UNITED STATES of America, v. Donald Kenneth CURRENS, Appellant.
No. 13152.
United States Court of Appeals Third Circuit.
Argued Oct. 7, 1960. Decided May 1, 1961.
290 F.2d 751
Hastie, Circuit Judge, dissented in part.
Hubert I. Teitelbaum, U. S. Atty., Daniel J. Snyder, Asst. U. S. Atty., Pittsburgh, Pa., for appellee.
Before BIGGS, Chief Judge, and HASTIE and FORMAN, Circuit Judges.
BIGGS, Chief Judge.
Currens, the appellant, was convicted by a jury of a violation of
On September 16, 1958, Currens, then approximately 22 years of age and living with his grandparents in Mansfield, Ohio, went to an automobile salesman in that city. He told the salesman that he desired to buy a designated automobile and a price of $3,800 was tentatively agreed upon. Currens then requested permission to drive the car for a brief period, saying that he desired to show it to his wife. The salesman agreed to let him have the use of the car for several hours but Currens drove the car to Waterford, West Virginia, taking with him a young woman who was not his wife. Accompanied by his female companion he later drove the car to the Pittsburgh airport where he abandoned it. Currens was arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada, and was interviewed there by Agent Parker of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on November 1, 1958. He wrote out and signed a statement, really a confession, which was introduced in evidence at his trial as Government‘s Exhibit No. 2. In this statement he admitted that he had obtained the car by “pretense” and stated that he was not sure where he had left it, suggesting that perhaps he had driven it to New York City. He stated that he recalled driving the car to Wheeling, West Virginia, but that he could not remember clearly what had transpired after that. When interviewed by Agent Parker for the second time on November 14, Currens stated that he did not recall “too clearly” talking with the F.B.I. agent only two weeks before. He asserted also that he had consumed large quantities of liquor prior to his leaving Mansfield.
Currens was returned to Pittsburgh and was confined in the Allegheny County Jail for want of bail. On February 19, 1959, he was examined by Dr. Maurice H. Bowers, a qualified neuropsychiatrist of Pittsburgh. Dr. Bowers prepared a report, dated February 19, 1959, addressed to the Department of Justice and the United States Attorney, introduced at the trial as Defendant‘s Exhibit C, in which he stated that he found that Currens was “able to understand the proceedings against him so as to assist in his own defense.“, that he believed Currens to be “competent mentally * * * and that he knows right from wrong but has not adhered to the right.” The indictment against Currens was handed down on March 20, 1959. On June 1, 1959, however, the United States Attorney filed a petition in which he referred to Dr. Bowers’ findings quoted above in part, but went on to say: “However, the conduct of * * * [Currens] while confined in the Allegheny County Jail was such that he was transferred to the United States Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, for emergency hospitalization“, that a report of May 25, 1959, by Dr. Manly B. Root, Chief of the Psychiatric Service of the Lewisburg Penitentiary, stated that Currens had a “mental disease, namely hysteria” and
On June 4, 1959, Dr. Bowers again examined Currens and on June 8 again rendered a report, introduced at the trial as Defendant‘s Exhibit B [sic] to the Department of Justice and to the United States Attorney. He concluded, among other things, that as of that time Currens was not “able to understand the proceedings against him so as to assist in his own defense“, and that “The Instability of Emotions is believed to cause his Anxiety to reach such proportions that his judgment is impaired as well as his ability to concentrate; [and] at such times he would therefore be unable to understand proceedings.” On June 11, 1959, a hearing was held to determine the mental competency of Currens. The court found him mentally incompetent and pursuant to
Currens was then sent to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners at Springfield, Missouri for examination and treatment. The reports of the Medical Center were admitted in evidence at Currens’ trial as part of Defendant‘s Exhibit D. The earliest date with which they are concerned is June 16, 1959; the latest, September 22, 1959. The second sheet of the reports gives Currens’ “Previous Criminal History“. It lists eight criminal offenses or charges, most of them of a petty nature. The most serious of these was the passing of worthless or forged checks. The offenses, while small, cover a wide range both geographically and by categories. As examples we point out that Currens served two years in the
That portion of the Medical Center reports, also part of Exhibit D, indicated as dictated by “EHM, 9-11-59“, headed “Present Situation” is, we think, illuminating. It is as follows: “Currens was assigned to an open ward for older patients on arrival * * *. He also had approximately two weeks on an acute treatment ward when he, in anger, made statements which sounded as though he might take his own life. He has not received any formal behavior reports but neither has his adjustment been particularly commendable. He had no work assignment for the first two months but has recently been placed in the Food Service. He has asked to be assigned to Industries so that he might earn some money. He appears to have sufficient judgment not to get into outright difficulties, but the problem of being unable to recall his offense remains with him. He is essentially unperturbed with his mode of adjustment to living and it would appear that he finds an institutional atmosphere a fairly compatible one, including its value as a focus of hostility. It would appear also that whatever physical difficulties he has also serve the pur-
The Psychological Examination of Currens at the Medical Center was quite complete. A battery of tests was employed on June 18 and July 9, 1959, and the results are set out in detail in the report of August 3, 1959 of Dr. George A. Geil, a Clinical Psychologist of the United States Public Health Service which also is included in Exhibit D. These tests included the Color Sensitivity Personality Test, the Rorschach Test and the Multiple Approach Personality Inventory. All of these tests tend to show that Currens possessed and possesses an extremely disturbed and possibly disintegrating personality and that his contacts with reality have been “seriously weakened“. Phrases like “Weak reality contact, withdrawn emotions,” are not infrequent in Dr. Geil‘s report. Currens is said to be “Depressed or excited in a way not understood * * * Frightened by the hearing of strange or frightening voices“. Dr. Geil gives his “Psycho-diagnostic Impression as follows: ‘(1) Basic sociopathic personality disturbance and (2) major emotional disturbance (schizophrenic reaction, undifferentiated type). In view of patent‘s claimed head injury in 1958 and subsequent symptomatic complaints, an EEG [electroencephalogram] study is recommended to help clarify the likely presence or absence of a chronic brain syndrome associated with brain trauma.‘”
A Report of a Neuropsychiatric Examination follows as a portion of Exhibit D. This states in part: “He [Currens] is oriented as to time, place and person; emotionally, judgment and insight are superficial. He showed a degree of concretism3 in his responses to the abstrac-
The diagnosis of the Classification Study of the Medical Center, part of Exhibit D, was that Currens was subject “to a sociopathic personality disturbance, [an] antisocial reaction in an individual who tends to become schizophrenic under stressful circumstances, as manifested by a history of antisocial behavior, superficiality of affect and judgment, affability and psychological test evidence suggestive of schizophrenia.”
