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State v. Brown5/25/1999
nstant speed, traveling first at 40-45 miles per hour and then, minutes later, at 70 miles per hour. His car was swerving and weaving on the highway. He crossed a median from southbound to northbound Highway 63 and began driving up the northbound exit for Ashland, Missouri. Changing his mind, he backed his car down the exit and across the northbound lanes of traffic before proceeding northbound. At one point he flipped his car, and the car's airbag deployed. Rather than stop driving, however, Brown punched the airbag down, restarted the car, and continued driving. Brown hit Derek Perry's vehicle, and then pulled up out of a ditch and attempted to drive further, until he drove his car up a guardrail.
"Such driving constitutes a conscious disregard of an unjustifiable risk and a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would use. The resulting [accident] demonstrates the risk and the consequences of disregarding it." State v. Applewhite, 771 S.W.2d 865, 868 (Mo. App. 1989). Given the evidence before it, we believe that the jury could have reasonably inferred that Brown's erratic driving caused the accident which resulted in Ms. Scott's injuries. Point IV is denied.
V. Mental Disease or Defect
Additionally, Brown claims that the trial court erred in refusing to give his requested Instruction B because the evidence raised the issue of mental disease or defect sufficiently to require that the jury be permitted to consider whether mental disease or defect prevented Brown from having the requisite culpable mental state for the offense of assault in the second degree. Brown's requested Instruction B read, "You may consider evidence that the defendant had or did not have a mental disease or defect in determining whether the defendant had the state of mind required to be guilty of murder in the second degree." The trial court refused to give the jury this instruction on the ground that there was no evidence of a mental disease or defect which could negate a required culpable mental state.
The defendant is presumed to be without a mental disease or defect which would exclude him from responsibility for his conduct. section 552.030.6, RSMo 1994. The defendant has the burden of establishing he indeed suffers from a mental disease or defect which exculpates him from criminal responsibility. State v. Moss, 789 S.W.2d 512, 514 (Mo. App. 1990).
The trial court has considerable discretion when ruling on whether to allow the defense of mental disease or defect. State v. Isa, 850 S.W.2d 876, 886 (Mo. banc 1993). However, once substantial evidence of a mental disease or defect has been introduced, " he issue of whether [the defendant] had a mental disease or defect excluding responsibility for his conduct is one for the trier of fact . . . ." section 552.030.6, RSMo 1994. Substantial evidence is sufficient evidence from which the trier of fact could have reasonably decided the issue. State v. Peoples, 962 S.W.2d 921, 924 (Mo. App. 1998). Thus, our query in this case is whether Brown presented substantial evidence of a mental disease or defect, warranting the submission of Instruction B to the jury.
The defense presented some witnesses whose testimony suggested that Brown had a history of seizures. Dr. Edgar Ailor, an ear, nose, and throat specialist, testified he was called to the emergency room at Columbia Regional Hospital on December 6, 1996, a week before the collision in question, to see Brown because of "lacerations of both the right and left side of his tongue nd active bleeding from his tongue." Dr. Ailor applied eight sutures to the left side of Brown's tongue and four sutures on the right. Brown told Dr. Ailor that Brown's in
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