State v. Norton

490 P.2d 194, 7 Or. App. 122, 1971 Ore. App. LEXIS 538
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedNovember 5, 1971
StatusPublished

This text of 490 P.2d 194 (State v. Norton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Norton, 490 P.2d 194, 7 Or. App. 122, 1971 Ore. App. LEXIS 538 (Or. Ct. App. 1971).

Opinion

LANGTEY, J.

Defendant appeals from conviction of first degree murder of Floyd Jackson. Defendant admitted to shooting and killing Jackson, Jackson’s wife, and the defendant’s wife who was the daughter of the Jacksons. His principal defense was that he was insane at the time of the killing. OES 135.870.

Errors assigned are:

(1). Certain testimony of psychiatrists should *124 have been stricken on defendant’s motion, and that other should not have been received over objection. (Included in three assignments.)

(2) . The court’s instruction on intoxication was erroneous.

(3) . An instruction on transferred intent to kill was erroneous.

Defendant and his wife were estranged and she, with their two-year-old son, was living at Winston in Douglas County with her parents while attending school. Defendant was living at Talent in Jackson County and attending college in Ashland. Defendant’s father also lived alone in the Winston area. The evidence discloses that on the night of June 10, 1970, defendant drove his automobile from Talent to Winston, a considerable distance away, taking with him a 12-gauge riot shotgun containing eight shells which were loaded with buckshot-size pellets. He carried extra ammunition in a web belt. Defendant testified that he went first to his father’s house, found no one there, drank some beer, and then went to the victims’ residence a short distance away. (During a recess in the trial, defendant told his father that it had been his intention to kill him, also.) He testified that he looked in windows of the Jackson house and tried the back door without gaining entry. Through a window he saw Mr. Jackson sitting in a chair talking to defendant’s wife. On direct examination he testified:

“Well, Nancy was sitting by him and they were talking. It seemed like they kept saying ‘motorcycle club’ over and over and over. Well, then, I shot.”

Moving to the front door of the house, he shot a burst of shots. The evidence indicates this burst killed Jack *125 son’s wife, who was also in the living room, and mortally wounded defendant’s wife. Circumstantial evidence made it appear that he fired one shot which did not strike a victim. He fled the scene and at a service station telephone booth he called police and waited for them to apprehend him.

The prosecution’s rebuttal to his evidence concerning insanity disclosed that on a previous occasion the defendant had used the same shotgun in a domestic conflict with his wife. A neighbor and defendant’s wife were in another room talking to defendant through the wall, trying to get him to bring the Norton’s baby out of a bedroom where he had isolated himself with the baby. He shot a hole in the wall and the shot passed between his wife and the neighbor, who were standing side by side. On that occasion he threatened to again use the gun against his wife. The neighbor’s testimony was that the wife feared he would kill her.

Defendant had had gastric trouble and by surgery had had a large section of his stomach removed. In the weeks preceding the killings he had gone to a doctor for continued similar -trouble and the doctor had prescribed tranquilizers for him, cautioning that when he used them he should not ingest alcohol. He told officers, and also testified vaguely, that he had taken tranquilizer pills the day of the killings. The evidence discloses nothing about how many he may have taken. He testified that he drank six to eight stubbies of beer. Those who observed him immediately after the killings smelled alcohol on his breath, but were of the opinion that he was calm and sober after several minutes of crying and emotional reactions when the police officers first apprehended him. With *126 in a few hours he voluntarily gave a taped statement to officers and the district attorney. It was received in evidence and played to the jury. In it, besides recounting preceding events, he stated in answer to questions that he knew how to use the shotgun, that its use could kill, and that the killing was legally wrong, and he volunteered that it was also wrong under God’s law.

A psychologist and three psychiatrists testified at the trial. Ivor Campbell, M.D., one of the psychiatrists, had been retained by the prosecution but he was initially called by the defendant as a witness. The defendant also called the psychologist and one of the other psychiatrists. Barbara Radmore, M. D., a psychiatrist from the state hospital where the defendant had been committed for diagnosis pursuant to ORS 137.072 and 137.075, testified for the prosecution. The latter section provides that the immunities detailed in ORS 137.115 are applicable when there has been such a diagnosis. ORS 137.115 provides:

“(1) No statement made by a * * * person in the course of an examination * * * shall be used against him in any * * * criminal proceeding.
“(2) No person shall, without the consent of the * * * person, be examined * ® * as to any statement made by the * * * person in the course of the examination.

At the trial, the exercise of these immunities prevented the state hospital phychiatrist’s testimony about her conclusions from being supported by her testimony about what the defendant had told her. The defendant contends, therefore, there was no predicate for her opinion in evidence and her conclusions should have been stricken. This forms part of the basis for the first claim of error.

*127 (1). Defendant relies upon language in Lippold v. Kidd, 126 Or 160, 168-69, 269 P 210, 59 ALR 875 (1928), where the court quoted with approval from Kempsey v. McGinniss, 21 Mich 123, 2 Brown N P 49 (1870). In that case the court said that where the facts on which an opinion is based are in conflict, the only proper mode of interrogating the professional witness is by stating and enumerating in the question itself the facts to be assumed. In the instant case we do not view the facts on which the opinion was based as being in conflict. The essential facts leading up to and following the killings were not a subject of disagreement between the prosecution and the defendant. In this circumstance we think that the general rule stated in Lippold v. Kidd, supra, applies:

«« * * [I] f the expert testifies to a conclusion based upon a premise with which he has become familiar through personal observation, the question which elicits from him the conclusion need not be a hypothetical one. In such an instance he supplies both premise and conclusion. But where he is unfamiliar with the premise and is asked to express a conclusion, a premise must be stated to him in a hypothetical form * * *.” 126 Or at 166.

See also, Carnine v. Tibbetts, 158 Or 21, 38-39, 74 P 974 (1937). In State v. Beeson,

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Related

State v. Gilmore
410 P.2d 240 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1966)
Lewis v. Baker, Richardson-Merrell, Inc.
413 P.2d 400 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1966)
State v. Roisland
459 P.2d 555 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 1969)
State v. Beeson
434 P.2d 460 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1967)
Carnine v. Tibbetts
74 P.2d 974 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1937)
Lippold v. Kidd
269 P. 210 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1928)
State v. Roisland
459 P.2d 555 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 1969)
Kempsey v. McGinniss
21 Mich. 123 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1870)

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Bluebook (online)
490 P.2d 194, 7 Or. App. 122, 1971 Ore. App. LEXIS 538, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-norton-orctapp-1971.