Last among the Reports of the Medical Center, included in Exhibit D, is a report of a Neuropsychiatric Staff Examination, dated September 17, 1959. This states that “Medical evaluation led to the conclusion that his [Currens‘] symptoms arose from a psychoneurotic hysterical state.” This report goes on to say that, “Following his [Currens‘] admission to the Medical Center he experienced severe entractable headaches and after becoming agitated threatened to commit suicide. Under tranquilizing medications he underwent a remission from his symptoms and since then has made a very good ward adjustment and an excellent adjustment at his job assignment as a clerk in the culinary service. After initial psychiatric evaluation at the Medical Center he was given the diagnosis of sociopathic personality disturbance, antisocial reaction in an individual who tends to become schizophrenic under stressful circumstances as manifested by a history of antisocial behaviors, superficiality of
On October 19, 1959, the court below, having before it the Report of the Medical Center last referred to, ordered the United States Marshal to take Currens back into custody, and on December 1, 1959, ordered him to stand trial. He pleaded not guilty and was tried by a jury. The trial commenced on December 2 and was concluded on December 4, 1959. All of the medical reports which we have referred to were introduced in evidence save that of Dr. Root which apparently was not available. See note 1, supra. Immediately after the noon recess on the first day of the trial Currens through his counsel4 stated that he, as then advised, pleaded “not guilty’ because of insanity”5. This plea was accepted by the court without objection by the United States.
Dr. Bowers testified for the appellant at the trial. He reiterated his diagnoses of Currens’ illness in substance as set out in his two reports which we have referred to previously. He described Currens again as a sociopathic personality possessing an emotional instability reaction but that he knew the difference between right and wrong but would not adhere to the right. Dr. Bowers would not say that Currens was subject to irresistible impulses which caused his criminal behavior but rather that he reacted without due regard for consequences and that his illegal and antisocial conduct was repetitive and an outgrowth of his type of personality. Dr. Bowers testified that it was his opinion that Currens’ theft of the car, as charged in the indictment and as proved by the evidence, was the result of Currens’ sociopathic personality and that a person with such a personality cannot be considered to be “a mentally healthy person“. Asked if the “sociopathic condition” was itself a mental disease, Dr. Bowers replied, “[W]e consider it under the classification of mental illness, but we do not consider them [persons possessing sociopathic personalities] in the legal sense to be ‘insane‘.” The Doctor also said that Currens was not “insane” in the sense that that legal, non-medical, term is employed, that the term “sociopathic personality” is not a term precisely indicating a mental illness but that it does have “mental implications“. He stated also that: “It is a very fine line, as I pointed out before, between the psychopathic type of personality and a true mental psychotic personality.“, and that “We do not use the word ‘sane’ or ‘insane’ in medicine.” Dr. Bowers would not say that Currens was schizophrenic but indicated that he might be schizoid6 and that he had symptoms, as shown by the Medical Center tests, that would fit “the schizophrenia tendency“. He stated, nonetheless, that the schizoid personality and the sociopathic personality are closely related.
Currens took the witness stand but his testimony need not be referred to in detail here. He stated in substance that the charge laid against him in the indictment was true. Some of his evidence was bizarre in the extreme. For example, he testified that he “just jumped in [the stolen automobile] to get out of the rain.”8 He seemed to be lacking in insight as to the nature of his difficulties and those he had brought on others.
