FSM v Pillias [2019] FMSC 25; 22 FSM R. 334 (Chk. 2019) (9 October 2019)

FSM SUPREME COURT TRIAL DIVISION
CRIMINAL CASE NO. 2017-1508

FEDERATED STATES OF MICRONESIA,
Plaintiff,

vs.

MAIRON PILLIAS,
Defendant.
__________________________________________

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

Larry Wentworth
Associate Justice

Hearing: September 17, and 26, 2019
Decided: September 26, 2019
Memorandum Entered: October 9, 2019

APPEARANCES:

For the Plaintiff: Mohammed Kutty, Jr., Esq.
Assistant Attorney General
FSM Department of Justice
P.O. Box F
Weno, Chuuk FM 96942

For the Defendant: Bethwell O’Sonis, Esq.
Kullian William
Office of the Public Defender
P.O. Box 814
Weno, Chuuk FM 96942

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HEADNOTES

Criminal Law and Procedure - Strict Liability Crime; Weapons - Weapons Control Act
The only elements needed for a successful 11 F.S.M.C. 1023(5) prosecution is that the firearm is something other than a .22 rile or a .410 shotgun and the defendant knows that he possesses a firearm. FSM v. Pillias, 22 FSM R. 334, 335 n.1 (Chk. 2019).

Criminal Law and Procedure - Defenses - Insanity; Criminal Law and Procedure - Standard of Proof; Evidence - Relevant
Evidence that the defendant suffered from a physical or mental disease, disorder, or defect is admissible whenever it is relevant to prove that the defendant did or did not have a state of mind which is an element of the crime. FSM v. Pillias, 22 FSM R. 334, 337 n.2 (Chk. 2019).

Criminal Law and Procedure - Strict Liability Crime; Weapons - Weapons Control Act
Unlawful firearms possession is almost a strict liability crime - the defendant need only know that he possesses a firearm, and in the case of prosecutions under 11 F.S.M.C. 1005, and that he does not possess a firearms identification card. FSM v. Pillias, 22 FSM R. 334, 338 (Chk. 2019).

Criminal Law and Procedure - Defenses - Insanity
Once the court had adopted the medical professionals’ conclusions and found that, when the defendant committed the crime, he was suffering from a mental disease, disorder, or defect - paranoid schizophrenia, even though, on occasion, that paranoid schizophrenia is circumscribed, the court could not take the approach that the defendant knew he possessed a firearm, and then found him guilty, and imposed the sentence the parties had agreed to in their plea agreement. FSM v. Pillias, 22 FSM R. 334, 338 (Chk. 2019).

Criminal Law and Procedure - Defenses - Insanity
No person can be convicted, sentenced, or otherwise punished for any crime committed while suffering from a physical or mental disease, disorder or defect, such that the disease, disorder or defect prevented that person from knowing the nature of the criminal act or that it was wrong. FSM v. Pillias, 22 FSM R. 334, 338 (Chk. 2019).

Criminal Law and Procedure - Defenses - Insanity; Criminal Law and Procedure - Standard of Proof; Evidence - Burden of Proof
"Clear and convincing evidence" is the standard of proof required to prove the existence of a defendant’s physical or mental disease, disorder, or defect. FSM v. Pillias, 22 FSM R. 334, 338 n.5 (Chk. 2019).

Criminal Law and Procedure - Defenses - Insanity; Criminal Law and Procedure - Standard of Proof
When the court has found that clear and convincing evidence proved the existence of the accused’s mental disease, disorder, or defect when he committed the crime, the court is required by statute to enter a judgment of acquittal due to mental disease, disorder, or defect. But the court’s responsibility does not end there. FSM v. Pillias, 22 FSM R. 334, 338-39 (Chk. 2019).

Criminal Law and Procedure - Defenses - Insanity
When a defendant is acquitted on the grounds of physical or mental disease, disorder, or defect excluding responsibility, the verdict and judgment must state that. FSM v. Pillias, 22 FSM R. 334, 339 (Chk. 2019).

