State v. Hansen

225 N.W.2d 343, 1975 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 905
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedJanuary 22, 1975
Docket56473
StatusPublished
Cited by31 cases

This text of 225 N.W.2d 343 (State v. Hansen) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Hansen, 225 N.W.2d 343, 1975 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 905 (iowa 1975).

Opinion

LeGRAND, Justice.

Violet Welch, a 59-year-old woman, was found dead in her home in Council Bluffs on October 21, 1972. Defendant was charged with willfully, deliberately and pre-meditatively murdering her with malice aforethought in violation of § 690.2, The Code, 1971. After a change of venue had moved the trial to Cass County, a jury found defendant guilty of first degree murder, and he was subsequently sentenced to serve a term of life imprisonment in the penitentiary. He appeals from that judgment on numerous grounds. We hold defendant should have a new trial because of reversible error in the trial court’s instruction on reasonable doubt.

*346 However, we must also rule on most of defendant’s other complaints since they are likely to recur when the case is tried again.

The appeal raises the following issues: (1) error in overruling motion for directed verdict; (2) error in denying motion for a mistrial because of misconduct on the part of the county attorney; (3) error in the admission of certain evidence, including in-culpatory statements of the defendant and incriminating exhibits; (4) error in rejecting defendant’s testimony concerning the identity of the person he claims committed a 1961 murder for which defendant was tried and acquitted on the ground of insanity; (5) error in the admission of Dr. Loef-felholz’ testimony; (6) error in admitting rebuttal testimony; and (7) error in the instruction on reasonable doubt. We recite the important facts as they become materi'al in our discussion of the issues.

We do not consider these matters in the order listed, and we deal first with (7) of the listed issues because it is the ground upon which we reverse and remand for a new trial.

I. The trial court’s instruction on reasonable doubt was the one generally used prior to our decision in State v. McGranahan, 206 N.W.2d 88, 91 (Iowa 1973). It also had the approval of the Iowa State Bar Association’s Committee on Uniform Instructions. We set out the pertinent portion of the instruction as given in the case now before us:

“The burden is on the State to prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
“A ‘reasonable doubt’ is such a doubt as fairly and naturally arises in your mind and by reason of which you cannot say that you have a full and abiding conviction of the guilt of the defendant; and if, after considering all of the circumstances as disclosed by the evidence, you find your mind wavering or vascillating, then you have a reasonable doubt, and the defendant is entitled to the benefit of such doubt and you must acquit him. A reasonable doubt may arise from the evidence in the case or it may arise from a lack or failure of evidence, and it must be such a doubt as would cause a reasonable, prudent and considerate man to pause and hesitate before acting in the graver and more important affairs of life * * * ” (Emphasis added.)

Defendant made good and timely objection to the instruction on the ground it placed a burden on defendant to produce evidence.

Although we had long been critical of the emphasized language (see State v. Stout, 247 Iowa 453, 74 N.W.2d 208 (1956)), it was not until the McGranahan case that we condemned the instruction in terms which clearly put the bench and bar on notice that it was doomed, even though there it was saved by other parts of the jury charge.

Shortly after McGranahan, we met the issue squarely in State v. Boyken, 217 N.W.2d 218, 219 (Iowa 1974), where we reversed because of an instruction virtually identical with the one now under review. The vice of the instruction, of course, is that it permits the jury to consider defendant’s failure to produce evidence in deciding if there is reasonable doubt and places upon him the burden of producing evidence or risking the danger of having his failure to do so considered by the jury as overcoming any reasonable doubt which might otherwise exist.

In Boyken we held the reasonable doubt instruction must limit the jury’s consideration of lack of evidence to lack or failure on the part of the State. Otherwise it is fatally defective because it impermissibly allows the jury to consider defendant’s failure to introduce evidence in deciding if reasonable doubt exists.

The State concedes the case must be reversed unless McGranahan and Boyken are reconsidered and overruled. We adhere to the conclusions reached there, and, consequently, the case is reversed and remanded for a new trial.

*347 In fairness to the trial court, we point out the trial of this case started March 27,1973, the day before our decision in McGranahan and sometime prior to our decision in Boyken. The trial court did not have the benefit of either opinion when the challenged instruction was given and the form in which it was submitted had then been in approved use for some time.

II.The issue raised concerning Dr. Loef-felholz’s testimony presents troublesome questions, principally because of the state of the record and the inescapable fact there is to be a new trial. On the basis of the objections made at trial, much of Dr. Loef-felholz’s testimony was clearly admissible, although other parts should have been excluded. However, on retrial, his testimony should not be allowed at all.

The matter arises in this way. Defendant made application for a mental examination to determine his competency to stand trial. His application was granted, and he was sent to the Iowa Medical Facility at Oakdale for that express purpose. There he was under the constant supervision of Dr. Loeffelholz for a period of three weeks.

From the nature of the application and the order entered thereon, it is clear defendant submitted to the examination to determine if there were grounds for a Chapter 783 competency proceeding.

This chapter provides, in substance, that if reasonable doubt as to the defendant’s competency to stand trial appears, further proceedings shall be suspended until a separate determination on that matter is made. §§ 783.1, 783.2, The Code.

This course was not followed, perhaps because the report from Dr. Loeffelholz satisfied defendant, and his counsel it would have been futile. In any event, no such issue was considered or decided before or during defendant’s trial. The defense asserted at trial related only to defendant’s sanity at the time of the offense, not his competency to stand trial.

Under this state of the record, we hold Dr. Loeffelholz’s opinion that defendant was competent to stand trial, if relevant, was admissible against the privilege objection because the privilege had been waived. See State v. Mayhew, 170 N.W.2d 608, 615 (Iowa 1969); 3 Jones on Evidence, (4th Ed., Gard, 1972), § 20:26, page 814.

However, defendant’s waiver of the privilege extended only that far.

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225 N.W.2d 343, 1975 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 905, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-hansen-iowa-1975.