People v. Wolff

394 P.2d 959 (1964)

Purchase the Printed Copy at bsmsphd.com

Nature of the Case

To access this section all you need to do is click here and register.

Facts

D, a 15-year-old boy at the time of the crime, was charged with the murder of his mother. The attack on D's mother took place on Monday, May 15, 1961. On the preceding Friday or Saturday defendant obtained an ax handle from the family garage and hid it under the mattress of his bed. At about 10 p.m. on Sunday he took the ax handle from its hiding place and approached his mother from behind, raising the weapon to strike her. She sensed his presence and asked him what he was doing; he answered that it was 'nothing,' and returned to his room and hid the handle under his mattress again. The following morning D arose and put the customary signal (a magazine) in the front window to inform his father that he had not overslept. D ate the breakfast that his mother prepared, then went to his room and obtained the ax handle from under the mattress. He returned to the kitchen, approached his mother from behind and struck her on the back of the head. She turned around screaming and he struck her several more blows. They fell to the floor, fighting. She called out her neighbor's name and defendant began choking her. She bit him on the hand and crawled away. He got up to turn off the water running in the sink, and she fled through the dining room. He gave chase, caught her in the front room, and choked her to death with his hands. D then took off his shirt and hung it by the fire, washed the blood off his face and hands, read a few lines from a Bible or prayer book lying upon the dining room table, and walked down to the police station to turn himself in. D told the desk officer, 'I have something I wish to report . . . . I just killed my mother with an ax handle.' The officer testified that defendant spoke in a quiet voice and that 'His conversation was quite coherent in what he was saying and he answered everything I asked him right to a T.'D entered the single plea of 'not guilty by reason of insanity.' The court found D to be 'mentally ill but not to the degree that would preclude him from cooperation with his counsel in the preparation and presentation of his defense.' The jury was instructed in terms of the California rule; the M'Naughton rule. Four psychiatrists testified at the trial and stated (1) that in their medical opinion D suffers from a permanent form of one of the groups of mental disorders generically known as 'schizophrenia' and (2) that D was also legally insane at the time he murdered his mother. The doctors all agreed that the medical understanding of schizophrenia was imperfect and that schizophrenia can lead to insanity, but it usually leaves those inflicted able to lead normal law-abiding lives. The experts all agreed that D acted under an irresistible impulse arising from his schizophrenia. There was substantial evidence that D killed his mother being fully aware of how wrong it was to do so. D was found sane and guilty of first-degree murder. D appealed. D claims that his crime should have been determined to be second-degree rather than first-degree murder.