People v. Keaton

LANGDON, J.

This is an appeal by defendant from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, imposing sentence of death after conviction of murder in the first degree, and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

On July 14, 1930, the defendant came to the courtroom of Judge Frank C. Collier. A civil trial was then in progress, in which Motley H. Flint, the deceased, was a witness. At the conclusion of his testimony, Flint walked off the stand, and when he reached the spectators’ section, the defendant drew a pistol and fired three shots at him, which took instant effect. Defendant was at once taken to the police station and interrogated. It appeared that he was not personally acquainted with the deceased, but in some manner imagined him to be, with others, responsible for his financial losses. The following day he was indicted for murder. He pleaded “not guilty” and “not guilty by reason of insanity”. Subsequently he withdrew his plea of “not guilty”, and the trial was held on the other plea. The sole question presented to the jury, therefore, was whether the defendant was legally sane at the time he committed the act.

In order to overcome the presumption of sanity,

[724]

and sustain the burden of proof on that issue, it must be made to appear “that the defendant, when the act was committed, was so deranged and diseased mentally that he was not conscious of the wrongful nature of the act committed”.

(People

v.

Willard,

150 Cal. 543 [89 Pac. 124, 129]; see, also,

People

v.

Sloper,

198 Cal. 238 [244 Pac. 361].) 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. (See