THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. SIMEON GUENDIA, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

This case is brought to this court by appeal from a judgment of the Court of
First Instance of the Province of Iloilo convicting the defendant upon the
charge of frustrated murder.

There is no doubt that an assault with intent to kill was committed by the
defendant at the time and place mentioned in the record upon the person of his
querida; but the proof shows, in our opinion, that the defendant was crazy at
the time and has remained so since. He has now been committed by order of the
Governor-General to the San Lazaro Hospital for confinement and treatment. The
trial judge says, “I really believe that this man is crazy; or he appeared so,
at least, during his trial in this court;” and the action of the trial judge in
passing sentence upon the defendant must have been in part due to a desire to
keep a dangerous insane person in confinement until proper disposition might be
made of him. It is clear from the evidence submitted at the trial that the
defendant was insane at the time of the perpetration of the act, and he is
therefore exempt from criminal liability under subsection 1 of article 8 of the
Penal Code. It results that the judgment of the lower court must be reversed and
the defendant acquitted.

It has been suggested in this case that inasmuch as it appears from the
evidence that the accused was insane at the time of the trial in the court below
it was improper for that court to proceed to hear the case and furthermore that
it is now improper for this court to reverse judgment and acquit the accused of
the offense with which he is charged. This court by no means concurs in this
suggestion.

Undoubtedly the rule is well established that no person afflicted with
imbecility or insanity in such a degree as to disable him from making his
defense should ever be put upon his trial for an alleged crime or be made to
suffer the judgment of the law.

In Blackstone’s Commentaries we find the following passage:

“Also if a man in his sound memory commits a capital offense, and before
arraignment for it, he becomes mad, he ought not to be arraigned for it; because
he is not able to plead to .it with that advice and caution that he ought; and
if after he has pleaded, the prisoner becomes mad, he shall not be tried; for
how can he make his defence? If, after he be tried and found guilty, he loses
his senses before judgment, judgment shall not be pronounced; and if, after
judgment, he becomes of non-sane memory, execution shall be stayed; for
peradventure says the humanity of the English law, had the prisoner been of
sound memory, he might have alleged something in stay of judgment or
execution.”

There were good reasons for this tenderness or “humanity” of the English law,
as the reader will appreciate when reminded of the fact that until modern times
no prisoner arraigned before the bar of an English court was ever permitted to
have counsel to assist him in his defense; that until within the memory of
living man no accused person was ever permitted to give testimony in his own
behalf; and finally that it was only in our own day that a person convicted of a
crime in an English court has been allowed an appeal for a review of the
facts.

When Blackstone here speaks of madness he refers to a general perversion and
obliteration of the mental powers much more pronounced than that which is
considered sufficient to exempt from criminal responsibility. This is apparent
from the fact -that the courts have always treated a person as sane for the
purposes of being tried if he has sufficient powers to comprehend the nature of
the proceedings in which he is involved and to conduct his defense.

In the State of New York, as appears from the case of Freeman vs.
People (4 Denio, 9; 47 Am. Dec, 216), there was in force in 1847 a statute
expressly declaring that no insane person could be tried, sentenced, or punished
for any crime. In discussing this provision, the court said:

“In its terms the provision is broad enough to reach every possible state of
insanity, so that, if the words are to be taken literally, no person while
laboring under insanity in any form, however partial and limited it may be, can
be put upon his trial. But this the legislature could not have intended; for
although a person totally bereft of reason can not be a fit subject for trial or
punishment, it by no means follows that one whose insanity is limited to some
particular object or conceit, his mind in other respects being free from
disease, can justly claim the like exemption. This clause of the statute, should
receive a reasonable interpretation, avoiding on the one hand what would tend to
give impunity to crime, and on the other seeking to attain the humane object of
the legislature in its enactment. The common law, equally with this statute,
forbids the trial of any person in a state of insanity. This is clearly shown by
authorities which have been referred to, and which also show the reason for {he
rule, to wit, the incapacity of one who is insane to make a rational defense.
The statute is in affirmance of this common law principle, and the reason on
which the rule rests furnishes a key to what must have been the intention of the
legislature. If, therefore, a person arraigned for a crime, is capable of
understanding the nature and object of the proceedings going on against him; if
he rightly comprehends his own condition in reference to such proceedings, and
can conduct his defense in a rational manner, he is, for the purpose of being
tried, to be deemed sane, although on some other subjects his mind may be
deranged or unsound. This, as it seems to me, is the true meaning of the
statute; and such is the construction put by the English courts, on a similar
clause in an act of parliament.”

