People v. Kimball

WASTE, C. J.

Defendant, a youth twenty-two years of age, was charged with murder in an information filed by the district attorney of the county of Placer. He entered pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. Subsequently, he withdrew the former plea, thereby admitting the commission of a wilful and premeditated homicide as charged (sec. 1016, Pen. Code), and-went to trial solely on the sanity issue. At the conclusion of the trial the jury found defendant to be sane at the time of the perpetration of the offense and the trial court imposed the extreme penalty. Defendant appealed from the judgment and order denying a new trial.

While on the witness stand in his own behalf, the defendant admitted having killed two men, for the murder of one of whom he now stands convicted. The other victim remains unidentified. The bodies of his victims had been concealed by dropping them into an abandoned mine shaft. They were discovered purely by accident in a search for cattle that had been missing in the vicinity. Though defendant

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testified that when quite young he had been kicked in the head by a mule, there is nothing in his testimony that would warrant a finding of insanity. He called no other witnesses in his behalf.

The two alienists appointed by the court to examine the defendant, and one called by the prosecution, testified, in substance, that their respective examinations of defendant satisfied them that defendant presented no evidence of any of the known psychoses or mental diseases, but rather fell into the classification of the “criminalistieally inclined”. Each alienist expressed the opinion that defendant, at the time of the perpetration of the homicide of which he stands convicted, knew the nature and quality of his act and understood the difference between right and wrong.

This evidence is ample to support the verdict that defendant was sane. It is settled that “responsibility depends upon whether the defendant knew the nature and quality of the act at the time of its commission, and the wrongfulness of the act. If he had sufficient mental capacity to know what he was doing, and to know that it was wrong, he is legally accountable for his act. Even though he may be mentally abnormal or defective, or may suffer from some nervous disorder, he is, under our law, held to full responsibility for his act unless the evidence brings him within the strict legal meaning of insanity.”