizing principles of the law compel us to reject that request.
As recently as this term we noted that “[sjtare decisis is a principle to which we adhere for the sake of certainty and stability.” State v. Shannon, 210 N.J. 225, 226,
Statutory-based decisions are less likely to be subject to reconsideration because the legislative branch can correct a mistaken judicial interpretation of a legislative enactment. Indeed, as a principle of statutory construction, the legislative
Worlock’s explanation of the general confluence of legal wrong with moral wrong in the legislative use of the single term, “wrong,” in N.J.S.A 2C:4-1, and our holding out of the possibility that a special instruction may be necessary to explain a divergence of the two only in the clearest and narrowest category of class of cases, occurred more than two decades ago. Worlock’s interpretation of the M’Naghten test, adopted by the Legislature in N.J.S.A 2C:4-1, has stood since, without reaction by the legislative branch in the interim. Nor has there been a legislative reaction since Winder reinforced a restrictive approach to the application of Worlock, not a more expansive one as the concurrence in Winder had urged. Due to the Legislature’s longstanding acceptance of Worlock, and the fact that we are addressing a settled interpretation of case law, we decline to accept the invitation to overturn Worlock at this point in time, even were we to concede some merit to the argument.
We turn therefore to consider whether there was plain error in the trial court’s jury instruction on the insanity defense in this matter.
Y.
A
Certain principles pertain in the review of jury instructions. Jury charges must provide a “comprehensible explanation of the questions that the jury must determine, including the law of the case applicable to the facts that the jury may find.” State v. Green, 86 N.J. 281, 287-88,
At trial, defendant did not challenge the jury instruction that used the model charge on insanity until after a guilty verdict had been returned. Thus, the question here presented is whether the trial court erred in not sua sponte including additional language separating defendant’s ability to appreciate legal wrong from moral wrong based on “deifie commands” to kill.
B.
In State v. Walker, 203 N.J. 73,
The delusional command variation of the insanity defense is a much more limited defense than that which we considered in Walker. See Winder, supra, 200 N.J. at 250-51,
Applying to this case that stringent standard for qualification into the narrow and clear class of cases envisioned to satisfy
Here, defendant claimed to have formed a general belief that he ought to kill sinners who refused to follow his explanation of God’s expectations. In essence, defendant had an idiosyncratic personal belief system analogous, albeit in different form, to that in Worlock. See also State v. DiPaolo, 34 N.J. 279, 292-93,
Defendant’s personal belief system was based on his own interpretation of scripture, fortified through dreams in which he believed to receive communications from God, which does not render his belief system in his “right to kill” certain sinners the equivalent of a command from God to kill.
Moreover, defendant had demonstrated on prior occasions the ability to exercise his own will and resist the obligation he perceived from God’s teachings. Defendant had chosen not to kill his family or their friends despite his religious delusions generally and his specific belief, expressed on occasion, that they were sinners. Defendant also determined that he would not kill anyone to whom he had not had a chance to explain his religious beliefs. For example, he decided that he would not attempt to hurt or kill Britt’s brother because defendant had not taught him to believe in God’s word as defendant interpreted it, and also because he was bigger and apparently stronger than defendant. Defendant’s inconsistent application of “God’s will” and the concomitant deific desire that he kill sinners, which he claims to have perceived, and his reluctance to kill those whom he had not tried to convert, indicates his awareness of an objective societal disapproval of the personal religious belief system he had developed.
Defendant also has failed to demonstrate entitlement to a Worlock charge because the evidence does not clearly indicate that he was acting pursuant to a delusional command at the time of the killing. As explained in Winder, an amplified criminal insanity charge differentiating between legal and moral wrong is available only to a defendant whose will is overborne by a perceived divine command that overcomes the ability to be conscious of society’s law and mores disapproving of that “command.” See Winder, supra, 200 N.J. at 247-48,
Nothing in Winder’s application of the law to its facts supports the extrapolation made by the appellate panel in this matter, which would permit anyone who interprets a religious text in an outrageous and violent manner to a deific-command, insanity-defense charge. Isolated references to voices, and to communication with God through scripture and in dreams, are not the equivalent of a command from God, at the time of the killing, sufficient to demonstrate that it deprived defendant of his ability to appreciate society’s disapproval of his action. The appellate panel mistakenly accepted defendant’s belated argument that the charge, given in its classic form, was insufficient for the jury to consider his insanity defense. Plain error is not present in the charge given here on this record.
