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2007-0265. State v. Fulmer, Slip Opinion No. 2008-Ohio-936.
Lake App. No. 2005-L-137, 2006-Ohio-7015. Judgment reversed and cause remanded.
Moyer, C.J., and O'Connor, O'Donnell, Lanzinger, and Cupp, JJ., concur.
Pfeifer and Lundberg Stratton, JJ., dissent and would dismiss the appeal as having been improvidently accepted.
Opinion: http://www.supremecourtofohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/0/2008/2008-Ohio-936.pdf
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(March 12, 2008)In a ruling issued today, the Supreme Court of Ohio held that in criminal cases where a defendant asserts the “functional equivalent of a diminished capacity defense,” trial court judges should instruct jurors to disregard the evidence used to support that defense unless the defendant can demonstrate that the evidence is relevant and probative for purposes other than a diminished capacity defense.
The Court’s 5-2 decision, which reversed a ruling of the 11th District Court of Appeals, was authored by Justice Maureen O’Connor.
The case involved a physical confrontation between Andrew Fulmer of Eastlake and three police officers who were dispatched to check on his condition after Fulmer called his former fiance and indicated that he had taken some unidentified pills. When the officers arrived at his location and attempted to question him about his recent actions and condition, Fulmer, who was still on the phone with his ex-fiance, became increasingly agitated, spoke aggressively to the officers and eventually attempted to leave the scene, pushing an officer who blocked his path. The officers then attempted to take him into custody, and Fulmer resisted violently. Before being subdued, Fulmer fought with all three officers for several minutes, kicking and punching them repeatedly and striking one officer in the back of the head with a flashlight. He was subsequently charged with one count of felonious assault and two counts of assault.
During his jury trial, Fulmer’s attorney cross-examined a doctor called by the state to testify about the officers’ injuries. The defense lawyer elicited from that witness a statement that ingesting a large overdose of aspirin could alter a person’s blood acidity levels to the point of inducing a state of “metabolic derangement” in which a person’s brain would not function normally, and the person might not act rationally.
In his instructions to the jury, the trial judge advised jurors that because Fulmer had not entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, and because Ohio does not recognize the partial defense of “diminished capacity,” they should “disregard any evidence of the defendant’s medical condition” in determining whether he committed assault, a crime that requires a finding that the defendant acted “knowingly.” The jury convicted Fulmer on all three counts, and the court sentenced him to four years in prison.
On review, the 11th District Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s judgment and vacated Fulmer’s conviction. The appellate panel ruled 2-1 that the jury instruction to disregard “all evidence” concerning the defendant’s medical condition effectively allowed jurors to find Fulmer guilty without making the required finding that he acted “knowingly.”
The Lake County prosecutor’s office appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the court of appeals’ decision should be reversed because it effectively required the trial court to allow Fulmer to employ the impermissible defense of diminished capacity.
Writing for the Court in today’s decision, Justice O’Connor rejected the judgment and legal analysis of the 11th District as “patently wrong.”
Citing a line of prior Supreme Court decisions including State v. Jackson (1972), State v. Wilcox (1982) and State v. Cooey (1989), Justice O’Connor wrote: “Our jurisprudence definitively states that the partial defense of diminished capacity is not recognized in Ohio. ... (W)hen a defendant does not assert an insanity defense, it is well settled that he may not offer expert testimony in an effort to show that he lacked the mental capacity to form the specific mental state required for a particular crime. Despite the clarity of our law, the court of appeals reversed the trial court’s decision to exclude the evidence of metabolic derangement from the jury’s consideration. It erroneously found that the evidence was relevant and probative.”
“[The doctor’s] testimony was not relevant to the jury’s consideration because, as the trial court and the dissenting judge on the court of appeals correctly recognized, Ohio law does not permit the jury to consider a defendant’s alleged diminished capacity. Here, Fulmer’s counsel suggested ‘the functional equivalent’ of a diminished capacity defense. ... It was not proper to do so. In cases in which a defendant asserts the functional equivalent of a diminished capacity defense, the trial court should instruct the jury to disregard the evidence used to support that defense unless the defendant can demonstrate that the evidence is relevant and probative for purposes other than a diminished capacity defense. Here, there was no such showing, and the trial court properly instructed the jury.”
Justice O’Connor noted that, because the court of appeals overturned Fulmer’s convictions based on its erroneous ruling with regard to the jury instruction, it did not review or decide other allegations of trial court error that were raised by Fulmer in his appeal. Accordingly, Justice O’Connor wrote, “(W)e reverse the court of appeals’ decision and remand this cause to that court to consider Fulmer’s remaining claims of error.”
The majority opinion was joined by Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer and Justices Terrence O’Donnell, Judith Ann Lanzinger and Robert R. Cupp. Justices Paul E. Pfeifer and Evelyn Lundberg Stratton dissented, stating that they would dismiss the case as having been improvidently accepted for Supreme Court review.
Contacts
Karen A. Sheppert, 440.350.2683, for the State of Ohio and Lake County prosecutor’s office.
R. Paul LaPlante, 440.350.3200, for Andrew Fulmer.