United States v. Brawner

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
471 F.2d 969 (1972)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if, at the time of such conduct, as a result of mental disease or defect, they lack substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of their conduct or to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law.

Facts:

After a day of drinking wine, Archie W. Brawner, Jr. attended a party with his uncle.
During the party, Brawner was injured in a fight, sustaining a broken jaw around 10:30 p.m.
Following the fight, Brawner left the party angry, bleeding, and visibly agitated, telling his uncle he had been jumped and telling another witness that 'someone is going to die tonight.'
Other witnesses observed him looking 'out of his mind,' staggering, and pounding on a mailbox with his fist.
Approximately half an hour later, Brawner returned to the building with a gun.
Brawner went to the apartment where the party was held and fired five shots through the closed metal door.
Two of the shots struck and killed Billy Ford, who was inside the apartment.
An arresting officer who encountered Brawner minutes later testified that he appeared normal and not drunk.

Procedural Posture:

Archie Brawner was tried in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on charges including first-degree murder.
At trial, Brawner raised the insanity defense.
The trial judge granted a motion for a judgment of acquittal on the charge of first-degree murder.
A jury found Brawner guilty of second-degree murder and carrying a dangerous weapon.
Brawner appealed his conviction to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
After the case was argued before a three-judge panel, the court on its own motion (sua sponte) ordered the case to be reheard by the full court (en banc) to reconsider the jurisdiction's standard for the insanity defense.

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Issue:

Should the 'product' test for the insanity defense, which holds that an accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act was the product of a mental disease or defect, be replaced by the American Law Institute's (ALI) test?

Opinions:

Majority - Leventhal

Yes, the 'product' test for the insanity defense established in Durham v. United States is abandoned and replaced with the American Law Institute's (ALI) Model Penal Code test. The Durham rule's 'product' formulation led to an undue dominance of expert witnesses in the courtroom, often resulting in conclusory testimony that encroached upon the jury's function to make the ultimate moral, legal, and medical judgment regarding criminal responsibility. The ALI test, which focuses on a defendant's 'substantial capacity' to appreciate wrongfulness or conform conduct, provides a standard that is more understandable for juries, experts, and lawyers, fostering better communication and preserving the jury's role as the final arbiter. The court also holds that the definition of 'mental disease or defect' from McDonald v. United States—'any abnormal condition of the mind which substantially affects mental or emotional processes and substantially impairs behavior controls'—will be retained and applied to the new ALI standard. Furthermore, the court overrules its precedent in Fisher v. United States, establishing that evidence of an abnormal mental condition, even if insufficient for a full insanity defense, is admissible to negate the specific intent required for certain crimes, such as the premeditation and deliberation elements of first-degree murder.

Concurring-in-part-and-dissenting-in-part - Bazelon

Yes, the Durham formulation should be abandoned, but adopting the ALI test is an anticlimactic change of form rather than substance that fails to address the true failings of the insanity defense. The key failure of Durham was not its wording but the practical obstacles that prevent a meaningful inquiry, such as the continued dominance of experts and the disadvantages faced by indigent defendants. The ALI test merely hides the problematic 'productivity' question within new, equally ambiguous terms like 'substantial capacity' and 'appreciate,' which will not stop experts from offering conclusory opinions that usurp the jury's function. A better approach would be an instruction that candidly tells the jury its role is to determine if the defendant's mental or emotional impairment was so great that he cannot justly be held responsible. This would directly focus the jury on the ultimate moral question of blameworthiness, rather than hiding that question behind pseudo-scientific legal formulas.

Analysis:

This landmark decision officially ended the D.C. Circuit's influential eighteen-year experiment with the Durham 'product' test for insanity, aligning the jurisdiction with the overwhelming majority of federal circuits that had adopted the ALI standard. By shifting the focus from the vague concept of causation ('product') to the defendant's functional capacity, the court sought to reduce the power of conclusory expert testimony and empower the jury to make a more informed, commonsense judgment on criminal responsibility. The case is also critically important for prospectively adopting the doctrine of diminished capacity, allowing expert testimony on a defendant's mental condition to negate the specific mens rea for a charged offense, even if the condition does not meet the threshold for a full insanity defense. This dual holding reshaped two fundamental areas of criminal law jurisprudence in the D.C. Circuit.

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