Criminal Law and Procedure - Defenses - Insanity;
When the defendant is acquitted on the grounds of physical or mental disease, disorder, or defect excluding responsibility, the court will retain jurisdiction over the defendant for a period not exceeding the maximum time of imprisonment allowed for the crime. The court will, subject to the law governing civil commitment or conditional release of persons suffering from mental disease, disorder, or defect, order the defendant to be committed or released on such conditions as the court determines necessary, and the court may, at regular intervals, review the defendant’s condition and behavior and continue or revise any orders as the court determines necessary. FSM v. Pillias, 22 FSM R. 334, 339 (Chk. 2019).

Criminal Law and Procedure - Defenses - Insanity
A judgment in the defendant’s favor must reflect the physical or mental disease, defect, or disorder suffered by the defendant when the crime was committed, the defendant’s condition when the judgment is entered, and the course of treatment, if any is ordered. FSM v. Pillias, 22 FSM R. 334, 339 (Chk. 2019).

Criminal Law and Procedure - Defenses - Insanity
A court may enter a judgment of acquittal by reason of mental disease, disorder, or defect, despite the defendant’s earlier guilty plea, where the defendant was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia when he committed the crime; and if, at the time of the acquittal, the defendant is still suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, the court may include in its judgment of acquittal and its accompanying order of civil commitment, an order for a course of future treatment, and either party may, at any time, move to amend or revise this treatment order in any way deemed necessary. FSM v. Pillias, 22 FSM R. 334, 339-40 (Chk. 2019).

Criminal Law and Procedure - Defenses - Insanity
If the court ascertains upon competent medical or other evidence, that, when the accused committed the crime charged, he was so insane as not to know the nature and quality of his act, the court must record a finding of such fact and may make an order pursuant to section 6 F.S.M.C. 1802, which authorizes courts to commit an insane person to any hospital for the care and keeping of the insane. Custody by the Chuuk Department of Public Safety and treatment by the Chuuk State Behavioral and Wellness Clinic at the Chuuk Hospital was the closest the court could come to commitment to a hospital for the care and keeping of the insane. FSM v. Pillias, 22 FSM R. 334, 340 (Chk. 2019).

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COURT’S OPINION

LARRY WENTWORTH, Associate Justice:

On September 17, and 26, 2019, defendant Mairon Pillias appeared personally and with counsel, and the government appeared through counsel, for a scheduled (but much-postponed) sentencing hearing. Despite Pillias’s earlier guilty plea to illegal possession of a firearm, the court acquitted him of that charge by reason of his mental disease, disorder, or defect (paranoid schizophrenia) when he committed the crime. 11 F.S.M.C. 302(1). This memorandum further memorializes and explains the court’s reasoning for proceeding as it did.

I. CASE HISTORY

On July 17, 2017, defendant Mairon Pillias was charged by information with unlawfully possessing a firearm (a handgun), Count I, 11 F.S.M.C. 1005;^[1] unlawfully possessing ammunition, Count II, 11 F.S.M.C. 1005; and unlawfully carrying a firearm, Count III, 11 F.S.M.C. 1007, in connection with a July 6, 2017 shooting in Nepukos, Weno. A penal summons was issued.

At Pillias’s July 21, 2017 initial appearance, the court released him on his own recognizance, subject to certain conditions, and issued a scheduling order afterwards. The court set November 2, 2017, to hear any pretrial motions, and, if none were filed, then the court would take Pillias’s plea at that time, and, if a not guilty plea was entered, proceed immediately to trial. There were no pretrial motions. On November 2, 2017, Pillias, pursuant to a plea agreement, pled guilty to Count I, unlawfully possessing a firearm, 11 F.S.M.C. 1005, and the government moved to dismiss Counts II and III. The court, after conducting a Rule 11 colloquy, accepted the plea, dismissed Counts II and III, and set sentencing for that December. The plea agreement envisioned a one year suspended sentence with the usual conditions.