At the close of the testimony offered by Currens, his counsel moved for a “directed verdict of acquittal” on the ground that Currens was not guilty by reason of his insanity or unsound mind or, apparently alternatively, that because his crime was a product of a mental disease, defect or illness” he was not responsible criminally for his conduct. The proper motion would have been one for a judgment of acquittal under
Currens’ counsel then submitted two “Points for Charge“. The first was based on the M‘Naghten Rules, X Clark & Finnelly, at 208 et seq. 8 English Reports, Reprint, at 722, et seq., as follows: “If, at the time of the commission of the offense for which the defendant stands accused, the defendant was not able to distinguish right from wrong, and if you, members of the jury, find such to be the case in the cause which you are now trying, you must find the defendant not guilty by reason of insanity or unsound mind.” The second request for charge was as follows: “If you the jury believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused was not suffering from a diseased or defective mental condition or mental illness at the time he committed the criminal act charged, you may find him guilty. If you believe he was suffering from a diseased or defective mental condition or mental illness when he committed the act, but believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the act was not the product of such mental abnormality, you may find him guilty. Unless you believe beyond a reasonable doubt either that he was not suffering from a diseased or defective mental condition or mental illness, or that the act was not the product of such abnormality, you must find the accused not guilty by reason of insanity or unsound mind. Thus your task would not be completed upon finding, if you did find, that the accused suffered from a mental disease or defect or mental illness. He would still be responsible for his unlawful act if there was no causal connection or relation between such mental abnormality and the act or crime for which the defendant stands accused. These questions must be determined by you from the facts which you find to be fairly deducible from the testimony and the evidence in this case.” This requested charge is in substance that approved by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Durham v. United States, 1954, 94 U.S.App.D.C. 228, 214 F.2d 862, 875, 45 A.L.R.2d 1430.9 The Court stated that it would affirm the first request for instructions, based on the M‘Naghten Rules, but would deny the second, based on Durham. The court then proceeded to so charge the jury but added, as an additional test of Currens’ criminal responsibility, the so-called irresistible impulse rule. The court also charged as to the applicability of the conception of “temporary insanity“.
After the completion of the charge, Currens’ counsel objected to it pursuant to
There are several reasons why we conclude that
Second, our examination of the record convinces us that throughout the trial it was understood by the court, and the Assistant United States Attorney that Currens’ defense was based primarily on the Durham formula. The transcript of the proceedings at trial demonstrates beyond any serious doubt that the trial judge and the parties understood that the present case was being prepared and presented with one purpose in mind, and that was to have this court decide on appeal whether the M‘Naghten Rules, the Durham formula, or perhaps some other test of criminal responsibility should be in effect in this Circuit.10 Moreover, the
Third, the United States has not suggested or even hinted that Currens is
In view of all of the foregoing we are of the opinion that on this appeal we have the duty to determine the correctness of the trial court‘s charge on the issue of Currens’ criminal responsibility.
Before we come to the merits of the appeal a preliminary point must be disposed of, however. Was the evidence presented at the trial sufficient to dissipate the presumption of Currens’ sanity or sound mental health and raise the issue of his insanity or mental illness? In Davis v. United States, 1895, 160 U.S. 469, 486-488 (1895), it was settled that when lack of mental capacity was raised as a defense to a criminal charge the law presumes that all persons are “sane” or in sound mental health but when some evidence of mental disorder is introduced, the prevailing rule in most jurisdictions is that sanity, like any other fact, must be proved as part of the prosecution‘s case beyond a reasonable doubt. Leland v. Oregon, 1952, 343 U.S. 790, 797 (1952). See also Tatum v. United States, 1951, 88 U.S.App.D.C. 386, 190 F.2d 612. Fitts v. United States, 10 Cir., 1960, 284 F.2d 108. In the Tatum case the court said, supra, 190 F.2d at page 615, “We are aware, of course, that any attempt to formulate a quantitative measure of evidence necessary to raise an issue can produce no more than an illusory definiteness“. The court went on to indicate that “some evidence” was sufficient to raise the issue of mental illness or insanity, probably something less than that required to create a reasonable doubt, but in the Fitts decision, supra, the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, by Chief Judge Murrah, ruled that no one could doubt that confinement in a mental institution upon an adjudication of mental illness was sufficient to generate a doubt sufficient to provoke inquiry as to the mental capacity of the accused to commit the crime for which he was charged. Fitts was adjudicated and institutionalized for treatment because of chronic alcoholism. The circumstances relating to Currens’ pretrial examinations and the orders confining him to Lewisburg and the Springfield Medical Center are enough to provoke inquiry as to Currens’ capacity to commit the offense charged in the indictment. It is clear therefore that Currens has met the initial burden imposed on him by the Davis, Tatum and Fitts decisions and that the burden was shifted to the United States to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Currens possessed the necessary mental capacity, the guilty mind or mens rea, to be guilty of the crime with which he was charged.
We come now to another question which must be decided before we can reach the issue of what rule of criminal responsibility should be imposed in respect to Currens: whether that of M‘Naghten or Durham or some other. We are aware that some jurists and legal scholars are of the view that, as a matter of law, a psychopath is not “insane“. This view seems to be based on a fear that a rule recognizing that a psychopath may not be capable of possessing a “guilty mind” would open the door to the acquittal of persons accused of crime solely on the basis of a history of recurrent antisocial conduct. It is readily apparent that this objection to the inclusion of psychopaths among those entitled to raise the defense of insanity assumes a particular definition of psychopathy; viz., that the term psychopathy comprehends a person who is a habitual criminal but whose mind is functioning normally. Perhaps some laymen and, indeed some psychiatrists, do define the term that broadly; and insofar as the term psychopathy does merely indicate a pattern of recurrent criminal behavior we would certainly agree that it does not describe a disorder which can be considered insanity for purposes of a defense to a criminal action. But, we are aware of the fact that psychopathy, or sociopathy, is a term which means different things to experts in the fields of psychiatry and psychology. Indeed, a confusing welter of literature has grown up about the term
We have examined much of this literature and have certainly found it no less dismaying than those authorities to which we have just referred. Our study has, however, revealed two very persuasive reasons why this court should not hold that evidence of psychopathy is insufficient, as a matter of law, to put sanity or mental illness in issue. First, it is clear that as the majority of experts use the term, a psychopath is very distinguishable from one who merely demonstrates recurrent criminal behavior. For example, Dr. Winfred Overholser, Superintendent of Saint Elizabeths Hospital in the District of Columbia, has stated that the Hospital takes the unequivocal position that sociopathy is a mental disease. Dr. Overholser in stating that this is the position of the Hospital uses the words “the Hospital” in the same sense that a judge uses the term “the court” in expressing the judgment of his tribunal. Moreover, the American Psychiatric Association in 1952 when it published its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Mental Disorders (Mental Hospital Service), altered its nomenclature, p. 38, removing sociopathic personality disturbance and psychopathic personality disturbance from a non-disease category and placing them in the category of “Mental Disorders“. See also note 11, cited to the text, p. 16, in the concurring opinion of Judge Burger in Blocker v. United States, D.C.Cir.1961, 288 F.2d 853.