Defendant’s complaints post-trial and on appeal that, in light of Worlock and Winder, the charge required clarification are not consistent with precedent as to the factual requirements needed to trigger a deific-command variation to the insanity-defense jury charge.
In sum, we conclude that the evidence does not clearly indicate defendant killed Cazan as a result of a deific command. Defendant was entitled to assert an insanity defense, and he did. He received an
VI.
The judgment of the Appellate Division is reversed and the matter is remanded to the Appellate Division for consideration of defendant’s remaining claims of error.
Notes
The evidence concerning defendant's mental illness was presented to support defendant's insanity defense and also to show that mental illness could have affected his capacity to knowingly or purposely commit the offense. Defendant's claim of error based on the trial court's failure to give a diminished capacity instruction was not addressed in the Appellate Division's resolution of this matter.
In explaining an instance of such a communication that occurred prior to the events surrounding Cazan’s death, he identified a message related to his younger sister who suffered from serious seizures and was on medication. Defendant awoke one morning to inform her that he had received a message from God that she should cease taking the medication. He described the communication as follows: "His Spirit ministered to me and that I received like — a talk from Him, yes. Not, per se, did I hear His — His voice, specifically.” He explained, "I was happy that God was talking to me. I mean, I was happy about that. You know, I felt like He used me, so if He used me, there was something about me that He obviously was pleased with.”
in fact, as a result of the incident involving Shakia's friend, defendant's family started to pursue eviction proceedings against him.
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).
As explained by Dr. Santina, a hallucination occurs when the mentally ill person hears a voice or sees visions. A person experiencing delusions does not necessarily experience hallucinations, but rather he or she will come to know God is speaking to them "within themselves" and then act accordingly; thus, a delusional person may believe he or she is receiving commands from God without hearing a voice or seeing a vision.
The panel granted relief on this basis alone. Although defendant had other points of error, which the State contested, the panel did not address them in light of its holding on the jury-charge issue.
M’Naghten's Case, 8 Eng. Rep. 718 (H.L.1843).
Like the situation in the cases cited by the dissent, see post at 193-94,
In one of the few jurisdictions to have addressed such circumstances, Washington state courts similarly have hewed to a path in respect of deific commands, requiring a substantial showing that a defendant’s will has been "subsumed.” Crenshaw, supra,
It is insufficient that defendant can point to isolated references he made to hearing a voice, or "hearing" God speaking to him through his scripture study or in his dreams. The Appellate Division's citation to such examples, here and there, in the record do not comprise the quality or quantity of evidence that was contemplated by our earlier decisions. See Singleton, supra, 418 N.J.Super. at 197-99,
Winder signaled a restrictive application of a deific-command variation to the model charge on criminal insanity, to the extent it would ever be allowed. The Appellate Division's interpretation of Winder, as well as the dissent's, instead expands it and would send even more arguable cases than this one to the jury.
The defense expert testified to the following: "And [defendant] said to me that now in retrospect looking at it, he felt that God, that Satan had actually tricked him into thinking that it was God. And that God was actually trying to stop him but that he was tricked by Satan.”
Concurrence Opinion
concurring.
