People v. Donovan

Appeal from the District Court of the Fifteenth Judicial District, City and County of San Francisco.

The first three instructions asked by the defendant were as follows:

“ 1. A person while in a state of insanity is by law deemed to be incapable of crime. And insanity of the prisoner at the instant of commission of the offense can be established by evidence tending to prove that he was insane at some period before or afterwards.

“2. The presumption of law is always prima facie in favor of sanity. Whenever the exemption from liability is claimed on the ground of mental unsoundness it devolves on the party claiming it to allege and prove it. That allegations and proof being furnished the legal presumption changes, and the mental unsoundness is presumed to continue until the allegation and proof of a complete restoration or a lucid interval.

“3. In a criminal case, if the defendant relies upon insanity as a defense, proof beyond a reasonable doubt is not required, but the burden of proof is cast upon him, and his insanity must be established by such a preponderance of evidence, that if the single issue of the sanity or insanity of the defendant was submitted to the jury in a civil case they would find that he was insane.”

The defendant excepted to the refusal of the Court to give these instructions. The Court, among other instructions, gave the following:

“As a general rule an insane man is incapable of committing crime; but there are exceptions to the rule. A person sometimes insane, who has lucid intervals, or is so far sane as to distinguish good from evil, right from wrong, may commit crime and be legally held responsible. * * * If you find from the evidence that the prisoner committed the offense charged, and at the time he committed the same his mind was so far disordered or diseased that he was incapable of distinguishing good from evil, right from wrong, he was irresponsible and should be acquitted; or if he was, at the instant of the alleged shooting, deprived of reason, though then in a semi-conscious state, the act in law was non-volitional, and he is not responsible; or, if he was at that instant unconscious, he is not responsible. Hor is he legally responsible if he was impelled to shoot the deceased by an uncontrollable influence and was at the moment unconscious of doing wrong. * * * You can also, in determining the question of sanity or insanity, or responsibility, consider all the evidence given, either on behalf of the prosecution or the prisoner, and apply to the facts developed your knowledge of human nature and the tendencies of the human mind, and thereby ascertain whether or not he was, at the time the mortal wound was inflicted, responsible for the act. If it be shown that the intellectual faculties were so impaired as to produce a general habitual derangement of them, not traceable to some temporary cause, the law would presume the mind to have continued in the same state until the contrary was shown; but the principle is different in reference to temporary or periodical insanity, resulting from some transient cause, for then the presumption would be that the mind was restored to its normal condition when the disturbing element had ceased to operate. On a trial for murder the accused is presumed to be sane until the contrary is made to appear by the evidence, and if insanity is relied upon as a defense it must be established affirmatively by a preponderance of proof.”