For the purpose of securing these unfortunate persons from the danger of
being improperly arraigned and tried, statutes have been enacted in many
jurisdiction requiring the court, where the issue of present insanity is raised,
or where the present insanity of the accused is otherwise brought to the
attention of the court, to submit to the jury a preliminary issue to determine
whether the accused is so far insane as to require a suspension of the
proceedings; and even in States where no such statute has been enacted it is
recognized that the issue of present insanity ought properly to be tried, either
by the court itself or by the jury, as a separate issue.

It is, however, entirely clear that, in a jurisdiction like this, where there
is no controlling statute, the trial court has a discretion as to whether a
preliminary investigation into the prisoner’s sanity shall be made. In Jones
vs. State (13 Ala., 153), it was said:

“But in the case before us the judge did not see proper to test the
prisoner’s sanity by any preliminary inquiry to ascertain whether he was capable
of pleading to the indictment—he did plead, and a trial and conviction was the
result, although we are of opinion that the facts disclosed in the .bill of
exceptions might well have warranted the preliminary inquiry as to the
prisoner’s mental condition, yet this must be left to the sound discretion of
the court below.”

In State vs. Peacock (50 N. J. L., 34), it was held that it rests in
the sound discretion of the court whether a preliminary examination shall be had
to ascertain the mental condition of the prisoner at the time of trial, and that
where no exception is taken at the trial to the failure of the court to order
such examination, it is not available upon appeal. Said the court:

“The method of settling this preliminary question, where it is not the
subject of statutory regulation is within the discretion of the trial court. The
court can itself enter upon the inquiry, or submit the question to another jury
empaneled for that purpose. Whether the action of the court is the subject of
exception it is not now necessary to decide, for in the present case no
objection was made to the action of the court in respect to a suspension of the
proceedings, nor was there any request made by the counsel who defended him that
such an inquiry should be instituted. There was nothing proved that displayed
such a condition of mental derangement that the court, of its own motion, was
called upon to direct a further inquiry into the matter. No court would be bound
to stop or justified in arresting the progress of a trial by a mere suggestion
of, but in the absence of any substantial evidence of the existence of a degree
of mental disorder which would unfit the defendant from conducting his cause or
instructing his counsel.”

In Webber vs. Commonwealth (119 Pa. St. Rep., 223; 4 Am. St. Rep.,
634), it was likewise held that the making of a preliminary inquiry into the
sanity of the prisoner before the trial upon the criminal charge is begun is
discretionary with the court. It was there said:

“The existence of the doubt as to the prisoner’s present insanity is a matter
which, by the very necessity of the case, could only be determined by the court
itself. Up to the time of pleading there is no other tribunal which has the
prisoner in charge, and there is no other which can say whether there is a doubt
upon that subject. It is one of the functions which must be intrusted to the
court, and it is not to be presumed that it will in any case be abused.”

Where the court examines into the mental condition of the accused and
discovers that he is laboring under a condition of insanity such that he ought
not to be brought to trial, it is of course the duty of the court to hold the
criminal proceedings in abeyance and commit him to an asylum or hospital for the
insane, as the case may require. If, on the other hand, no preliminary
investigation into the mental condition of the accused is considered necessary
by the trial court, and the accused is brought to trial on the complaint, the
question whether he was mentally responsible at the time of the commission of
the alleged offense is an open one and if it be found that he was insane when
the alleged crime was committed, he will be acquitted. We have found no reported
decision in which it has been held or even suggested that an accused person
should not be acquitted when it appears at the trial that by reason of lunacy or
imbecility he was exempt from criminal responsibility. And the circumstance that
he may still be an imbecile or lunatic at the time of the trial does not by any
means destroy the power of the court to declare him not guilty. In Queen
vs. Berry (1 Q. B. Div., 447, 451), it was said by Baron Kelly:

“I believe it to have been the law from the earliest times, that if it is
found at the trial of a prisoner that he cannot understand the proceedings, the
judge ought to discharge the jury and put an end to the trial, or order a
verdict of not guilty.”

It is a very general practice in England and the United States, where a
person is acquitted on the ground of insanity, for the court to order his
detention in a lunatic asylum. (People vs. Chandler, 196 N. Y. 525; 25
L. R. A. [N. S.], 946; Caffey vs. State, 78 Miss., 645; Peabody
vs. Baker, 59 Misc. [N. Y.], 359; People vs. Lamb, 118 N. Y.
Supp., 389; Ex parte Brown, 1 L. R. A. [N. S.], 540.) Indeed there is a
presumption that a person once shown to have been afflicted with insanity or
lunacy of a permanent character has remained so, and this presumption prevails,
even in the absence of a special finding of the court, until the contrary is
shown. (State ex rel. Thompson vs. Snell, 46 Wash., 327; 9 L.
R. A. [N. S.], 1191; 89 Pac, 931; In re Thomas Brown, 39 Wash., 160; 2
Ann. Cas., 492.) This idea is at the basis of numerous decisions holding that
the statutes providing for the confinement of such persons, without further
trial of the issue of insanity, are valid.

