671 So. 2d 307 - State v. Armstrong’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

17 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Other evidence stressed by the district attorney was the fact that defendant did not attempt to kill, or even threaten, anyone but Rev. Neal and that he had sat in his car peacefully until he saw Rev. Neal enter the mortuary. Such behavior, however, is consistent with the delusion that Rev. Neal was the antiChrist and with the auditory hallucination telling defendant “That’s him.” The doctors who found defendant insane at the time of the crime commented that he was no danger to anyone but the antiChrist of his delusion. The fact that the policemen did not feel threatened was not inconsistent with that delusion or with the hallucinatory command. |mAs to defendant’s allegedly selective responses to hallucinatory voices, one telling him to kill and the other telling him later that killing is wrong, it was the very nature of defendant’s delusion that Rev. Neal was the anti-Christ that compelled defendant to send the anti-Christ to hell. Evidence that a person, in a psychotic state and operating under a long-standing delusion about the antiChrist, is unable to evaluate competing auditory hallucinations is hardly preponderating proof of ability to distinguish right from wrong. Moreover, the fact that defendant decapitated Rev. Neal in view of several police officers militates strongly against a conclusion that he knew he was doing wrong at the time. Indeed, the most significant evidence of ability to distinguish right, from wrong in many insanity defense cases is evidence of the ac”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 214 So. 3d 1001 - State v. Dangerfield

2. “In this case, this court cannot imagine a case wherein an insanity defense could possibly be more strong. Thus, the facts of the case simply do not support the conclusions of Dr. Mallik. This defendant was fifteen at the time of the crime, from a broken home in which both sides of his family had severe mental illnesses. He suffered organic brain damage at birth. He suffered a fractured skull at one year old. He was institutionalized by the age of six, and essentially diagnosed with schizophrenia by the age of eleven. He had little emotional support at home, and his own mother exhibited signs of schizophrenia. At the least, she exhibited signs of very poor judgment in bringing the defendant back to New Orleans and buying him a knife along the way. The father allowed him to be off of his anti-psychotie medication for over a year before the crime. He.was. suffering from delusions, hallucinations and ideas of persecution for some time preceding the crime. Although, admittedly, much of the evidence presented by the defense summarized his mental history prior to the crime and did not go to the ultimate fact of whether he understood right from wrong at the time of the offense, as explained 12?by the experts, many of the factors present in his life contributed to or exacerbated his proclivity to have been unable to differentiate" between right and wrong. He committed the crimes in broad daylight in front of many witnesses. He did not attempt to flee. He was found within minutes in a ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 214 So. 3d 1001 - State v. Dangerfield

3. “The reviewing court properly looks to the expert and lay testimony and to the defendant's actions. The factors pertinent to a review of expert testimony are wide-ranging. They include whether lay testimony controverting the expert opinion was offered, whether the experts specifically concluded that the defendant could not discern between right and wrong at the time of the crime, to what extent the expert testimony was premised on the selfserving revelations of the defendant, to what extent the expert analysis is controverted by other expert analysis, the duration of the expert's contact with the defendant and whether he had interviewed the defendant previous to the offense, the chronological proximity of the expert examination to the offense, and whether the experts were treating physicians. Insofar as the defendant's actions, such factors as whether the defendant fled, disposed of evidence, and deliberately planned and executed the offense are pertinent. (citations omitted)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 683 So. 2d 748 - State v. Pittman