Cole v. State

⁵⁶ Henderson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal is from a judgment and sentence to death after the appellant, twenty-three years of age, had been found guilty by a three-judge court of the brutal rape of a four-year old girl. The appellant had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity at the time of the commission of the crime, not guilty by reason of insanity at the time of the trial, and not guilty. The only question presented on this appeal is whether the court erred in refusing to admit certain evidence as to his mental condition at the time of the commission of the crime, proffered in the form of a stipulation.

According to this stipulation, the appellant admits “That the defendant, George Lightfoot Cole, Jr., can offer no evidence to overcome the presumption of sanity, and that at the time of the commission of the alleged offense he did have the capacity and reason sufficient to enable him to distinguish between right and wrong and understand the nature and consequences of his act as applied to himself.” These admissions were supported by the experts whose evidence was proffered in the stipulation, as well as by psychiatrists whose evidence was presented by the State. It was further agreed in the stipulation that a proffer of certain expert testimony and supporting evidence was denied by the court on the ground that it did not show legally recog.nized insanity of the accused. We are not called upon to decide whether the evidence would have been admissible if offered in support of a contention that the accused was legally insane. The concession that he was not makes the evidence proffered immaterial under the existing law, so far as guilt is concerned.

The substance of the proffer was that before the appellant reached the age of sixteen, he showed signs of “abnormal distinctly neurotic” behavior and “sexual activities that almost though not quite went beyond the normal”. At age sixteen, he was hospitalized in Minnesota for an illness eventually diagnosed as western equine encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain. He was a patient in George Washington University Hospital for about five weeks in 1950, to determine whether his “behavior is of a postencephalitic nature or merely a behavior problem.” The final diagnosis ⁵⁷ made there was that he was a “maladjusted adolescent”. In 1951, while in the army, he was convicted by a court martial of offenses involving young females and served a sentence.

He later served a sentence in the Maryland House of Correction for larceny. On the basis of examinations of the appellant and consideration of other clinical material proffered, the opinion of various experts is included in the proffer to the effect that the appellant’s ability to control pre-existing hostile, anti-social trends has been and is impaired, and “likely as a result of the acute Encephalitis suffered in 1948, he has been rendered far less able to exercise controls which previously he could”. Some of the opinions were to the effect that, although the appellant knows and comprehends the difference between right and wrong, the present crime is a product of the disease, the residual effects of which still impair his powers of control. One of the doctors stated that his “neuroticisms * * * provided the framework on which the brain disease implanted itself.

With the attack of Psychosis with Encephalitis Lethargica, the pre-existing personality was unable to maintain control or cope with pre-existing hostile, anti-social trends”. These opinions seem to be based in large part, not on objective evidence of brain damage, but on the fact that “sex offenses are common among persons suffering from this type of illness”. On the other hand, one of the doctors for the State maintained that the equine type of encephalitis, unlike the lethargic type, did not produce residual symptoms of a sexual or anti-social character, and “it would be difficult to relate this patient’s character disorders closely to the organic illness”. All of the experts seemed to agree that he was dangerous to society and should be institutionalized for an indeterminate period.

It may also be noted that the court indicated, at the time of sentence, that it had