In Rex vs. Little, Russ & R. C. C. 430, the defendant was found
to have been insane at this time of the commission of the offense, and also at
the time of the trial, and was acquitted on account of such insanity. The trial
judge ordered him to be kept in strict custody in jail till His Majesty’s
pleasure should be known.

In U. S. vs. Lawrence (4 Cranch, C. C, 518; Fed. Cas. No. 15,577) it
was proved that the defendant had shot at the President of the United States
under the insane delusion that he himself was King of England and of the United
States as an appendage to England, and that the President stood in his way in
the enjoyment of his right, and that the shooting was done under such delusion.
The jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity, and the court remanded him,
being of opinion that it would be extremely dangerous to permit him to be at
large while under such delusion.

The conclusion to which we arrive is that when a judge of first instance .is
informed or discovers that an accused person is apparently in a present
condition of insanity or imbecility, it is within his discretion to investigate
the matter, and if it be found that by reason of any such affliction the accused
could not, with the aid of his counsel, make a proper defense, it is the duty of
the court to suspend the proceedings and commit the accused to a proper place of
detention until his faculties are recovered. If, however such investigation is
considered unnecessary, and the trial proceeds, the court will acquit the
accused if he be found exempt from criminal responsibility by reason of
imbecility or lunacy. In such case an order for his commitment to an asylum
should be made pursuant to the provisions of paragraph 2 of article 8 (1) of the
Penal Code. In passing on the question of the propriety of suspending the
proceedings against an accused person on the ground of present insanity, the
judges should bear in mind that not every aberration of the mind or exhibition
of mental deficiency is sufficient to justify such suspension. The test is to be
found in the question whether the accused would have a fair trial, with the
assistance which the law secures or gives; and it is obvious that under” a
system of procedure like ours where ‘every accused person has legal counsel, it
is not necessary to be so particular as it used to be in England where the
accused had no advocate but himself. Judgment reversed and defendant acquitted,
with costs of both instances de officio. But the defendant shall be
kept in confinement in the San Lazaro Hospital, or such other hospital for the
insane as the Director of Health may direct, and shall not be permitted to
depart therefrom without the prior approval of the Court of First Instance of
the Province of Iloilo. So ordered.

Arellano, C. J., Johnson,
Araullo, and Malcolm, JJ., concur.

---

CARSON, J., concurring and dissenting in part:

I concur to so much of the disposition of this case as provides for the
detention of the accused and his treatment in an insane asylum, so long as he
continues of unsound mind; but I dissent from so much of the majority opinion as
solemnly declare that the accused committed the acts with which he is charged,
but without incurring criminal liability therefor because of his insanity at the
time when those acts were committed.

Both on principle and authority, I am of opinion that when it affirmatively
appears that an accused person is insane or of unsound mind at the time of his
trial, all further criminal proceedings should be suspended; and that thereafter
the complaint or information should be dismissed if there is no present prospect
of his recovery of his mental equilibrium, without prejudice to the right of the
state to present a new complaint or information in the event that the accused
should thereafter be restored to his health.

The doctrine as laid down by the authorities is quite clearly set forth in
the following citations:

“If the defendant is deaf and dumb, he may nevertheless, if he understand the
use of signs, be arraigned, and the meaning of the clerk in addressing him may
be conveyed to him, by some proper person, by signs, and his signs in reply may
be explained to the court. If he is insane he cannot be arraigned or tried at
all until he becomes sane.” (Clarke’s Criminal Procedure, Vol. 2, sec. 128.)

“The defendant cannot be arraigned or tried or sentenced while he is insane,
though he may have been sane when the offense was committed.” (Idem, Vol. 2,
sec. 149.)

To the like effect are the following citations from Bishop’s New Criminal
Procedure, than which there is no higher textbook authority in the United
States:

“There will be no trial.—If the defendant is dead, insane, or drunk,
or from any other cause incapable of understanding the proceeding and making his
defense.” (Vol. 1, sec. 950 c.)

“Counsel.—Present insanity implies a disability to employ, control,
or discharge counsel. And the doctrine is believed to be that when the court
sees a reasonable ground to institute or persevere in this defence, it will take
care that the prisoner has suitable counsel therein, whom it will not permit him
to reject, restrain or dismiss.

