United States v. Arthur Hansen

701 F.2d 1078, 1983 U.S. App. LEXIS 29928
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedMarch 4, 1983
Docket803, Docket 81-1335
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 701 F.2d 1078 (United States v. Arthur Hansen) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Arthur Hansen, 701 F.2d 1078, 1983 U.S. App. LEXIS 29928 (2d Cir. 1983).

Opinion

NEWMAN, Circuit Judge:

This appeal from a conviction in a criminal case, now before us on a petition for rehearing, poses unusual aspects of the always troubling matter of the insanity defense. Arthur Hansen appeals from a judgment of the District Court for the District of Vermont (Albert D. Coffrin, Judge) convicting him, after a bench trial, of two counts of federal firearms violations. Count I charged Hansen with falsely denying that he was a mental patient at the time he purchased a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(a)(6), (d)(4), 924(a) (1976), and Count II charged him with receiving a firearm after being committed to a mental institution, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(h)(4), 924(a) (1976). Judge Coffrin imposed maximum sentences of five years on each count and ordered them to be served consecutively for an aggregate sentence of ten years. The bizarre nature of the case can readily be appreciated with knowledge of just the essential factual context in which the violations occurred: while involuntarily confined at the Vermont State Hospital and Mental Institution, Hansen made a suicide pact with his friend, Danny Ramirez, another inmate of the hospital, procured a weapon for their use, watched Ramirez use the weapon to take his own life, and then, apparently jolted by the horror of the scene, declined to complete the dreadful bargain. We readily acknowledge that the extraordinary circumstances that have befallen this deeply disturbed young man have caused us to give the matter extended reflection. Though we initially affirmed the judgment by summary order, 688 F.2d 817, we now conclude that the appropriate disposition is to vacate the sentence and remand for resentencing in light of the considerations set forth in this opinion.

I.

At our initial consideration of the appeal, we were asked to rule that the evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to permit a finding that the Government had sustained its burden of proof under the *1080 test of criminal responsibility prevailing in this Circuit. See United States v. Freeman, 357 F.2d 606, 622 (2d Cir.1966). Appellant contended that by reason of a mental disease or defect he lacked substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of law, and that the evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to permit a reasonable fact-finder to conclude that the Government had proved his responsibility under the Freeman test beyond a reasonable doubt. See United States v. Taylor, 464 F.2d 240 (2d Cir.1972).

The District Court heard the testimony of four psychiatrists. Though all four agreed that Hansen suffers from a severe form of schizophrenia, they differed in their ultimate conclusions as to the effect of his illness upon his conduct. We were satisfied at the initial hearing of the appeal that the testimony of Dr. John Ives, testifying for the Government, adequately supported the District Court’s finding of criminal responsibility, and our review of the record in light of the contentions advanced by defendant in his petition for rehearing have not altered our conclusion. Moreover, we adhere to the view, previously expressed in our summary order, that the testimony of some of the doctors who differed with Dr. Ives contained elements that permitted the trier of fact to discount the force of their ultimate conclusions.

However, our reexamination of the record occasioned by the petition for rehearing has brought to the fore an issue that deserves further consideration: whether a sentence for conduct for which a defendant is criminally responsible may be enhanced, within statutory limits, on the basis of additional conduct for which the defendant might not be criminally responsible. We asked the parties to present additional briefs on this issue and its pertinence to the facts of this case.

II.

The insanity defense in Anglo-American criminal jurisprudence has been consistent in its focus upon the mental state of the accused in relation to the conduct constituting the offense charged. Though the standards of the law of civil commitment focus on the mental state of the individual unrelated to any specific conduct, e.g., Vt.Stat. Ann. tit. 18, §§ 7504-7505 (1968 & Supp. 1982); see Developments in the Law — Civil Commitment of the Mentally Ill, 87 Harv.L. Rev. 1190, 1201-07 (1974), the criminal law, responding to the occurrence that warrants the law’s intervention, has not inquired whether the mental state of the accused generally precludes responsibility for criminal conduct, but concerns itself precisely with the mental state of the accused in the doing of the proscribed act. This approach was evident in the M’Naghten Rule 1 and has been a central ingredient of the various subsequent formulations of the insanity defense, 2 including the standard of the American Law Institute, 3 currently adopted in this Circuit, see United States v. Freeman, supra, 357 F.2d at 625-26.

*1081 Hansen’s conviction illustrates the full rigor of the doctrine that confines the insanity defense to conduct constituting the offense charged. Hansen is sufficiently insane to have been committed to a state mental hospital. Moreover, there is the distinct possibility, not precluded by any finding that has yet been made, that Hansen could not be found criminally responsible for the overall course of conduct that resulted in the death of his friend. That is to say, if the State of Vermont had endeavored to prosecute Hansen on state charges of contributing to the death of Ramirez, we cannot be certain whether evidence would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hansen had substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the law’s requirements with respect to making the suicide pact and furnishing the gun to Ramirez, knowing of his friend’s intended use. Nevertheless Hansen has been validly convicted of two discrete acts committed in the course of a sequence of larger events for which his criminal responsibility has not been proven and perhaps could not be proven. These circumstances are unusual because in this case the acts constituting the offenses charged, though significant, are in themselves far less serious than the consequences of the acts, whereas in most cases involving the insanity defense, the conduct that is the offense is not only serious on its own terms but also generally far more serious than other acts of the accused that may be offered as evidence of insanity.

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Bluebook (online)
701 F.2d 1078, 1983 U.S. App. LEXIS 29928, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-arthur-hansen-ca2-1983.