I concur with the majority opinion, which reverses the determination of the Appellate Division panel and holds that defendant Boyce Singleton, Ji’. was not entitled to the deific command jury instruction addressed by this Court in State v. Worlock, 117 N.J. 596, 611,
I write separately because in my opinion, the deific command concept is neither mandated by the Legislature in N.J.S.A 2C:4-1 nor firmly rooted in our jurisprudence, and should not be part of our law. It invites a defendant to exploit a core value of our society, respect for the religious beliefs of others, for tactical advantage. The deific command concept does not meaningfully guide a jury’s exploration of the intricate issues raised by the insanity defense. Instead, it can reduce the dispassionate analysis of a defendant’s mental state, envisioned by the Legislature when it codified the insanity defense, to a superficial review of the defendant’s religious utterances. Application of the deific command results in inequitable treatment of defendants who have committed similar crimes based on nothing more than one person’s assertion of a religious delusion. In my view, a defendant’s claim that he or she heeded a deity’s purported instruction to commit a murder or other crime should not prompt a jury instruction that suggests a finding of legal insanity within the meaning of N.J.SA 2C:4-1.
Neither the plain language nor the legislative history of N.J.SA 2C:4-1 warrants special consideration for defendants who claim that deific commands prompted their crimes. The statute at issue bars the imposition of criminal responsibility for conduct if, at the time of the crime, the defendant “was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong.” N.J.S.A. 2C:4-1. The Legislature did not expressly or by implication define the word “wrong” as used in N.J.S.A. 2C:4-1. It provided no instruction that a defendant’s failure to comprehend that his or her act was “wrong” should mean anything other than he or she did not understand that it was an illegal act.
As the majority notes, the statute codified the test articulated by the House of Lords in M’Naghten’s Case, 8 Eng. Rep. 718 (H.L.1843), long accepted as the formulation of the insanity defense in New Jersey case law. Statement to Senate Bill No. 738, at 3 (May 15,1978). The M’Naghten rule, reflected in our statute, did not differentiate between defendants who invoke deific commands and defendants who do not. In this Court’s articulation
To the extent that the deific command permutation of the insanity defense has gained a foothold in New Jersey law, it has done so through this Court’s dicta, not legislative action. The concept originated in the New York Court of Appeals, finding its source in dicta written by Judge Cardozo in People v. Schmidt, 216 N.Y. 324, 110 N.E. 945 (1915). There, the defendant concocted — and later recanted — an elaborate account of visions and voices conveying directions from God that he should kill a woman “as a sacrifice and atonement.” Id. at 945. Although the defendant conceded “that he never saw the vision and never heard the command,” id. at 950, Judge Cardozo nonetheless introduced to New York law a distinction between legal and moral “wrong” illustrated by a hypothetical scenario:
A mother kills her infant child to whom she has been devotedly attached. She knows the nature and quality of the act; she knows that the law condemns it; but she is inspired by an insane delusion that God has appeared to her and ordained the sacrifice. It seems a mockery to say that, within the meaning of the statute, she knows that the act is wrong.
[Id. at 949.]
Schmidt was first noted by this Court in State v. DiPaolo, 34 N.J. 279, 292-93,
As the majority recounts, the principle that a deific delusion could illustrate a potential distinction between legal and moral wrong was addressed for the first time by this Court in Worlock, supra, 117 N.J. at 608-09,
Occasionally, however, the distinction between moral and legal wrong may be critical. For example, if the defendant contends that he or she knowingly killed another in obedience to a command from God, a jury could find that the defendant was insane. Schmidt, supra, 110 N.E. at 949; see also DiPaolo, supra, 34 N.J. at 291-93 [168 A.2d 401 ] (“The experts disagreed upon whether there was evidence of a psychosis to support the alleged delusion, but none suggested that if defendant in fact suffered an insanedelusion that God commanded the deed, he nonetheless was legally sane if he simultaneously appreciated that the deed was contrary to law.”).
