Caseflicks

Wyoming Supreme Court • 1981

Fulcher v. State

633 P.2d 142 | 1981 Wyo. LEXIS 369

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Takeaway

In short, Fulcher recognizes temporary, concussion-based automatism as a distinct affirmative defense that need not be pleaded as mental illness or deficiency, but affirms the conviction because Fulcher's evidence did not persuade the trial judge that he acted unconsciously.

Background

After drinking whiskey at a Torrington bar, Robert Fulcher claimed he fought in the restroom and remembered nothing after leaving the bar until he awoke in jail. Police found Fulcher and a friend in an alley with abrasions on their faces and fists. Although Fulcher was intoxicated and his speech was slurred, he was combative, spoke with officers, counted several hundred dollars in cash, and walked to his cell without assistance.

Fulcher was placed in a jail cell with Martin Hernandez, who was unconscious on the floor. A jailer heard sounds of kicking, returned to the cell, and saw Fulcher kick and stomp Hernandez's head. Hernandez required about fifty-two stitches and lost teeth. Fulcher told the jailer that Hernandez had fallen from bed.

At arraignment, Fulcher initially pleaded not guilty by reason of temporary mental illness, but withdrew that plea after the court advised him that it would require a statutory examination. He instead pleaded not guilty. At his bench trial, a defense forensic psychiatrist testified that a concussion had caused "traumatic automatism," leaving Fulcher without conscious or willful control of his conduct. The district court found Fulcher guilty of aggravated assault without a dangerous weapon. After the appeal was filed, defense counsel and the Goshen County prosecutor attempted to stipulate to additional facts concerning Fulcher's concussion and asserted amnesia.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the parties could supplement the appellate record through a stipulation signed by defense counsel and the county prosecutor after the appeal had been filed.

Holding

No. The proposed stipulation was an improper attempt to supplement the record and could not be considered.

Reasoning

Once the case reached the Wyoming Supreme Court, the Attorney General had complete responsibility for representing the State in the criminal appeal. The county prosecutor was no longer the State's attorney of record for that purpose.

Because the Attorney General had not approved the stipulation, defense counsel and the county prosecutor could not bypass that office by agreeing to add facts to the appellate record. The Court therefore disregarded the proposed stipulation.

Issue #2

Whether Fulcher had to plead not guilty by reason of mental illness or deficiency before presenting evidence that he acted unconsciously because of a concussion.

Holding

No. Automatism caused by a temporary concussion in a person of otherwise sound mind is a separate affirmative defense that may be raised under a general plea of not guilty.

Reasoning

The Court defined automatism as conduct performed without consciousness, will, knowledge, or control. An automatistic act is involuntary, and a person who acts in that state lacks the intent or voluntary action ordinarily required for criminal responsibility.

Mental illness or deficiency and unconsciousness are related but distinct defenses. Mental illness or deficiency concerns a defect or disease of the mind and may lead, after an acquittal, to commitment or supervised treatment. By contrast, an acquittal based on temporary unconsciousness ordinarily ends the criminal proceeding without those follow-up consequences.

Treating all automatism as mental illness or deficiency would create unjust results. A defendant whose temporary physical condition caused unconscious conduct could either be imprisoned despite lacking control over the act or committed to a mental institution even though psychiatric treatment would not address a transient injury such as a concussion.

The Court read the statutory reference to brain damage as addressing a serious, enduring condition that affects a person's ability to function, not a temporary and transitory concussion with no permanent effects. Thus, Fulcher's claimed traumatic automatism did not necessarily fall within the statutory mental-deficiency procedure.

Automatism is nevertheless an affirmative defense. The defendant ordinarily bears the burden to establish unconsciousness to the trier of fact, unless the evidence of unconsciousness arises from the State's own proof, because the defendant is generally best situated to know his own state of consciousness.

Issue #3

Whether the evidence was sufficient to sustain Fulcher's conviction despite his automatism defense.

Holding

Yes. The trial judge had a reasonable basis to find that the State proved the offense and that Fulcher had not established unconsciousness.

Reasoning

Fulcher's expert did not testify with certainty that Fulcher lacked the mental state required for aggravated assault. Although the psychiatrist believed Fulcher likely was in an altered state, he could not say positively that Fulcher lacked criminal intent or that the nature of the assault was devoid of intent.

A factfinder is not required to accept expert opinion when other substantial, credible evidence points the other way. The trial judge could weigh the psychiatrist's qualified testimony against the surrounding evidence of Fulcher's conduct.

The record contained abundant evidence that Fulcher was acting consciously: he had interacted with officers, argued and swore, explained that he and his friend had been attacked, counted his money, walked without help, told the jailer that Hernandez had fallen from bed, and resumed kicking after the jailer initially left the cell. This evidence supported the finding that Fulcher was not unconscious during the assault.

Concurrences

Justice Raper

Reasoning

Justice Raper agreed that the conviction should be affirmed, but rejected the majority's recognition of traumatic automatism as a defense available under a general not-guilty plea. In his view, the psychiatrist's testimony was inadmissible because Fulcher had not entered the required plea of not guilty by reason of mental illness or deficiency.

Raper read Wyoming's statutory definition of mental deficiency—which expressly includes brain damage—as controlling. Since Fulcher's own expert characterized the alleged concussion as brain injury or brain damage, Raper concluded that Fulcher's claim necessarily invoked a statutory mental-deficiency defense and had to comply with its plea and examination requirements.

The statutory procedure serves both the defendant and the public, Raper explained. A court-ordered, impartial psychiatric examination can determine whether an asserted injury is temporary, permanent, recurrent, feigned, or part of a broader condition requiring treatment or supervision. Permitting a defendant to relabel brain damage as "traumatic automatism" would evade that safeguard.

Raper also disputed the majority's premise that a mental-illness-or-deficiency verdict automatically produces inappropriate institutionalization. Wyoming law permits discharge, conditional release with supervision, or commitment depending on the person's condition and danger to self or others. He would therefore leave any concussion-based claim within the statutory mental-responsibility framework rather than create a separate route to outright acquittal.

Justice Rooney

Reasoning

Justice Rooney joined Justice Raper's analysis and separately emphasized its practical consequence. He feared that recognizing unconsciousness under an ordinary not-guilty plea would encourage defendants in many criminal cases to assert unconsciousness without giving the State advance notice or undergoing a neutral court-ordered examination.

In Rooney's view, the decision risked reviving the very problem the statutory examination procedure was designed to address: partisan experts tailoring mental-condition opinions to the side that retained them, without an impartial evaluation of claims that bear directly on criminal responsibility and public safety.