[DOWNLOAD] "Watts v. State" by Court Of Appeals Of Maryland " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free

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eBook details

• Title: Watts v. State
• Author : Court Of Appeals Of Maryland
• Release Date : January 18, 1960
• Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 49 KB

Description

The appellant was convicted of robbing a Baltimore bank. Through counsel, he relied upon a special plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. The first contention raised on appeal is that, although the defendant committed the acts charged, he was insane "within the purview and meaning of modern enlightened medical, psychiatric and legal evaluation of human behavior and therefore not responsible for the offense committed." Dr. Nelson, a qualified and experienced psychiatrist on the medical staff of the Supreme Bench, testified that the defendant at the time of the commission of the alleged offense had the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong and to appreciate the nature and consequences of his acts. She based her conclusion upon the medical reports available to her and upon an interview with the defendant. She stated that in her opinion the defendant was sane, her impression being that he had a sociopathic personality disturbance, an anti-social reaction, and an addiction to alcohol. When pressed on redirect examination with the fact that in 1958 at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington he had been found to have had "an acute brain syndrome associated with intoxication with psychotic reaction," she replied that "[t]his is an acute and temporary type of illness." The very next entry showed that on discharge he was considered as having recovered from the psychotic reaction and was considered competent. She stressed the fact that the present offense was committed within forty-eight hours after he had escaped from the hospital and that he could not have precipitated an acute alcoholic psychosis in that time, even though drinking heavily and taking luminal during the period following his escape. We think there is no evidence in the case that would support a finding of insanity under any test, enlightened or otherwise, but certainly not under the established test of sanity to which we have consistently adhered. See Stansbury v. State, 218 Md. 255, 262,

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