[Id. at 611,569 A.2d 1314 ]
Although the Worlock defendant had not suggested that the murders he committed were directed by any deity, the Court postulated that in an “exceptional ease, such as the deific exception in which the defendant claims that he or she acted under a command from God, the court should instruct the jury that ‘wrong’ encompasses both legal and moral wrong.” Ibid. For defendant Worlock, the Court found no such exceptional circumstances. Id. at 613-14,
In Winder, the Court recognized its prior discussion of the deific command, but nonetheless rejected the defendant’s claim that he was entitled to a jury charge regarding the distinction between legal and moral wrong in his trial for the murder of a taxi driver. Winder, supra, 200 N.J. at 250,
Given this history, I respectfully submit that the deific command concept has a tenuous connection to New Jersey law. Special consideration for defendants relying on a deific command theory is not, in my view, compelled by the Legislature’s use of the term “wrong” in N.J.S.A 2C:4-1, which codifies M’Naghten but makes no reference to the notion of a defendant’s inability to perceive “moral wrong.” The concept was not introduced to our law by the circumstances of an actual case involving a deific delusion. Instead, in both New York and New Jersey, it originated as nothing more than a hypothetical illustration of a setting in which a defendant could perceive an act as legally but not morally wrong. Schmidt, supra, 110 N.E. at 949; Worlock, supra, 117 N.J. at 608-09,
The jury instruction formulated by the Appellate Division panel below — to be given in a retrial of defendant — would direct the jury to find defendant not guilty by reason of insanity if he proved by a preponderance of the evidence that he acted pursuant to a delusion of receiving a deific command, or “ “where a delusional command could be objectively recognized to confound the difference between lawful behavior and a moral imperative.’ ” State v. Singleton, 418 N.J.Super. 177, 204,
I fully subscribe to the majority’s observations about the principle of stare decisis; it is an important foundation of our legal system, ‘“to which we adhere for the sake of certainty and stability.’ ” Ante at 180,
Given the factual setting of Worlock, its discussion of the deific command is dicta. In Winder, the Court also declined to apply the deific command theory to the defendant in that ease. Winder, supra, 200 N.J. at 250-51,
But even if we were to treat the dicta in Worlock and Winder as though they had the full weight of precedent, there are still “special justifications” that would warrant overturning the deific command construct. Luchejko v. City of Hoboken, 207 N.J. 191, 209,
The majority characterizes this case as one in which the judiciary may rely on legislative correction, and finds the deific command concept to be fortified by the Legislature’s failure over the years to nullify it by statute. Ante at 180-81,
Here, the Legislature enacted N.J.S.A. 2C:4-1 before this Court construed the simple word “wrong” to permit an insanity defense based on deific command delusions, whether in dicta or in any holding. I cannot presume that the Legislature’s failure to address this specific issue, given its many priorities, amounts to an endorsement of the deific command. In my view, the inclusion of a deific command notion as part of N.J.S.A. 2C:4-1 is the creation of our case law. The principles of stare decisis
Except as noted above, I join in the majority’s decision to reverse the determination of the Appellate Division panel and remand to the Appellate Division for consideration of defendant’s remaining arguments.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
A man, having given himself over to the study of religious texts and tracts, believes that he is called by God to carry out various acts that no sane man would perform. His family grows fearful of his numerous expressions of what he believes he has been called to do in order to cleanse the world of them or to cleanse them of their sins. Some of his pronouncements include expressions that he is resisting God’s orders; others make it plain that he is intent on complying with God’s will as he understands it, even to the point of putting others to death.
His family first tries to use the powers of reason in an effort to convince him that his views do not comport with traditional religious teachings and in order to convince him of the errors in his increasingly bizarre and frightening pronouncements. Failing that, they essentially force him from their home. He moves in with a woman who then becomes pregnant with his child. Believing that she is nothing more than a harlot in the eyes of God and that she is in need of cleansing, he kills her. In the aftermath of that horrific act, his behavior includes some actions that appear to be consistent with efforts to elude detection and some lucid statements, but his family members report that he is babbling, obviously talking to and hearing the voice of someone they can neither see nor hear.