“When and how.—An insane man cannot even plead to an indictment;
therefore, if, at the arraignment, counsel have reason to suppose their client
too insane to take his trial, they should then make the objection, which, it is
believed, can be adequately done orally to the court. Or the objection may
proceed from a third person on affidavit. Or the court may take it on its own
observations. It is not technically too late at any subsequent stage of the
cause, prior to the commencement of the trial. When the trial has begun, there
are obvious reasons against stopping it; and it is, at least, within the
discretion of the court to let it proceed, and submit the two issues to the jury
together.

“How tried.—This question of present insanity is properly, and in
practice is generally, submitted to a jury; which may be either one of the
regular juries attending
on the court, or one specially impanelled for the
purpose. But this course is not imperative; the court has the discretion, on its
own inspection of the prisoner’s mental condition, and without the aid of a
jury’s finding, to decline the trial on the main issue, or direct the question
to be tried with the plea of not guilty.” (Vol. 2, sec. 666.)

“The time—to which this inquiry relates is, it is perceived, the
present—what is the mental condition now, not what it was when the offense was
committed. And—

“The test of insanity.—is not precisely the same as on the main
issue; it is whether the prisoner can make a rational defence.” (Vol. 2, sec.
667.)

“The evidence—it seems, need not be limited by the judge within
strict rules, its purpose being to enlighten a discretion. Thus, the prisoner
may be permitted to make statements and observations to the court and the jury,
and what they see and hear of him they may take into the account. He cannot
challenge jurors peremptorily, but he may for cause.

“The hearing—may probably, if deemed best, be private.

“The finding—on this preliminary question, that the prisoner is not
insane, is not receivable against him on the trial of the main issue.” (Vol. 2,
sec. 668.)

“Vol. 2t sec. 666, footnote.—Webber vs. C, 119 Pa., 223; 4
Am. St., 634; Crocker vs. S., 60 Wis., 553.) When William Freeman was
in 1846 tried for murder (New Crim. Law. I., sec. 376 [4], note), the first
inquiry was whether he was sufficiently sane to take his trial. (See, on this
and other particulars, P. vs. Freeman, Hall’s Trial of Freeman.) This question
was submitted to a jury as the more discreet course; though, in point of law, it
was deemed competent for the judge to adopt any other suitable method of
ascertaining the fact. (Freeman vs. P., 4 Denio, 9; 47 Am. Dec, 216.)
The verdict of the jury negatived the insanity; he was tried on the merits and
convicted; a new trial was granted; then, when he was about to be tried a second
time on the merits, the judge visited him in his cell, and there satisfied
himself of his present deranged condition, and without referring the question to
a jury, or making further public inquiry, refused to try him. (New Crim. Law.
I., sec. 376 [4], note, par. 9. See also Jones vs. S., 13 Ala., 153;
In re Ross, 38 La. Ann., 523; Marler vs. S., 67 Ala., 55, 42
Am. R., 95; Hoiss vs. S., 79 Wis., 513; McQuinn’s Petition, 65 N. H.,
84; Bennett vs. S., 57 Wis., 69; 46 Am. R., 26; French vs. S.,
85 W., 400; 39 Am. St., 855; P. vs. McElvaine, 125 N. Y., 596; Perry
vs. S., 87 Ala., 30.)”

Every person charged with the commission of a crime in the courts of these
Islands is entitled to the protection afforded by the presumption of innocence
until, and unless he is proved guilty in the course of a trial wherein he has a
constitutional right to be present at all stages of the proceedings; to be
confronted with and to cross-examine the witnesses against him; and to call
witnesses, and to appear and testify in his own behalf. And until final judgment
is entered, he is entitled to all the further benefits and protection secured to
accused persons by law, in both the trial and appellate courts. He may move for
a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence or error in the
proceedings. He may show cause why the prescribed penalty should not be imposed
upon him in case of conviction. He may submit argument in support of contentions
that a judgment of conviction should be modified or reversed. In a word, he is
entitled to a full and fair hearing upon the charges preferred against him.
Needless to say that none of these sacred rights are, or can be secured to one
who is insane, or of unsound mind at the time of his trial.

The decision of this court in the case at bar, while it declares that the
defendant committed the acts with which he is charged, relieves him of criminal
liability therefor; but since the accused, as the decision further declares, was
insane at the time of the trial, and is still insane, who knows whether if he
were in his right mind he might not be able to produce evidence which would
conclusively establish the fact that he did not commit the acts charged in the
information, and that he was not even present at the time and place mentioned
therein.

