Greenleaf v. State

Murphy, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Appellant was found guilty of murder in the second degree by a jury in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County and was thereafter sentenced by the court to twelve years under the jurisdiction of the Department of Correction. He contends on this appeal that the lower court erred “by excluding the medical testimony on the defendant’s sanity from the jury.” 1 The evidence adduced at the trial showed that appellant shot and killed his wife in their home with a ten gauge shotgun. In support of his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity filed pursuant to Maryland Code, Article 59, Section 9, 2 the appellant called Dr. Ido Adamo, a staff psychiatrist at Perkins State Hospital, to testify on his behalf.

Out of the presence of the jury, Dr. Adamo testified that while he did not personally examine the ap ⁵⁷⁷ pellant, he did attend a staff conference on September 6, 1968 at which appellant was interviewed. He testified that appellant had an I.Q. of 89 (dull normal); that he was a deprived individual; that he was addicted to drugs; that he had some suggestion of organic brain damage; that he had some memory impairment; that presumably he suffered from arteriosclerosis; and that he lacked impulse control. Dr. Adamo further testified that there were no signs either of psychosis or neurosis, and that while he was unable to form an opinion as to whether appellant was insane under the applicable test of Article 59, Section 9, he “leaned” toward a finding that appellant was legally responsible — a conclusion which Dr. Adamo acknowledged was held by the other staff psychiatrists. On this evidence, the trial judge ruled as a matter of law that there was no evidence of insanity legally sufficient to permit the issue to go to the jury.

Appellant urges that the trial judge erroneously determined that there had to be expert testimony, based on reasonable medical certainty, that he was insane before the jury could be permitted to consider the question. He maintains that such a test is too severe, and that the jury should have been permitted to consider the question of his sanity based on the collective substance of Dr. Adamo’s testimony, since the proper test is whether such testimony raised a doubt in the minds of reasonable men. In Strawderman v. State, 4 Md. App. 689, 698 , we held that when a plea has been filed in writing alleging that the