People v. Holnagel
People v. Holnagel
Opinion of the Court
Defendant was awaiting trial in circuit court on a charge of kidnapping. He filed.
The court based its denial of the petition on 2 grounds: first, that the petition was insufficient, and, .second, that the proofs did not suffice.
The pertinent portions of the petition follow:
“1. That the defendant herein, Frederick Holnagel, is charged in this court with having committed the following offense, to-wit: Kidnapping Lou Ann Wieland, on or about the 8th day of August, 1961, at circuit court, in said county, and is now awaiting trial therefor, all as more fully appears from the records and files of this court in said •cause.
“2. Tour petitioner further shows that said defendant, Frederick Holnagel, a married man with a family to support, has had an unnatural desire to have sexual intercourse with women that were strangers to him. This unnatural desire resulted in his having sexual intercourse on at least 12 different occasions during the last year with women who were strangers or casual acquaintances, and resulted in the criminal, sexual molesting of Lou Ann Wieland, a total stranger to him, on August 8, 1961. On that*350 date, lie entered her home, abdncted her, and took her to a secluded location in Bay county, where he sexually molested her.”
Section 3 of the act makes existence of the mental disorder for 4 months a prerequisite. The first above paragraph in defendant’s petition, relative to the offense of which he stood charged, alleges nothing causing it to appear that the claimed mental disorder antedated commission of the offense for 4 months or any other period of time, and thus fails to show that the offense was committed because of such disorder. An allegation of pendency of the criminal action in which the petition has been filed avails nothing to satisfy the statutory requirement as to content of the petition. In re Kelmar, 323 Mich 511; In re Carter, 337 Mich 496.
The second above paragraph of defendant’s petition states that the desire for sexual intercourse which he has had is “unnatural”. That is not, as section 3 of the act requires, a statement of “facts tending to show” but merely an expression of conclusion. He alleges that during the last year he had had sexual intercourse on at least 12 different occasions with women who were strangers or casual acquaintances. Whether or not they were members of what has been termed “the most ancient profession in the world”
Inasmuch, however as the court granted the petition to the extent of appointing psychiatrists and allowing a hearing on it, we consider the further question, urged by defendant, whether the court erred in finding that the proofs did not suffice to show that defendant was a criminal sexual psychopathic person. As defendant’s brief properly states, the basic question in this connection is whether the judge’s finding is against the clear preponderance of the evidence. What did the court have before it?
The unanimous report of the 3 psychiatrists contained, in substance, the following, gained exclusively from defendant’s own assertions: (1) that defendant, throughout his adult life, has been subject to excessively strong sexual urges, especially when under the influence of alcohol; (2) that he estimates that he has had extramarital sex relations with 150 different women; (3) that he estimates he has intercourse 15 or 20 times per month, 2 with his wife; (4) that he admitted to them guilt of a rape charge of which he had been acquitted; (5) that he admitted a sex offense with another woman; (6) that, as a result of their examination, they were unanimously of the opinion that defendant was a criminal sexual psychopathic person.
One of the 3 psychiatrists was called and was the only witness who testified at the hearing. He identified the report and it was received into evidence. He then testified that the psychiatrists’ opinion and report were based upon a conversation with and questioning of defendant by them for 1 hour; that
The function, prescribed by the statute, for the psychiatrists was to examine defendant and report to the court. See section 4 of the act. Section 5
“It is the probate judge, not the physicians, who must make the determination of feeblemindedness; it must be predicated upon a showing of facts, not merely upon the opinions of others, whether laymen or physicians.”
In the instant case the trial judge, in his opinion, said of the conclusion of the psychiatrists, that they “failed to reach that conclusion on facts necessary to satisfy the law of this State”. With all the evidence on the subject resting on defendant’s own statements, the court had occasion to observe the following: (1) that the testifying psychiatrist stressed defendant’s propensities for and history of being a liar; (2) that the psychiatrist thought, however, that defendant had told them the truth because he had nothing to gain by lying or to lose by telling the truth, in which fallacious thinking the psychiatrist was clearly ignorant of the law or facts, as recognized by the trial court in his opinion in this case and by this Court in People v. miles, 327 Mich 124, in which we commented, as did the trial judge here, on the possible motivating effects upon defendant of the statutory provision for hospitalization rather than imprisonment, with a possible early release after psychiatric determination of a new-found cure and immunity from subsequent prosecution on the offense charged if he were ascertained to he a criminal sexual psychopathic person, of which defendant appeared to be fully aware and appreciative in view of his petition; (3) that the psychiatrist’s testimony
Defendant quotes from In re Pryor, 335 Mich 212, in furtherance of his contention that a defendant’s statements to the examining psychiatrists and their report thereof to the court can be sufficient to support a court finding that defendant is a criminal sexual psychopathic person. Defendant says that the statements he made to the psychiatrists here constituted “material” in excess of that available to the court in Pryor and would, therefore, be sufficient to support a court finding of criminal sexual psychopathy in the instant case. They do not, however, preclude an opposite finding. Defendant fails to note that in Pryor the prosecuting attorney was the petitioner and that in the appeal before this Court the defendant was attacking the proceeding and proofs as defective and insufficient. Here the situation is reversed, defendant being the petitioner and the prosecuting attorney opposes the petition. While the burden of proof in Pryor was on the people, here it is on defendant. The trial court found that he did not sustain it. The reversed positions of the defendants in the 2 cases also transforms what were admissions against interest by defendant to the psychiatrists in Pryor into self-serving statements to the psychiatrists in the case at bar, which, coming to the court only from the lips of the psychiatrist, suffer from the additional infirmity of being hearsay. The finding of the trial court that defendant is not a
Affirmed.
Kipling, Soldiers Three (1888), On the City Wall, p 283.
Concurring Opinion
{concurring). In People v. Wingeart, 371 Mich 264, I wrote for reversal because of the trial judge’s rejection of unanimous opinion testimony of psychiatrist that defendant was insane at the time of commission of the criminal acts charged. Here, another trial judge sitting without a jury likewise has rejected opinion testimony (that defendant is a criminal sexual psychopath), but in this case I believe our appellate duty is to affirm.
Unlike Wingeart, a criminal appeal in which our function was to determine whether the trial judge’s finding of sanity was supported by evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, this proceeding under PA 1939, No 165, as amended (CL 1948, § 780.501 et seq. [Stat Ann 1954 Rev § 28.967(1) et seq.]), is in the nature of a civil proceeding. People v. Chapman, 301 Mich 584, 604. Our function here, as Mr. Justice Dethmers notes, is to determine whether the judge’s finding is against the clear preponderance of the evidence. I am not persuaded that it is.
In Wingeart, it was my conclusion that the trial judge’s grounds for rejecting the psychiatrists’ testimony of defendant’s insanity were erroneous and, therefore, that the evidence in the case, including the testimony of the psychiatrists, did not support his finding that defendant was sane beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, however, I conclude that the trial judge properly refused to give the psychiatric evidence any weight, without which evidence there could
Under these circumstances, I cannot say that this record would support a commitment under the act, let alone that the judge’s finding was against the clear preponderance of the evidence.
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