One of the most respected, perhaps the leading, modern works on psychopathy is The Mask of Sanity by Hervey Cleckley, M.D. (Mosby 1941). Dr. Cleckley‘s findings are best summarized in Professor Robert W. White‘s, The Abnormal Personality (Ronald Press 1948) at p. 401 as follows: “He [Cleckley] rules out those cases in which social standards are rejected only in respect to some one particular kind of behavior: for example, alcoholism or deviant sexual behavior in a person otherwise adapted to social demands. He also rules out those cases in which delinquency and crime have been adopted as a positive way of life—in which the person is an enemy of society but is capable of being a loyal and stable member of a delinquent gang. There remains a group characterized by a diffuse and chronic incapacity for persistent, ordered living of any kind. These are, in Cleckley‘s view, the true psychopathic personalities. They need not be diagnosed negatively, by exclusion of other possibilities. They constitute a true clinical entity with a characteristic pattern of symptoms.” After some discussion, Professor White concludes at p. 404: “It is clear that we are dealing with a fairly serious disorder. There are grave disturbances in the patient‘s affective life as well as in foresight and the control and organization of behavior. Cleckley considers the condition serious enough to be classed as a psychosis. Although the patient outwardly presents a ‘convincing mask of sanity’ and a ‘mimicry of human life,’ he has lost contact with the deeper emotional accompaniments of experience and with its purposiveness. To this extent he may be said to have an incomplete contact with reality, and it is certainly very hard to approach him and influence him therapeutically.”
Thus, it can be seen that in many cases the adjective “psychopathic” will be applied by experts to persons who are very ill indeed. It would not be proper for this court in this case to deprive a large heterogeneous group of offenders of the defense of insanity by holding blindly and indiscriminately that a person described as psychopathic is always criminally responsible.
Our second reason for not holding that psychopaths are “sane” as a matter of law is based on the vagaries of the term itself. In each individual case all the pertinent symptoms of the accused should be put before the court and jury and the accused‘s criminal responsibility should be developed from the
It is for such reasons that we feel sure that the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has applied the Durham formula to all types of mental illness including psychopathy or sociopathy. Whether a psychopath or a psychotic suffers from illness of such a nature that he should not be held to criminal responsibility is a jury question in the District of Columbia. Taylor v. United States, 1955, 95 U.S.App.D.C. 373, 222 F.2d 398, 404; Stewart v. United States, 1954, 94 U.S.App.D.C. 293, 214 F.2d 879, 881. Indeed in the case last cited a charge to the jury that a psychopath “is not insane within the meaning of the law” has been held by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to be reversible error. We think that that Court in permitting an insanity defense to be employed in the case of the sociopath is pursuing the correct course for the mental condition of the accused is one of ultimate fact to be found by the jury which must always determine the defendant‘s mens rea or lack of it.
For purposes of the present case it is sufficient to point out that the evidence introduced on the issue of Currens’ criminal responsibility consists of substantially more than his history of recurrent criminal behavior. A reasonable jury could infer that Currens is mentally incapable of ordered social living; that he is subject to hysterical episodes; that under stress he has many symptoms of the incapacitating disease of schizo-
The court below, relying on the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Davis v. United States, supra, its first Davis decision in 1895, on the second Davis decision, Davis v. United States, 1897, 165 U.S. 373, 378 (1897) and apparently on Matheson v. United States, 1913, 227 U.S. 540 (1913), charged the jury as to Currens’ criminal responsibility in terms of the M‘Naghten Rules but added glosses of temporary insanity and irresistible impulse. The backbone of the charge given by the court below was the knowledge of right and wrong by the accused, the so-called “right-and-wrong” test of M‘Naghten.
