People v. Morisawa

ANGELLOTTI, C. J.

Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree for the killing of one N. Daitoku. He appeals from the judgment pronounced upon such conviction and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

The killing was admitted, and the defense was insanity. Complaint is made of the instructions given by the trial court as to the test of insanity.

[1]

Upon this matter the instructions were in accord with the well-settled law of this state, being substantially to the effect that insanity interposed as a defense in a criminal prosecution means such a diseased and deranged condition of the mental faculties as to render the person incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong, in relation to the act with which he is charged;

[2]

that in order to establish'the defense, it must be proved by a preponderance of evidence that, at the time of committing the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, temporary or otherwise, as not to

[150]

know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was "wrong; that if the defendant at the time he fired the shot at the deceased, if he did so fire, understood the nature of his act, and knew it was wrong and deserved punishment, he is legally responsible for his act, if committed as charged in the information; that the true test of insanity is whether at the time of committing the crime he was conscious that he was doing what he ought not to do; and that if the defendant was in that mental situation in which he did not appreciate the act he was committing, and he did not know it was wrong to do it, that, of course, would be a legal defense.

Counsel for defendant, as we understand it, claims that the instructions were erroneous in not including, in addition to the elements stated, the element of “power” on the part of the defendant “to adhere to the right and avoid the wrong,” “the power to govern his body.” In other words, and as it was put by the appellant in

People