By the time of his trial, the explanations he has given about his behavior to the mental health professionals include both assertions that he was acting in accordance with what he believed to be the will of God and expressions of remorse that he now recognizes that he was duped by the devil into doing things contrary to the will of God. Nonetheless, his own testimony at trial explained that sometimes he heard directives and sometimes the “Spirit ministered to me and that I received like — a talk from Him” and that killing his girlfriend “was the right thing because it was something God was telling me to do.” Expert testimony included the opinion that defendant killed his girlfriend because he “believed that he was being compelled to do this by God and that therefore he had to obey that belief.”
No one disputes that defendant Boyce Singleton is mentally ill. The question before the Court today is whether the factual setting in which he acted and the expert testimony concerning his mental status is sufficient to meet the test that we have devised for the deifie command variation on the traditional insanity defense. See State v. Winder, 200 N.J. 231, 246-48,
I.
We have long recognized that “clear and correct jury instructions are fundamental to a fair trial.” State v. Adams, 194 N.J. 186, 207,
To be sure, we have fixed different standards against which to test such eiTors based upon whether a defendant requested a charge or failed to do so. In the latter circumstance, we have established a stringent standard, one that requires the defendant to demonstrate that the failure to include the charge was plain error and therefore clearly capable of producing an unjust result. R. 2:10-2; see State v. Burns, 192 N.J. 312, 341,
Indeed, it is only by redefining the meaning of Worlock’s deific command variation on the insanity defense, by imposing a new and exceedingly narrow view of the type of command that will qualify for that defense, by altering our previously-accepted notion of the difference between a time deific command and acts based on a personal moral code, and by ignoring the abundant evidence adduced at trial through fact and expert testimony in support of the conclusion that defendant fit within the traditional bounds of the deific command defense, that the majority can conclude that the failure to give the charge sua sponte did not amount to reversible error. In adopting this approach, the majority has created a test so narrow as to be essentially non-existent. It is, therefore, a new test that stands in clear disregard of the statutory definition of insanity, that is contrary to our previous decisions explaining the sources from which that statute was drawn and that is at odds with both religious practices and psychiatry.
Whether a jury would find that defendant met the definition of insanity had they been correctly charged we cannot know; that defendant has been deprived of the chance to be judged fairly in accordance with the statutory commands that define insanity in terms of both legal and moral wrong is the essence of injustice.
II.
The essential reasons for my disagreement with the majority’s reasoning and conclusion can be explained succinctly. First, the majority fails to recognize that the issue presented in Worlock, as to which the deific command discussion was but a small component, was nothing less than this Court’s clear articulation of the fundamental basis upon which we, and our Legislature, have embraced a definition of insanity that includes both legal and moral wrong. Worlock, supra, 117 N.J. at 606,
Second, the majority overemphasizes the confined focus that this Court had in the more recent Winder decision, implying that Winder forged new ground. In fact, this Court in Winder merely recognized that a defendant who acts based on a personal moral code cannot claim the benefit of the deific command defense that we authorized in Worlock. The defendant in Winder made little effort to suggest that he acted pursuant to a deific command. Rather, his defense was that there were “other delusion-based exceptions” that Worlock suggested might be available and for which he qualified. Winder, supra, 200 N.J. at 249,
Third, the majority’s analysis of the record today alters the distinction we recognized and applied both in Winder and in Worlock between defendants who respond to true deific commands and those whose criminal acts are instead motivated by adherence to a personal moral code. The defendant in Worlock believed that he was permitted to Mil his victims because “they’re the folly-ridden mass, they’re controlled by their popular beliefs” and because he lived by the code of “might makes right,” not because he was responding to any deific directive. Worlock, supra, 117 N.J. at 614,
This accepted distinction between deific commands and personal moral codes is best illustrated by the decision of the Supreme Court of Washington. See Crenshaw, supra,
The reliance on a moral code that is on its face rational but unacceptable to our legal system is not a form of insanity. But that is not what deific commands are all about. The reason that the deific command qualifies as a defense to murder is that it is the one corner of insanity in which legal and moral wrong do not coincide. See Worlock, supra, 117 N.J. at 610-11,
Fourth, the majority redefines Worlock and Winder to suit the current purpose. It does so by altering the meaning of deific command so that it means one thing and one thing only, namely a direct, apparently verbally transmitted, command from God to do a specific act that the defendant then cannot help himself from carrying out. That view of deific command, however, finds no real support in any of this Court’s prior cases, nor in the precedents on which they were based. The majority’s decision expresses a new and rigid view of just what sort of a command from God it now believes is needed to so blur the line between legal and moral wrong as to call for the Worlock charge. Apparently only a booming voice from heaven, presumably admitting of only a singular direction, will meet the test for deific command. That constricted version of the test serves only to substitute as part of the fabric of our law an exceedingly narrow view of religious traditions found only in the cinema.