We think that there are cogent reasons why the M‘Naghten Rules should not be followed or applied today in the courts of the United States. The M‘Naghten Rules are to be found, as we have said, in 8 English Reports, Reprint, at p. 722 et seq. (1843), and were engendered by the excitement and fear which grew out of the acquittal of Daniel M‘Naghten who had attempted to assassinate Sir Robert Peel, Prime Minister of England, but who instead shot Peel‘s private secretary, Drummond, because M‘Naghten had mistaken Drummond for Peel. The offense against Drummond followed a series of attempted assassinations of members of the English Royal House, including Queen Victoria herself, and attacks on the Queen‘s ministers. Some of these were considered to have grown out of Anti-Corn-Law League plots. When M‘Naghten was acquitted at his trial, The Queen v. M‘Naghten, 4 State Trials, N.S. 923 (1843), public indignation, led by the Queen, ran so high that the Judges of England were called before the House of Lords to explain their conduct. A series of questions were propounded to
The M‘Naghten Rules are unworkable for a number of reasons. We will try to state some of them. The Supreme Court in its decision in Hotema v. United States, 1902, 186 U.S. 413, 420 (1902), makes it plain that knowingly violating a criminal law will impose criminal responsibility upon a defendant even if he believes his act to be morally right. See also in this connection Sauer v. United States, 9 Cir., 241 F.2d 640, 649. As an example of the unrealistic effect of the M‘Naghten Rules in such a situation we cite Hadfield‘s Case, 27 State Trials (1800). Hadfield, an old soldier who had served at Freymar and had there sustained terrible head wounds, attempted to kill George III because he viewed himself as the saviour of mankind and felt he had to become a sacrifice as had Jesus Christ and consequently he had to be executed in accordance with law in order to attain this end. He concluded that killing the King was the best way to attain quick martyrdom. He failed in the attempt but wounded an equerry. Hadfield, was acquitted.17 The jury, under an instruction from the Chief Justice, found that Hadfield was under the “influence of insanity at the time the act was committed” and not under the “guidance of reason“.18 In substance the test applied was the product test of Durham
or the proximate cause test set out in the dissenting opinion in United States ex rel. Smith v. Baldi, 3 Cir., 1951, 192 F.2d 540, 568.19 It was good law in England for some 12 years. Hadfield in fact was insane, mentally ill or mentally diseased, yet he would have had to have been declared “sane”20 under the M‘Naghten Rules had that test been applied to him.
Our institutions contain many patients who are insane or mentally ill or mentally diseased and who know the difference between right and wrong. A visit of a few hours at any one of our larger State institutions within this Circuit will convince even the lay visitor of the correctness of this statement. The test, therefore, of knowledge of right and wrong is almost meaningless.
Further the M‘Naghten Rules are a sham, as Mr. Justice Frankfurter made plain in his testimony before the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment. He stated in part: “* * * The M‘Naghten Rules were rules which the Judges, in response to questions by the House of Lords, formulated in the light of the then existing psychological knowledge. * * * I do not see why the rules of law should be arrested at the state of psychological knowledge of the time when they were formulated. * * * If you find rules that are, broadly speaking, discredited by those who have to administer them, which is, I think, the real situation, certainly with us—they are honoured in the breach and not in the observance—then I think the law serves its best interests by try-
Mr. Justice Douglas also has indicated his disapproval of the M‘Naghten Rules in his article The Durham Rule: A Meeting Ground for Lawyers and Psychiatrists, 41 Iowa L.Rev. 485 (1956).
Mr. Justice Cardozo, in an address before the New York Academy of Medicine in 1928, after referring to the M‘Naghten Rules, asked that a definition of insanity be framed. “* * * that will combine efficiency with truth.” He said further: “If insanity is not to be a defense, let us say so frankly and even brutally, but let us not mock ourselves with a definition that palters with reality. Such a method is neither good morals nor good science nor good law.” “What Medicine Can Do for Law,” from Law and Literature and Other Essays and Addresses by Benjamin N. Cardozo, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1931, at p. 198.
The Royal Commission on Capital Punishment expressed an unfavorable conclusion respecting the M‘Naghten Rules with only one of the twelve commissioners dissenting. The Commission said that “* * * the test of responsibility laid down in England by the M‘Naghten Rules is so defective that the law on the subject ought to be changed.” Report Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, 1953, p. 275.
The Committee on Psychiatry and the Law of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry has recommended the abolition of the M‘Naghten Rules. The Report of the Committee states: “The law, however, does not allow the psychiatrist to communicate his unique understanding of psychic realities to the Court and Jury. More often, the mutual quest for the ‘whole truth’ cannot get past a barrier of communication which leaves the psychiatrist talking about ‘mental illness’ and the lawyer talking about ‘right and wrong.‘”22
We state again as was said in the dissenting opinion in United States ex rel. Smith v. Baldi, supra, 192 F.2d at page 567, that the M‘Naghten Rules assume: “* * * the existence of a logic-tight compartment in which the delusion holds sway leaving the balance of the mind intact * * *‘; the criminal retains enough logic * * * so that from this sanctuary of reason he may inform himself as to what the other part of his mind, the insane part, has compelled or permitted his body to do. If the sane portion of the accused‘s mind knows that what the insane part compels or permits the body to do is wrong, the body must suffer [by punishment]. * * * The human mind, however, is an entity. It cannot be broken into parts, one part sane, the other part insane.”23
The vast absurdity of the application of the M‘Naghten Rules in order to determine the sanity or insanity, the mental
Moreover, the question as to the defendant‘s knowledge of right and wrong puts the psychiatrist, if he can answer the question and does answer it, in a position in which he must state a moral judgment, and in doing so he cannot avoid usurping to some extent the function of the jury.
In concluding this phase of this opinion we point out that many highly civilized European nations have adopted rules of law relating to the criminal responsibility of offenders suffering from mental disorders or mental weaknesses which bear no relation to the M‘Naghten Rules. These nations include Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and Finland. Scotland does not follow the M‘Naghten Rules.27 No harm seems to have inured to the administration of criminal justice in their courts by not asking the testifying psychiatrist whether the accused knows the difference between right and wrong.
Finally, we must point out that the M‘Naghten Rules are not only unfair to the individual defendant but are dangerous to society. As was stated in “The Guilty Mind“, “[T]he mental competency of recidivists should be questioned by realistic means at the earliest possible stage. So long as the courts judge criminal responsibility by the test of knowledge of right and wrong, psychotics who have served prison terms or are granted probation are released to commit increasingly serious crimes, repeating crime and incarceration and release until murder is committed. Instead of being treated as are ordinary criminals, they should be confined to institutions for the insane at the first offense and not be released until or unless cured.”28 The throwing of the mentally ill individual from the jail back into the community, untreated and uncured, presents a great and immediate danger.
