People v. Serravo

823 P.2d 128 (1992)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D returned home at approximately 12:30 a.m. on May 10. After sitting in the kitchen and reading the Bible, he went upstairs to the bedroom where his wife was sleeping, stood over her for a few minutes, and then stabbed her in the back just below the shoulder blade. When his wife awoke, D told her that she had been stabbed by an intruder and that she should stay in bed while he went downstairs to call for medical help. D told the officers that he had left the garage door open and that the door leading to the house from the garage was unlocked. When he returned home and was reading the Bible, he heard his front door slam, and that he went upstairs to check on his wife and children and saw that his wife was bleeding from a wound in her back. D signed a consent to search his home and gave the police clothes that he was wearing at the time of his discovery of his wife's injury. Weeks after the stabbing D's wife found letters written by D, which admitted the stabbing. They stated, 'our marriage was severed on Mother's Day when I put the knife in your back,' that 'I have gone to be with Jehovah in heaven for three and one-half days,' and that 'I must return for there is still a great deal of work to be done.' D told his wife that God had told him to stab her in order to sever the marriage bond. D was thereafter arrested and charged. D claimed not guilty by reason of insanity. P's expert psychiatric, Dr. Seig, diagnosed D as suffering either from an organic delusional disorder related to left temporal lobe damage as a result of an automobile accident some years ago or paranoid schizophrenia. Doctor Seig testified that D was operating under this delusional system when he stabbed his wife and these delusions caused him to believe that his act was morally justified. Doctor Seig, however, was of the view that D, because he was aware that the act of stabbing was contrary to law, was sane at the time of the stabbing. D presented four psychiatrists and a clinical psychologist on the issue of his legal insanity. Doctor Miller was of the opinion that D's mental illness made it impossible for him to distinguish right from wrong even though D was probably aware that such conduct was legally wrong. Doctor Kaplan's opinion was that D was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the stabbing and was laboring under the paranoid delusion that his wife stood in the way of his divine mission of completing the large sports complex, that D believed that the stabbing was the right thing to do and that D, as a result of his mental illness, was unable to distinguish right from wrong with respect to the stabbing. Doctor Geoffrey Heron and Doctor Seymour Sundell, offered the opinion that D, at the time of the stabbing, was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a paranoid delusion about God which so affected his cognitive ability as to render him incapable of distinguishing right from wrong as normal people would be able to do in accordance with societal standards of morality. Doctor Leslie Cohen, a clinical psychologist, offered an opinion on D's reality testing, his emotional reactivity, and his volition, all of which were relevant to the functioning of his conscience. The doctor was of the opinion that D was suffering from a psychotic disorder that rendered him incapable of distinguishing right from wrong at the time of the stabbing. She explained that cover up conduct was the product of a small part of his still intact reality testing. According to Doctor Cohen, D is 'not an incoherent man who can't figure out what's going on,' but rather 'senses that people don't understand his reasoning very well' and thus apparently believed that the police 'wouldn't understand the complex reasoning that went behind the stabbing and that it would be better if he kept it to himself.' The trial court instructed the jury, in accordance with the statutory definition of insanity, that a person 'is not accountable who is so diseased or defective in mind at the time of the commission of the act as to be incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, with respect to the act.' The court also stated that the phrase 'incapable of distinguishing right from wrong' includes within its meaning the case where a person appreciates that his conduct is criminal, but, because of a mental disease or defect, believes it to be morally right. P objected as this would permit the jury to determine insanity based on a purely subjective moral standard rather than a legal standard of right and wrong. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity at the time of the commission of the alleged crimes, and the court committed D to the custody of the Department of Institutions until such time as he is found to be eligible for release. P appealed. The court of appeals held that the meaning of 'incapable of distinguishing right from wrong' is not confined to a defendant's knowledge of legal right or legal wrong but rather refers to a defendant's cognitive inability to distinguish right from wrong under societal standards of morality, and that the trial court's instruction did not inject a subjective standard of morality into the test of legal insanity. The court of appeals also held that a deific-decree delusion is an exception to the societal standard of moral wrong and that, under such an exception, a defendant may be adjudicated insane if the defendant knew that the act was illegal and morally wrong under societal standards of morality but, due to a mental disease or defect, believed that God had ordained the act. P again appealed.