Fisher v. United States/Opinion of the Court

This writ of certiorari brings here for review the sentence of death imposed upon petitioner by the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia after a verdict of guilty on the first count of an indictment which charged petitioner with killing by choking and strangling Catherine Cooper Reardon, with deliberate and premeditated malice. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed the judgment and sentence of the District Court. 149 F.2d 28.

The errors presented by the petition for certiorari and urged at our bar were, in substance, that the trial court refused to instruct the jurors that they should consider the evidence of the accused's psychopathic aggressive tendencies, low m otional response and borderline mental deficiency to determine whether he was guilty of murder in the first or in the second degree. The aggregate of these factors admittedly was not enough to support a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity. Deliberation and premeditation are necessary elements of first degree murder.

Considerations as to the exercise of authority by this Court over the courts of the District of Columbia in the interpretation of local criminal statutes induced us to grant the writ in view of the issue presented. Judicial Code, Section 240(a), 28 U.S.C.A. § 347(a).

The homicide took place in the library building on the grounds of the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Washington, D.C., between eight and nine o'clock, a.m., on March 1, 1944. The victim was the librarian. She had complained to the verger a few days before about petitioner's care of the premises. The petitioner was the janitor. The verger had told him of the complaint. Miss Reardon and Fisher were alone in the library at the time of the homicide. The petitioner testified that Miss Reardon was killed by him immediately following insulting words from her over his care of the premises. After slapping her impulsively, petitioner ran up a flight of steps to reach an exit on a higher level but turned back down, after seizing a convenient stick of firewood, to stop her screaming. He struck her with the stick and when it broke choked her to silence. He then dragged her to a lavatory and left the body to clean up some spots of blood on the floor outside. While Fisher was doing this cleaning up, the victim 'started hollering again.' Fisher then took out his knife and stuck her in the throat. She was silent. After that he dragged her body down into an adjoining pump pit, where it was found the next morning. The above facts made up petitioner's story to the jury of the killing.

It may or may not have been accepted as a whole by the jury. Other evidence furnishes facts which may have led the jury to disbelieve some of the details of accused's version of the tragedy. In his original confession, the accused made no reference to Miss Reardon's use of insulting words. In his written confession, they were mentioned. In his testimony their effect upon him was amplified. There are minor variations between Fisher's written confession and his testimony. In the written confession Fisher admitted that his main reason for assaulting Miss Reardon was because she reported him for not cleaning the library floor. The Deputy Coroner said the knife wound was not deep, 'just went through the skin.'

The effort of the defense is to show that the murder was not deliberate and premeditated; that it was not first but second degree murder. A reading of petitioner's own testimony, summarized above, shows clearly to us that there was sufficient evidence to support a verdict of murder in the first degree, ifp etitioner was a normal man in his mental and emotional characteristics. Cf. Bostic v. United States, 68 App.D.C. 167, 94 F.2d 636, 638. But the defense takes the position that the petitioner is fairly entitled to be judged as to deliberation and premeditation, not by a theoretical normality but by his own personal traits. In view of the status of the defense of partial responsibility in the District and the nation no contention is or could be made of the denial of due process. It is the contention of the defense that the mental and emotional qualities of petitioner were of such a level at the time of the crime that he was incapable of deliberation and premeditation although he was then sane in the usual legal sense. He knew right from wrong. See The M'Naghten Rules, 10 C. and F. 200, 210. His will was capable of controlling his impulses. Smith v. United States, 59 App.D.C. 144, 36 F.2d 548, 70 A.L.R. 654. Testimony of psychiatrists to support petitioner's contention was introduced. An instruction charging the jury to consider the personality of the petitioner in determining intent, premeditation and deliberation was sought and refused.

From the evidence of the psychiatrists for the defense, the jury might have concluded the petitioner was mentally somewhat below the average with minor stigmata of mental subnormalcy. An expert testified that he was a psychopathic personality of a predominantly aggressive type. There was evidence that petitioner was unable by reason of a deranged mental condition to resist the impulse to kill Miss Reardon. All evidence offered by the defense was accepted by the trial court. The prosecution had competent evidence that petitioner was capable of understanding the nature and quality of his acts. Instructions in the usual form were given by the court submitting to the jury the issues of insanity, irresistible impulse, malice, deliberation and premeditation. Under these instructions, set out below, the jury could have determined from the evidence that the homicide was not the result of premeditation and deliberation.