The court was unavailable in December. Sentencing was reset for early 2018. In mid-January, 2018, Pillias was charged in state court with having just that month committed several extremely serious felonies (including homicide). That court confined him pretrial in the Chuuk state jail. He has remained there ever since. Sometime later, it came to the court’s (and the prosecution’s) attention that Pillias may have some mental problems. Various sentencing dates were, with defense counsel’s agreement, continued so that Pillias could be psychologically evaluated before sentencing. Finally, in December 2018, Dr. Victor Harold Wasson was able to evaluate Pillias. Dr. Wasson concluded that Pillias was suffering from schizophrenia (paranoid type) and was under the influence of mental illness when he committed the alleged offense and that Pillias was also not fit to plead in court.

Finding what it considered inconsistencies in Dr. Wasson’s written evaluation, the government, with defense counsel’s agreement, wanted to seek a second opinion. The court permitted this. The government arranged for Pillias’s evaluation by a clinical and forensic psychologist, Dr. Marvin Wilson Acklin, Ph.D., of Honolulu, who examined Pillias on September 13, and 14, 2019. Dr. Acklin prepared an extensive written report, which was admitted into evidence.^[2] Dr. Acklin testified at the September 16, 2019 hearing. Dr. Acklin was of the opinion that when Pillias committed the crime charged in the Information, his mental capacity was impaired by paranoid schizophrenia, but that when he negotiated his plea agreement and appeared, on November 2, 2017, at his plea hearing he was competent to participate in that proceeding because his schizophrenia was, and is, circumscribed - at times, Pillias can rationally focus on the small task before him. Dr. Acklin further concluded that, if subjected to treatment, including medication, Pillias’s condition should improve although his prognosis was "guarded to fair."

The court accepted Dr. Acklin’s conclusions and made findings along those lines - that when Pillias committed the crime charged, he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, but that when he negotiated his plea agreement and appeared at his November 2, 2017 plea hearing he was competent to participate in that proceeding because his schizophrenia was circumscribed. The court ordered both sides to file, no later than September 24, 2019, their recommendations on what form the proceedings should take from there and how the court should then proceed, including what power or authority the court might have to make any such orders they might recommend. The court then recessed Pillias’s sentencing hearing until September 26, 2019.

The Government’s Recommendations Regarding Form of Proceeding, filed September 24, 2019, suggested that the FSM might lack the statutory provisions to incarcerate Pillias but the court, nevertheless, should enforce the plea agreement, since Pillias was competent or sane enough to execute it (for which a competency hearing could be convened, if there was doubt), but have Pillias serve that one year sentence in the Chuuk state jail with his intermittent medical needs provided by the Chuuk State Behavioral and Wellness Clinic. In the Defendant’s Sentencing Memorandum, filed September 24, 2019, the defense proposed that the court order the Chuuk State Behavioral and Wellness Clinic to assume responsibility for Pillias’s medical needs and that the court issue a treatment order for Pillias’s rehabilitation. The defense asserted that the court had the prerogative to consider the protection of the public and the victims’ need to be safe. During the September 26, 2019 hearing urged the court to accept the plea agreement and to impose further probationary conditions if Pillias was to be released to a family member whenever that became possible.

During the September 26, 2019 hearing, the government called two witnesses. The first, Dr. Yoster Ichiro, a general medicine doctor at the Chuuk State Hospital, had worked at the Chuuk State Behavioral and Wellness Clinic for almost five years. He testified that the Chuuk State Behavioral and Wellness Clinic had a manageable number of patients, and, although it did not have a professional psychiatrist, the FSM national government psychiatrist came through all the states on a quarterly basis. The second witness was a relative who testified about the family situation where Pillias had been living before the state court confined him to jail and that his parents are Guam residents (which he also was before he was expelled from Guam. He also testified about Pillias’s confinement conditions at the jail separate from the other prisoners and arrestees and that the family takes him food.

