214 F.2d 862, 874–75 (D.C.Cir.1954)
Monte Durham was convicted of housebreaking by the District Court of the District of Columbia sitting without a jury.1 The prosecution proceeded on a charge arising from an incident on July 13, 1951, in which Durham was found in a house.2
Durham's history included discharge from the Navy in 1945 at age seventeen following a psychiatric examination revealing a profound personality disorder rendering him unfit for service.3 In 1947 he pleaded guilty to violating the National Motor Theft Act and was placed on probation for one to three years.4 In January 1948, as a result of a conviction in the District of Columbia Municipal Court for passing bad checks, the District Court revoked his probation and he commenced service of his Motor Theft sentence.5 His conduct within the first few days in jail led to a lunacy inquiry in the Municipal Court where a jury found him to be of unsound mind.6 Upon commitment to St. Elizabeths he was diagnosed as suffering from 'psychosis with psychopathic personality.'7 He experienced multiple discharges and readmissions to St. Elizabeths between 1949 and 1951, including a conditional release in June 1950 that he violated, and a further lunacy finding in 1951.8
Following the July 1951 housebreaking, Durham was indicted in October 1951 and adjudged of unsound mind based on psychiatrists' affidavits diagnosing psychosis with psychopathic personality.9 He underwent subshock insulin therapy during a six-month commitment ending in February 1953, after which Dr. Silk certified him mentally competent to stand trial and able to assist counsel.10
At the ensuing trial, the prosecutor expressed a plan to allow Durham to raise an insanity defense on this charge.11 The court accepted waivers of jury trial and additional competency proceedings despite Durham's expressed desire for further hospitalization.12 Testimony included that of Durham's mother regarding his post-May 1951 behavior and a psychiatrist who examined him in September 1951 and opined on his mental condition around the time of the offense.13 The trial court found the defense of insanity not established under the prevailing standards.14
The appeal reached the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.15
Whether the trial court correctly applied existing rules governing the burden of proof on the defense of insanity?16
When lack of mental capacity is raised as a defense the law presumes that all people, including those accused of crime, are sane, but as soon as some evidence of mental disorder is introduced, sanity, like any other fact, must be proved as part of the prosecution's case beyond a reasonable doubt.17
No. The trial court recognized the rule from Tatum v. United States but failed to find that some evidence of mental disorder had been introduced. Dr. Gilbert provided unequivocal psychiatric testimony that Durham was of unsound mind at the time of the July 13, 1951 offense. Durham's mother testified about his fearful behavior after the May 1951 discharge from St. Elizabeths Hospital. The court also erred by treating the expert testimony as no testimony because it was not directed to the right-and-wrong test.
This is contrary to the principle that testimony need not be couched in those terms to satisfy the some-evidence requirement.18
The trial court did not correctly apply the burden of proof rules, and the judgment must be reversed with the case remanded for a new trial.19
Whether existing tests of criminal responsibility are obsolete and should be superseded?20
The right-wrong test supplemented by the irresistible impulse test is inadequate. The right-wrong test focuses on cognition alone while modern psychiatry treats the mind as an integrated personality. The irresistible impulse test suggests only sudden inclinations while many mental illnesses produce prolonged alterations in mood leading to planned acts. Therefore a broader test must be adopted under which an accused is not criminally responsible if the unlawful act was the product of mental disease or mental defect.21
Yes. The right-wrong test approved in 1882 and the irresistible impulse supplement approved in 1929 rest on outdated conceptions. They ignore noncognitive disturbances and prolonged mood changes. This is shown by extensive criticism from medical and legal writers. Therefore the court exercises its inherent power to announce a new rule. The new rule requires the jury to determine both the existence of a diseased or defective mental condition and the causal connection between that condition and the unlawful act.22
Existing tests of criminal responsibility are obsolete and are superseded by the product-of-mental-disease-or-defect test that must be applied on retrial.23