Instances of charges preferred against insane persons in order to draw
suspicion away from the real criminals are not unknown in the annals of criminal
jurisprudence. Sane persons have been known to lose their reason when made the
victims of conspiracies to secure their conviction upon unfounded, false, and
malicious criminal charges. Justice cannot be done by the form of a trial of
such persons while they are insane and wholly incompetent to. defend
themselves.

I submit that the intolerable wrong done to a person of unsound mind and to
his family by a solemn judgment that he committed acts which in a sane person
would amount to murder, rape, arson or some other heinous offense, if in fact he
did not commit such acts, is not cured by a further declaration that he
committed these acts while he was insane and that he is therefore relieved of
criminal liability therefor. And I submit further, that no such judgment can
properly be entered as a result of a criminal prosecution wherein the defendant
appears to be of unsound mind at the time of the trial.

I have found no modern authorities sustaining a contrary view to that set out
in the foregoing citations, and I am convinced that this court has been led into
error by a failure to distinguish between a defense set up by an accused person,
who is sane at the time of his trial, on the ground that he was insane at the
time when he committed the acts with which he is charged, and a plea advanced by
a counsel on behalf of an accused person that he is insane at the time of the
trial. I have urged my brethren in this case as well as in another similar case,
recently decided, not to content themselves with a judgment relieving the
accused of the criminal liability on the ground of insanity when he committed
the acts charged in the complaint, it affirmatively appearing that he was insane
at the time of the trial or pending his appeal to this court. It is for this
reason also that I have thought it worth while, for the benefit of the bench and
the bar, to set forth my views as to what I believe to be, at least, the better
practice to be followed in the trial courts, when a question arises as to the
sanity of the accused.

(1) When a defense of insanity at the time of the commission of the alleged
criminal acts is set up, but no question as to the sanity of the accused arises
at the time of the trial: The trial should, of course, proceed to judgment, and
if the defense of insanity is sustained, the accused should be declared to be
exempt from criminal responsibility.

(2) If it appears to the satisfaction of the court that the accused is insane
when his case is called for trial, no further proceedings should be had until,
and unless the accused recovers his reason, except such as may be necessary to
secure such detention and treatment of the insane person as the circumstance of
his mental derangement and the nature of the crime with which he is charged, may
require.

(3) If after the trial has commenced and before judgment has become final in
the Court of First Instance, it affirmatively appears to the satisfaction of the
trial judge that the accused is then insane, the criminal. prosecution should be
at once suspended and all proceedings had while the accused was of unsound mind,
other than those looking to the verification of these facts, should be declared
of no effect; appropriate measures should be taken to secure such detention and
treatment of the insane person as his mental derangement and the nature of the
offense with which he is charged may necessitate; and the information or
complaint should be dismissed, if there is no present prospect that the accused
will recover his reason, without prejudice to the right of the prosecution to
file a new complaint or information if, and when the accused is restored to
health.

(4) If upon appeal, it appears to the satisfaction of the appellate court
that the accused was insane at the time of the trial, like orders should be
issued by that court.

(5) If upon appeal, it affirmatively appears that the convict in the court
below, though sane at the time of his trial, has become insane pending his
appeal, the proceedings on appeal should be suspended until it appears that the
accused has recovered his reason, whereupon the proceedings on appeal should be
prosecuted to final judgment, affirming or reversing the judgment in the court
below. In this case also, appropriate orders should be issued looking to the
detention and treatment of the insane person pending the final outcome of the
proceedings.

(6) Proceedings in the nature of an inquiry as to the sanity of an accused
person at the time when such proceedings are had for the purpose of ascertaining
whether he is competent to defend himself, and whether he should be detained and
treated as an insane person, are to be sharply distinguished from the
proceedings had in the course of a criminal prosecution to determine whether a
defense that the accused was insane at the time when the alleged crime was
committed, is, or is not well founded.

The former class of proceedings are essentially civil in their nature, and
since they do not constitute an inquiry as to the guilt or innocence of the
defendant of a crime charged against him, and involved no question as to whether
the penalties prescribed in the Penal Code should or should not be imposed upon
him, it is not necessary that in the course of such proceedings the
constitutional guarantees, which are secured to all persons on trial for the
commission of a crime be extended to him. On the other hand, when the question
to be determined is that of the sanity or insanity of the accused at the time
when the alleged crime was committed, there being no question as to his sanity
at the time of the trial, the accused is entitled to the protection afforded by
the constitutional guarantees throughout the whole course of the
proceedings.