We come now to a most difficult point in this difficult case. The United States, both in its brief and on oral argument insists that we must follow the decisions of the Supreme Court in the Davis and Matheson cases. Is this a correct view of our sworn duty as judges of the United States? In the first Davis case, the Supreme Court expressed approval of the charge to the jury which was couched in terms of the M‘Naghten Rules test of knowledge of right and wrong but the precise issue before the Court was which party had the burden of proof in regard to the defense of insanity. The Court
The Matheson case arose in the Alaska Territory. The homicide by shooting had taken place following an ordinary barroom brawl. There was no expert testimony as to Matheson‘s mental condition. Though the plea was not guilty by reason of insanity or its equivalent, the evidence as to abnormal behavior on the part of the defendant was comparatively slight and what there was was given largely by members of his family and by guards at the jail. There was some testimony admitted by the trial court as to the mental illness or feeble mindedness of the defendant and of some of his relatives. The trial court charged the jury in respect to the defendant‘s criminal responsibility in terms of the M‘Naghten Rules and of the second Davis decision. It should be pointed out, however, that the trial judge also charged the jury: “If you believe that the shooting was the direct result or offspring of insanity, you should acquit, if of passion or revenge, you should convict.” The language quoted is very close to the essentials of the Durham formula stripped of all glosses. As we read the record, the issues presented on appeal were whether the trial court had charged the jury in accordance with the Davis decisions and as the defendant had requested. The Supreme Court pointed out that the charge given was exactly that requested by the defendant and was in accord with the Davis decisions and therefore the defendant could not complain.
There has been no recent direct ruling by the Supreme Court as to what should constitute a charge on the issue of criminal responsibility when a defense of insanity or mental illness has been interposed by an accused in a trial in a federal court. The later cases deal with refusals to grant writs of habeas corpus or new trials in state courts. We think that the case of Leland v. Oregon, 1952, 343 U.S. 790, 800 (1952), is typical. There Mr. Justice Clark stated: “The science of psychiatry has made tremendous strides since that test was laid down in M‘Naghten‘s Case, but the progress of science has not reached a point where its learning would compel us to require the states to eliminate the right and wrong test from their criminal law.”
The accent has been placed by the Supreme Court on the legal conclusion that
The logic of this doctrine is not entirely apparent in situations, similar to that at bar, which are or should be of universal uniform application throughout all the courts of the United States wherever situated. We may doubt if the Supreme Court would apply a special status to the courts of the District of Columbia where principles of strict federal law are involved such as the
But quite aside from the foregoing there is, we think, another and a more important and more valid approach to this problem which leads us to the belief that the Supreme Court today would not apply the M‘Naghten Rules in formulating a charge for a United States court. Some three hundred and seventy-five years have passed since the Eirenarcha was written. One hundred and eighteen years have elapsed since the M‘Naghten Rules were laid down by the judges of England. Over sixty years have gone by since the second Davis decision was written and nearly fifty years have passed since the Matheson case was decided. Even if it be assumed, as we think it should not be, that the import of these decisions was most favorable to the M‘Naghten Rules, the advance of medical science assuredly has vastly altered the background against which they must be considered. At the time of the Eirenarcha the science of psychiatry, if it can be said to have existed at all, was in its utmost infancy. Any modern conception of it would have been deemed among the black arts and a modern practitioner would have been deemed ripe for the burning. In 1843, when the M‘Naghten Rules were promulgated, the foundations of sound forensic psychiatry were being laid. At M‘Naghten‘s trial a textbook by Dr. Isaac Ray was employed which stated advanced principles for determining the criminal responsibility for the mentally ill.29 Since the turn of the century great strides in the advancement of psychiatry have been made. And since the beginning of World War II the treatment and the cure of the mentally ill, the insane, has progressed at an astounding pace. But the criminal law has failed utterly to move forward with this achievement. In this country it has with the few exceptions noted remained unchanged. It is as if those who sit cannot read.
We believe that the Supreme Court in view of the present state of medical knowledge, would not approve the M‘Naghten Rules and would not impose them as the test to be applied today by a jury to determine the criminal responsibility of a mentally ill defendant in a trial in a federal court. We con-
But what test should be laid down? In suggesting this inquiry we are aware of our own limitations and that this task is veritably one for the Supreme Court. But we have a case before us which requires our disposition and the issue is one which does not seem an apt one for certification pursuant to
Currens’ counsel contends here that the Durham formula in the form of the request for instructions made by him, practically a verbatim repetition of the charge stated in Durham v. United States, supra, 214 F.2d at page 875, is a sound one and should be applied by the court below upon remand. It has been stated time and time again that psychiatry now regards and recognizes man as an integrated personality and that he cannot be compartmentalized and that his cognitive faculties cannot be detached from his emotions. The Durham formula does not restrict the inquiries to be made of the psychiatrist to particular symptoms or to the specific question: “Does the defendant know the difference between right and wrong?” The psychiatrist may give a picture of the whole man to the court and jury.
It should be pointed out how much the present criminal law differs from the civil law in this respect. For example, when a commission in lunacy is sued out in Pennsylvania or Delaware for the appointment of a guardian, the court does not inquire whether the mentally afflicted individual knows right from wrong but whether he is mentally ill and capable of handling his property.30 It is as important in the criminal case as in the civil case that the entire symptomatology of the defendant be explored.
