Hugo Black

“ To explain the jury's rejection of Stewart's sole defense of insanity, with its consequent finding of guilt, on the ground, as a matter of assumption, that the jury was influenced by the two questions on which the verdict is reversed here, is to show less respect for the jury system than do the opponents of the system. [25] One does not have to accept all the encomia which opinions of this Court have showered on the jury's functions and values, not to attribute fecklessness to the twelve men and women chosen to sit in this murder case. ”

“ A third witness had examined in Stewart's hands, shortly before the killing, the gun which unimpugned ballastic evidence established fired the lethal shots. The testimony of a fingerprint expert, also unimpugned, linked Stewart to the killing. Nowhere in their opening or closing statements did experienced defense counsel ask the jury to doubt that Stewart was the killer: the whole of the defense was that Stewart was not responsible because insane. ”

“ At the third trial, in an apparent effort to bolster the contention of insanity, petitioner was placed upon the stand and asked a number of questions by defense counsel-a maneuver obviously made for the purpose of giving the jury an opportunity directly to observe the functioning of petitioner's mental processes in the hope that such an exhibition would persuade them that his memory and mental comprehension were defective. ”

“ Any attempt to impeach this defendant as a witness could therefore have related only to his demeanor on the stand, and, indeed, the majority below expressly rested its conclusion upon the view that the prosecution had the right under Raffel to test the genuineness of this sort of 'demeanor-evidence' by questions as to why it was not offered at previous trials. [12] But if Raffel could properly be read as standing for this proposition, such questions would be permissible in every instance, for whenever a witness takes the stand, he necessarily puts the genuineness of his demeanor into issue. ”

“ Similarly, even if the jury believed petitioner's 'testimony' was genuine, it might have thought that petitioner's condition was caused by a mental disease and concluded that it is unlikely that a disease that had manifested itself only one out of three times for exhibition at trial was active at the occasion of the homicide. ”

“ In connection with the defense of insanity, petitioner had introduced evidence of both mental disease and mental defect, as those terms are applied in the relevant law of the District of Columbia. [16] On the mental disease issue, the testimony was that petitioner was suffering from manic depressive psychosis, a disease which the record shows tends to fluctuate considerably in its manifestations from time to time. On the mental defect issue, the defense introduced evidence that petitioner had an intelligence level in the moronic class. ”

“ But under our system, a man is entitled to the findings of 12 jurors on evidence fairly and properly presented to them. Petitioner may not be deprived of his life until that right is accorded him. That right was denied here by the prosecutor's improper questions.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, whom Mr. Justice HARLAN and Mr. Justice WHITTAKER join, dissenting.
The result which the Court draws from its account of the trial seems not unreasonable. ”

“ The remaining three trial days were taken up, in large part, by the testimony of seven government witnesses put forward to rebut Stewart's defense of insanity. Two psychiatric experts testified that they had examined Stewart shortly after the killing in 1953 and found no mental defect or disease. A neighbor and friend of Stewart's who had known him for six years and seen him regularly during at least three years preceding 1953 testified that, on the basis of Stewart's conduct in his presence, he believed that Stewart was normal. ”

“ On his direct examination, Stewart testified that he did not know what kind of a building he was in, that he had never shot nobody but that the white folks told him he was supposed to kill; that he considered himself master, as far as the killing situation; that he was the monkey, the monkey with the tail; that he still remained to see that monkey with the tail; that he had been told to kill-his mind tells him to kill-and he was always going to kill until he conquered; that the good man upstairs say so ”

“ A. Well, as far as I concerned, nobody is married, as far as my way of understanding.
'Q. Do you have any children? A. I don't consider-I have none. She say I have some. I don't have none. If she say I have some, I guess I have to leave it to her. As far as my concern, I don't have none and I don't want none. ”