Although no objection as to the form of these instructions is urged here by counsel for petitioner, this Court in a criminal case may notice material error within its power to correct even though that error is not specifically challenged and certainly should do so, even in cases from the District of Columbia, where life is at stake. Brasfield v. United States, 272 U.S. 448, 47 S.Ct. 135, 71 L.Ed. 345; compare Rules 54(a)(1), 59, 52(b), Rules of Criminal Procedure. It is suggested by a dissent that these instructions, just quoted in note 3, did not bring sharply and vividly to the jury's mind' the issue of premeditation; that they 'consisted of threadbare generalities, a jumble of empty abstractions.' We think the contention advanced is that the district judge should have specifically referred to the words of insult or have elaborated upon the details of the evidence in his charge with respect to premeditation. With such a requirement for instructions we do not agree. The evidence furnishes the factual basis for a juy § conclusion as to guilt and its degree, guided by the instructions of the court as to the law. Premeditation and deliberation were defined carefully by the instructions. The contention of the accused that there was no deliberation or premeditation was called distinctly to the jury's attention. The necessary time element was emphasized and the jury was told that premeditation required a preconceived design to kill, a 'second thought.' With the evidence and the law before them the jury reached its verdict. The instructions, we think, were clear, definite, understandable and applicable to the facts developed by the testimony. We see no error in them.

The error claimed by the petitioner is limited to the refusal of one instruction. The jury might not have reached the result it did if the theory of partial responsibility for his acts which the petitioner urges had been submitted. Petitioner sought an instruction from the trial court which would permit the jury to weigh the evidence of his mental deficiencies, which were short of insanity in the legal sense, in determining the fact of and the accused's capacity for premeditation and deliberation. The appellate court approved the refusal upon the alternate ground that an accused is not entitled to an instruction upon petitioner's theory. This has long been the law of the District of Columbia. This is made abundantly clear by United States v. Lee, 4 Mackey 489, 495, 54 Am.Rep. 293. This also was a murder case in which there was evidence of mental defects which did not amount to insanity. An instruction was asked and denied in the language copied in the margin.

It is suggested that the Lee case was decided when murder under the District law was not divided into degrees and that therefore it was not proper to instruct as to the accused's mental capacity to premeditate and deliberate while now it would be. We do not agree. The separation of the crime of murder into the present two degrees by the code of law for the District of Columbia, March 3, 1901, 31 Stat. 1189, 1321, is not significant in analyzing the necessity for the proposed submission of the evidence concerning petitioner's mental and emotional characteristics to the jury by specific instruction. The reason for the change, doubtless, lay in the wide range of atrocity with which the crime of murder might be committed so that Congress deemed it desirable to establish grades of punishment. Cf. Davis v. People of Territory of Utah, 151 U.S. 262, 267, 270, 14 S.Ct. 328, 329, 331, 38 L.Ed. 153. Homicide, at common law, the rules of which were applicable in the District of Columbia, had degrees. Murder was 'with malice aforethought, either express or implied.' Blackstone, Book IV (Lewis ed., 1902), p. 195; Hill v. United States, 22 App.D.C. 395, 401; Hamilton v. United States, 26 App.D.C. 382, 396, 391; Burge v. United States, 26 App.D.C. 524, 527-530. Manslaughter was unlawful homicide without malice. Blackstone, Book IV, p. 191. As capacity of a defendant to have malice would depend upon the same kind of evidence and instruction which is urged here, it cannot properly be said that the separation of murder into degrees introduced a new situation into the law of the District of Columbia. As shown by the action of the District of Columbia courts in this case and the other District cases cited in this and the preceding paragraph, we think it is the established law in the District that an accused in a criminal trial is not entitled to an instruction based upon evidence of mental weakness, short of legal insanity, which would reduce his crime from first to second degree murder.