The Durham formula has been severely criticized on the ground that it is too vague and indefinite to provide a workable rule for the determination of criminal responsibility. Two of the key words “disease” and “defect” are defined to a limited extent in the opinion. The word “product” was not defined and this led the American Law Institute to reject the Durham formula as a test for its proposed Model Penal Code.31 See also the excellent opinion of Judge Brosman in United States v. Smith, 5 U.S.C.M.A. 314, which is critical of the Durham formula because of alleged vagueness.
We do not suggest that the Durham decision presents the best or the only feasible test for the determination of the criminal responsibility of the insane or mentally ill defendant. It does, however, assuredly present a possible one precisely as the M‘Naghten Rules do not. What has been stated has been of use, we think, in exploring the dimensions of our problem.
To achieve the necessary foundation to resolve the vital issue of criminal responsibility it is necessary that the entire picture of the defendant be presented to the court and to the jury insofar as the rules of evidence will allow. The defendant‘s entire relevant symptomatology must be brought before the court and fully explained. Such a course assigns to the medical expert, the psychiatrist, his proper duty in the criminal proceedings. The psychiatrist must make his contribution, from his knowledge, experience and examinations of the accused, in respect to his behavior. Mental illness, resulting in criminal acts, is not a sudden growth, even if the prohibited conduct seems, at first sight, to be of a sudden, explosive nature. The way must be cleared in every case, in which the mental condition of the defendant is at issue, for the psychiatrist to explain the condition of the defendant to the jury in understandable terms. Here, of course, the fundamental problem is one of communication between the psychiatrist on the one hand and the judge and jury on the other. The psychiatrist, of course, cannot investigate the inner nature of the accused by the same methods that a detective may employ to investigate a larceny. He can proceed to employ a battery of modern tests, which need not be enumerated here, which will aid him objectively to determine the mental condition of the accused. The results of these tests and his expert opinions must be brought before the court and jury in a meaningful manner. The psychiatrist should not be asked or be permitted to answer the question: “Did the defendant, at the time he committed the act of which he is accused, know the difference between right and wrong?“, or “Knowing the right, was he unable, by reason of his mental condition, to adhere to it?” Such questions, put in the course of a trial, are so vague as to be meaningless. The law must permit the psychiatrist to communicate his knowledge of psychic realities to the court and jury. The whole of the technical knowledge of the medical witnesses in respect to the accused should be placed before the court. But, as we have said, technical terms should be avoided where possible. There is but small advantage, if any, in informing the court or jury that it is the opinion of the psychiatrist that a defendant at the time he committed the crime was suffering from hebephrenic schizophrenia. The term itself requires extensive explanation.
Were this our only objective the Durham formula might be held to be sufficient. As we have previously pointed out, the psychiatrist, under the Durham formula, may give the jury a complete picture of the defendant‘s mental condition. It is not enough, however, in a case such as that at bar, to give the jury
The concept of mens rea, guilty mind, is based on the assumption that a person has a capacity to control his behavior and to choose between alternative courses of conduct. This assumption, though not unquestioned by theologians, philosophers and scientists, is necessary to the maintenance and administration of social controls. It is only through this assumption that society has found it possible to impose duties and create liabilities designed to safeguard persons and property. See, e. g., Gregg Cartage & Storage Co. v. United States, 1942, 316 U.S. 74, 79-80 (1942); Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 1937, 301 U.S. 548, 590 (1937); Fisher v. United States, 1945, 80 U.S.App.D.C. 96, 149 F.2d 28, 29. Essentially these duties and liabilities are intended to operate upon the human capacity for choice and control of conduct so as to inhibit and deter socially harmful conduct. When a person possessing capacity for choice and control, nevertheless breaches a duty of this type he is subjected to the sanctions of the criminal law. He is subjected to these sanctions not because of the act alone, but because of his failure to exercise his capacity to control his behaviour in conformity with the demands of society. For example, an act of homicide will create no liability, only civil liability or varying criminal liability depending on the nature of the mental concomitant of the act. Generally, the greater the defendant‘s capacity for control of his conduct and the more clearly it appears that he exercised his power of choice in acting, the more severe is the penalty imposed by society. Thus, the sanctions of the criminal law are meted out in accordance with the actor‘s capacity to conform his conduct to society‘s standards, through the capacity for choice and control which he possessed with respect to his act.
It follows, we believe, that where there is a reasonable doubt as to whether a particular person possesses capacity of choice and control, i. e., capacity to conform his conduct to society‘s standards there is a reasonable doubt as to whether he possessed the necessary guilty mind. A test for criminal responsibility should incorporate this analysis insofar as it is helpful as a means by which the jury can relate a defendant‘s mental disease to the concept of the guilty mind. It should be made clear to the jury that the fact that a defendant was mentally diseased is not determinative of criminal responsibility in and of itself but is significant only insofar as it indicates the extent to which the particular defendant lacked normal powers of control and choice at the time he committed the criminal conduct with which he is charged. In other words the test must provide the jury with a verbal tool by which it can relate the defendant‘s mental disease to his total personality and by means of which it can render an ultimate social and moral judgment.