More troubling to me, that articulation of the sort of command that the majority now finds will define the Worlock variant on the insanity defense is sadly lacking in an understanding of either religion or psychiatry. While I do not profess to be expert in either, there is abundant support for the proposition that deific commands come in many forms and that courts do not reject the defense based on the manner in which the instruction has been purportedly received or revealed. See, e.g., People v. Coddington,
The majority’s suggestion that henceforth only a very specific variation of a command from God will suffice also ignores the fact that entirely sane people of faith profess to receive directions from God in ways far different from the cinematic
Indeed, if we accept, as the majority apparently does, that for an insane person, there is but one version of a deific command and that it takes the sole form of an audible voice directing an immediate action, we are resurrecting, without perhaps intending to do so, the irresistible impulse approach to insanity that we long ago discarded. See State v. Cordasco, 2 N.J. 189, 196,
Nor does the majority’s opinion remain faithful to the psychiatrists’ view of what might qualify as a delusional deific command. The experts in this case did not quarrel over whether the form in which defendant said he had received his instructions from God would suffice, they in fact agreed that defendant suffered from delusions that caused him to believe he had been called in some way by God. What they disputed was whether it was a call to commit this murder or whether the murder was instead triggered by defendant’s history of aggressions against women, his strained and troubled relationship with the victim, or the victim’s refusal to turn over the car keys when he asked for them. For the majority to substitute its newfound belief that God only speaks in one way, or more precisely, that we will only recognize that an insane person hears the instruction from God or the call of God in a single format, is a dramatic and unsupported departure indeed.
Fifth, the majority, rather than reviewing the evidence in the record in accordance with our usual principles concerning the review on appeal of whether there is enough evidence in the record to require that the jury be charged sua sponte, proceeds instead to draw its own conclusions about the result it would have reached about whether defendant was insane. We have held that the trial court is obliged to charge a jury sua sponte “only when the evidence clearly indicates the appropriateness of such a charget.]” State v. Walker, 203 N.J. 73, 87,
Utilizing our well-established test, the question is whether the evidence in the record “clearly indicates the appropriateness” of the Worlock charge. Tested in accordance with that standard, rather than tested in accordance with the majority’s approach of viewing the evidence through the lens of its new definition of the contours of the deific command variation of insanity, one can only conclude that the substantial evidence concerning defendant’s
That there is evidence suggesting that defendant was not insane, or did not act in accordance with a deific command is not the point; rather, the existence of such evidence and the manner in which it should have been weighed and balanced is the proper function of a jury and not of this Court. The fundamental error of the majority’s analysis is that it tries to make rational sense out of what in the end is clear evidence of a disordered and delusional mind. Mistaking a few glimmers of lucidity or perhaps some sane behaviors for an organized thought process, the majority finds so little evidence of the deific command that it deprives defendant of the defense entirely. In doing so, it inappropriately substitutes its view for that of the finder of fact.
III.
In the end, I dissent because the majority has adopted a crabbed view of Worlock, has announced a view of Winder not expressed by the majority of the Court who joined it, and has retreated to an indefensible understanding of concepts of insanity and deific commands. I therefore respectfully dissent.
For reversal and remandment — Chief Justice RABNER and Justices LaVECCHIA, PATTERSON and Judge WEFING (temporarily assigned) — 4.
For dissent — Justices ALBIN and HOENS — 2.