II. CASE’S DISPOSITION

During the September 26, 2019 hearing, the court considered convicting Pillias on his guilty because the charge to which he competently pled was unlawful firearms possession, which is almost a strict liability crime - the defendant need only know that he possesses a firearm, and in the case of prosecutions under 11 F.S.M.C. 1005, and that he does not possess a firearms identification card. If the court had followed this approach, it could then have imposed the sentence the parties had agreed to in their plea agreement, but required that the year be served in the state jail and that Pillias be given psychiatric treatment there.

However, that is not an approach the court could take once it had adopted the medical professionals’ conclusions and found that, at the time Pillias committed the crime, he was suffering from a mental disease, disorder, or defect^[3] - paranoid schizophrenia, even though, on occasion, that paranoid schizophrenia is circumscribed.

The Revised Criminal Code’s extensively rewritten criminal responsibility provision^[4] is clear. It provides that "[n]o person shall be convicted, sentenced, or otherwise punished for any crime committed while suffering from a physical or mental disease, disorder or defect, such that the disease, disorder or defect prevented that person from knowing the nature of the criminal act or that it was wrong." 11 F.S.M.C. 302(1).

Since the court had found that clear and convincing evidence^[5] proved the existence of Pillias’s mental disease, disorder, or defect when he committed the crime, the court was required by statute to, and did, enter a judgment of acquittal due to mental disease, disorder, or defect. 11 F.S.M.C. 302(4). But the court’s responsibility does not end there. The Revised Criminal Code imposes further duties upon the court. First,

When the defendant is acquitted on the grounds of physical or mental disease, disorder, or defect excluding responsibility, the verdict and judgment shall so state. If the court determines that a person accused of a felony was suffering from such a condition at the time of the criminal conduct, judgment in favor of the defendant shall be entered and:

(a) the court shall retain jurisdiction over the accused for a period not to exceed the maximum time of imprisonment allowed for the crime;

(b) the court shall, subject to the law governing civil commitment or conditional release of persons suffering from physical or mental disease, disorder, or defect, order the defendant to be committed or released on such conditions as the court determines necessary; or

(c) the couy, at regular interintervals, review the condition and behavior of the defendant and continue or revise any orders as the court determines necessary.

Accordingly, the court, on September 26, 2019, entered a Judgment of Acquittal by Reason of Mental Disease, Disorder, or Defect, in which it noted that Mairon Pillias was, despite his earlier plea of guilty to illegal possession of a firearm, acquitted of that charge because he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia when he committed the crime, and that, at the time of the acquittal, he was still suffering from that mental disease, disorder, or defect.

The court therefore included in its September 26, 2019 Judgment of Acquittal and its accompanying Order of Civil Commitment, an order for the following course of future treatment:

Since Mairon Pillias was still suffering from circumscribed paranoid schizophrenia (but was competent to understand and participate in the proceedings) and since the crime he was accused of was a felony, the court committed Mairon Pillias to the custody of the Director of the Department of Public Safety, or his authorized representative, for an indefinite period of time, not to exceed ten years. This confinement is limited to a maximum ten years since ten years is the maximum time allowed by 11 F.S.M.C. 302(4)(a) because, under 11 F.S.M.C. 1031(2), ten years is the maximum time of imprisonment that the court can impose on a person convicted of violating 11 F.S.M.C. 1005.

The court further ordered that, while committed to the Director of the Department of Public Safety’s custody, the Chuuk State Behavioral and Wellness Clinic should accept Mairon Pillias as a patient, and should give him frequent and regular treatment, including medication if indicated, and monitoring.

The court also ordered that the parties must, at least every three months, file with the court, a report concerning the patient Pillias’s treatment and progress. The report will be due two weeks after the national government’s clinical psychiatrist has made his quarterly visit to Chuuk. The court further noted that, when and if Mairon Pillias’s mental condition improves enough that the medical professionals recommend his conditional release from confinement, the court would then impose such conditions, similar to probation, that would help assure the safety and protection of the public, the victims, and the patient himself, and that will assist Pillias’s continued improvement or recovery.