Petitioner urges forcefully that mental deficiency which does not sho legal irresponsibility should be declared by this Court to be a relvant factor in determining whether an accused is guilty of murder in the first or second degree, upon which an instruction should be given, as requested. It is pointed out that the courts of certain states have adopted this theory. Others have rejected it. It is urged, also, that since evidence of intoxication to a state where one guilty of the crime of murder may not be capable of deliberate premeditation requires in the District of Columbia an instruction to that effect (McAffee v. United States, 72 App.D.C. 60, 111 F.2d 199, loc. cit. 205), courts from this must deduce that disease and congenital defects, for which the accused may not be responsible, may also reduce the crime of murder from first to second degree. This Court reversed the Supreme Court of the Territory of Utah for failure to give a partial responsibility charge upon evidence of drunkenness in language which has been said to be broad enough to cover mental deficiency. Hopt v. People, 104 U.S. 631, 634, 26 L.Ed. 873. It should be noted, however, that the Territory of Utah had a statute specifically establishing such a rule. deliberate brief for the collection of cases. Those accepting the petitioner's theory are: Andersen v. State, 1876, 43 Conn. 514, 526, 21 Am.Rep. 669; State v. Johnson, 1873, 40 Conn. 136, 143, 144; Fisher v. People, 1860, 23 Ill. 283, 295; Donahue v. State, 1905, 165 Ind. 148, 156, 74 N.E. 996; Aszman v. State, 1889, 123 Ind. 347, 356, 24 N.E. 123, 8 L.R.A. 33; Rogers v. Commonwealth, 1894, 96 Ky. 24, 28, 27 S.W. 813; Mangrum v. Commonwealth, 1897, 39 S.W. 703, 19 Ky. Law Rep. 94; Commonwealth v. Trippi, 1929, 268 Mass. 227, 231, 167 N.E. 354; State v. Close, 1930, 106 N.J.L. 321, 324, 148 A. 768; State v. Schilling, 1920, 95 N.J.L. 145, 148, 112 A. 400; People v. Moran, 1928, 249 N.Y. 179, 180, 163 N.E. 553; Jones v. Commonwealth, 1874, 75 Pa. 403, 408, 410; State v. Green, 1931, 78 Utah 580, 602, 6 P.2d 177; State v. Anselmo, 1915, 46 Utah 137, 145, 157, 148 P. 1071; Dejarnette v. Commonwealth, 1881, 75 Va. 867, 880, 881; Hempton v. State, 1901, 111 Wis. 127, 135, 86 N.W. 596.

No one doubts that there are more possible classifications of mentality than the sane and the insane. White, Insanity and the Criminal Law 89. Criminologists and psychologists have weighed the advantages and disadvantages of the adoption of the theory of partial responsibility as a basis of the jury's determination of the degree of crime of which a mentally deficient defendant may be guilty. Congress took a forward step in defining the degrees of murder so that only those guilty of deliberate. and premeditated malice could be convicted of the first degree. It may be that psychiatry has now reached a position of certainty in its diagnosis and prognosis which will induce Congress to enact the rule of responsibility for crime for which petitioner contends. For this Court to force the District of Columbia to adopt such a requirement for criminal trials would involve a fundamental change in the common law theory of responsibility.

We express no opinion upon whether the theory for which petitioner contends should or should not be made the law of the District of Columbia. Such a radical departure from common law concepts is more properly a subject for the exercise of legislative power or at least for the discretion of the courts of the District. The administration of criminal law in matters not affected by Constitutional limitations or a general federal law is a matter peculiarly of local concern. Compare McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 63 S.Ct. 608, 87 L.Ed. 819, with Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U.S. 143, 156, 64 S.Ct. 921, 927, 88 L.Ed. 1192. This Court has in a less important matter undertaken to adjust by decision an outmoded rule of the common law to modern conditions. But when that step was taken, it was declared that 'experience has clearly demonstrated the fallacy or unwisdom of the old rule.' Funk v. United States, 290 U.S. 371, 381, 54 S.Ct. 212, 215, 78 L.Ed. 369, 93 A.L.R. 1136. See Weiler v. United States, 323 U.S. 606, 609, 65 S.Ct. 548, 550, 89 L.Ed. 495, 156 A.L.R 496.

Matters relating to law enforcement in the District are entrustd to the courts of the District. Our policy is not to interfere with the local rules of law which they fashion, save in exceptional situations where egregious error has been committed.

Where the choice of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia in local matters between conflicting legal conclusions seems nicely balanced, we do not interfere. District of Columbia v. Pace, 320 U.S. 698, 702, 64 S.Ct. 406, 408, 88 L.Ed. 408; Busby v. Electric Utilities Employees Union, 323 U.S. 72, 74, 75, 65 S.Ct. 142, 143, 144, 89 L.Ed. 78. The policy of deferring to the District's courts on local law matters is reinforced here by the fact that the local law now challenged is long established and deeply rooted in the District.

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice JACKSON took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER dissenting.