The Durham formula obviously does not meet these requirements. Under that test the prosecution must prove, in substance, that the act committed was not the product of mental disease or defect. The test stresses, to the complete exclusion of all other considerations, a possible causal connection between the mental disease with which the defendant is afflicted and the act which he committed. When considering this test it is natural to think of the mental disease as a distinct vital force in the defendant‘s mind, producing some acts but not
We are of the opinion that the following formula most nearly fulfills the objectives just discussed: The jury must be satisfied that at the time of committing the prohibited act the defendant, as a result of mental disease or defect, lacked substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law which he is alleged to have violated.32
We are of the opinion that the following would be an acceptable charge: “If you the jury believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, Currens, was not suffering from a disease of the mind at the time he committed the criminal act charged, you may find him guilty. If you believe that he was suffering from a disease of the mind, but believe beyond a reasonable doubt that at the time he committed the criminal conduct with which he is charged he possessed substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law which he is alleged to have violated you may find him guilty. Unless you believe beyond a reasonable doubt that Currens was not suffering from a disease of the mind or that despite that disease he possessed substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law which he is alleged to have violated you must find him not guilty by reason of insanity. Thus, your task would not be completed upon finding, if you did find, that the accused suffered from a disease of the mind. He would still be responsible for his unlawful act if you found beyond a reasonable doubt that at the time he committed that act, the disease had not so weakened his capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law which he is alleged to have violated that he lacked substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of that law. These questions must be determined by you from the facts which you find to be fairly deducible from the evidence in this case.”
The other points raised by Currens do not require consideration. The able trial judge conducted a difficult trial with the utmost fairness.
Currens was aptly sentenced to the custody of the Attorney General pursuant to
Courts of appeals have differed in their views as to available procedure in the
The judgment of conviction will be reversed and a new trial ordered, with directions to proceed in accordance with this opinion.
HASTIE, Circuit Judge (dissenting in part).
This is not, in my view, a case where the accused has been prejudiced by the traditional charge on insanity which has heretofore been used by trial courts and approved by appellate courts in the great majority of federal cases. I am keenly aware that traditional formulations, devised long ago by common law judges in an attempt to describe to juries the mental condition which should relieve an offender of legal responsibility for his violations of the criminal law, can and should be revised and improved in the light of increasing understanding of mental aberration and antisocial conduct. But that problem needs to be faced and I think should be faced by an appellate court only in a case where the traditional formulation has worked, or may have worked, an injustice.
The charge which this court is now requiring on the issue of insanity has much the same significance as a guide for evaluation of the criminal psychopath as does that form of the so-called irresistible impulse test which was part of the charge actually given. The irresistible impulse test, as it appears in the trial court‘s charge, defines legal insanity in terms of “mental disease” which has made the actor‘s “will, or the governing power of his mind” ineffective as a controlling force. This court‘s formulation requires acquittal if a “disease of the mind” has deprived the actor of “substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law he is alleged to have violated“. Both formulations direct attention to the critical issue of the effect of mental disease upon the capacity of the actor to control his behavior and to exercise the self-restraint which the law requires. This court‘s formulation is preferable in that it substitutes specific reference to control over the conduct in question for the more generalized conception of loss of will power. See Wechsler, The Criteria of Criminal Responsibility, 1954, 22 Univ. of Chi.L.Rev. 367, 369-372. Moreover, psychiatrists may well reject talk of destroying the will as unscientific imagery. Yet, I think either formulation would suffice in this case to cause the jury to consider whether the evidence of sociopathic personality disclosed mental disease and whether this mental disease had so deprived the actor of capacity to control his conduct as to free him from blame for the auto theft in question.
I am the more reluctant to join in ordering a new trial in this case because of another consideration. It may be reasonably clear that a recidivist is emotionally disturbed and needs psychiatric treatment although the evidence permits fact finders to differ as to whether the wrongdoer‘s mental condition and the relation of his conduct to it are such that he should be held legally accountable for his behavior. Cf. Blocker v. United States, 1959, 107 U.S.App.D.C. 63, 274 F.2d 572. On the evidence, as analyzed in the majority opinion, I think this is such a case. If we should affirm the judgment below, as I think we conscientiously can, the result of appellant‘s conviction and the consequent invocation of the Youth Correction Act would be his confinement for an appropriate period in a psychiatric institution for such treatment and supervision as are best
For these reasons I would affirm the conviction and commitment of the appellant. In reaching this conclusion I am not unmindful of the important contribution which the majority opinion makes in providing trial judges with more precise and scientific instruction for juries on the relation of mental disorder to criminal responsibility. Indeed, I agree with the majority, that in the future trial judges in this circuit should abandon the traditional charge on insanity and adopt the much more satisfactory formulation set out in the opinion of Chief Judge BIGGS.
Robert G. SALINES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Bernard SCHWARTZ, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 375, Docket 26718.
United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.
Argued May 5, 1961. Decided May 9, 1961.
290 F.2d 777
William F. O‘Connor, New York City (Bower & O‘Connor, New York City, on the brief), for defendant-appellant.
Before LUMBARD, Chief Judge, and HINCKS and MOORE, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
We affirm the judgment of the district court. The issues of defendant‘s negligence and plaintiff‘s contributory negligence with respect to the collision between their automobiles at 73rd Street and First Avenue in Manhattan were resolved by the trial judge sitting without a jury. Judge MacMahon held that the traffic lights at the intersection were such that the defendant should have stopped at the corner. He found also that the plaintiff had a green light in his favor and was not intoxicated at the time of the accident. The trial judge saw and heard the witnesses and his conclusions as to their credibility should be accepted. We cannot say that his findings of fact were clearly erroneous.
Affirmed.