And the court ordered that, to improve the patient’s chances of successful treatment or recovery, the Chuuk Department of Public Safety should attempt to ameliorate Mairon Pillias’s living conditions (e.g.; by providing proper bedding) and to facilitate his treatment by the Chuuk State Behavioral and Wellness Clinic, as directed by the clinic.

Lastly, either party may, at any time, move to amend or revise this treatment order in any way deemed necessary. See 11 F.S.M.C. 302(4)(c). This ten-year commitment was made with the hope, but not the certain expectation since his prognosis was only "guarded to fair," that Pillias may recover sufficiently to be released into the community where his condition might, under medical and other supervision, continue to improve.

Pillias’s detention, and treatment, is also authorized by 12 F.S.M.C. 901, which provides that if the court ascertains, "upon competent medical or other evidence," that, when the accused committed the crime charged, he "was so insane as not to know the nature and quality of his act, the court shall record a finding of such fact and may make an order pursuant to section 1802 of title 6 of this code."^[6] And 6 F.S.M.C. 1802(1) authorizes courts to commit "an insane person . .&#1to any hospital for ther the care and keeping of the insane." Custody by the Department of Public Safety and treatment by the Chuuk State Behavioral and Wellness Clinic at the Chuuk Hospital is the closest the court could come to commitment to a "hospital for the care and keeping of the insane."

III. CONCLUSION

Accordingly, Mairon Pillias was acquitted because he was suffering from a mental disease, disorder, or defect (paranoid schizophrenia) that excluded responsibility, 11 F.S.M.C. 302(1), and since he is still suffering from that condition, he is confined, 11 F.S.M.C. 302(4)(b), for an indefinite period, not to exceed ten years, 11 F.S.M.C. 302(4)(a), and a course of medical treatment is ordered. Because this appears to be the first application of the new Title 11, chapter 3 since the Revised Criminal Code became law on January 25, 2001, the court provides this expanded memorandum of decision as it may be useful or instructive in future cases in which 11 F.S.M.C. 302 might come into play.

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^[1] Why the government sometimes prosecutes persons, who possess handguns or other firearms which are not possible to own legally, under 11 F.S.M.C. 1005 instead of 11 F.S.M.C. 1023(5) is something of a mystery. A necessary element of 11 F.S.M.C. 1005 is that the offender not possess a firearms identification card issued by the national government, but such cards are not obtainable for weapons that cannot be legally owned. It would seem this might present some future difficulty in contested prosecutions. The only elements needed for a successful 11 F.S.M.C. 1023(5) prosecution is that the firearm is something other than a .22 rile or a .410 shotgun and the defendant knows that he possesses a firearm.

^[2] "Evidence that the defendant suffered from a physical or mental disease, disorder, or defect is admissible whenever it is relevant to prove that the defendant did or did not have a state of mind which is an element of the crime." 11 F.S.M.C. 303.

^[3] Since the court is unsure whether paranoid schizophrenia is technically classified as a mental disease, or a mental disorder, or possibly a mental defect, the court lists all three since paranoid schizophrenia is at least one, if not more, of these alternate possible conditions that, under 11 F.S.M.C. 302, exclude a person’s criminal responsibility.

^[4] When Congress enacted the Revised Criminal Code, it repealed the old Criminal Code’s chapter 3, and enacted an almost entirely new chapter 3.

^[5] "Clear and convincing evidence" is the standard of proof required to prove the existence of a defendant’s "physical or mental disease, disorder, or defect." See 11 F.S.M.C. 302(3).

^[6] Congress did not revise or reword 12 F.S.M.C. 901 or 6 F.S.M.C. 1802 when it revised the Criminal Code [Title 11]. If it had, any revision would likely have discarded the now outmoded term "insane" in favor of the terminology now used in 11 F.S.M.C. 302, 303, 304, and 305.