United States v. Robert Douglas Stewart

This appeal follows a trial in which the appellant was convicted for stealing United States property. 18 U.S.C. § 641 . Seeking reversal, the appellant’s appointed counsel urges, most adroitly, that our court should adopt a new test of criminal responsibility and abandon Sauer v. United States, 241 F.2d 640 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 354 U.S. 940 , 77 S.Ct. 1405 , 1 L.Ed.2d 1539 (1957), and its progeny. The record, however, undermines the contention. It reveals that the District Judge, who presided without a jury, afforded the defense with every opportunity to present all its evi dence concerning the appellant’s mental capacity. The expert testimony offered by the defense is contained in a report written by an examining psychiatrist. This report was admitted as evidence by stipulation, and we have carefully reviewed it. The expert’s conclusions were simply to the effect that the appellant suffered from some type of neurosis and that he knowingly committed theft because he wanted to assert himself. There is no suggestion that he did not know right from wrong, or that his criminal act resulted from a mental disease or defect which, under any recognized mental test of criminal…