Goff, J.
Our criminal legal system rests on the basic assumption that humans are rational agents of free will with the ability to exercise conscious choice in their everyday actions. So, when an individual possesses “sufficient mental capacity to fully comprehend the character and consequences of a criminal act,” the law holds him responsible accordingly. Goodwin v. State, 96 Ind. 550, 563 (1883). The corollary to this maxim holds that “mental unsoundness does not merely mitigate the offence but excuses it.” Id. at 576. That is, a person is not responsible for his conduct “if, as a result of mental disease or defect, he was unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct at the time of the offense.” Ind. Code § 35-41-3-6(a) (2019).
The defendant here has long suffered from acute mental illness, having spent most of his life under psychiatric care for chronic paranoid schizophrenia and delusional disorder. After confessing to burning down two bridges (and attempting to burn another), he spent the next eleven years undergoing competency restoration before standing trial, only to be found guilty but mentally ill (GBMI) by a jury and sentenced to the maximum aggregate term of ninety years in prison—all despite expert consensus that he was legally insane.
Because the State presented insufficient demeanor evidence with which to rebut both the unanimous expert opinion and Payne’s well-documented history of mental illness, we reverse the GBMI conviction to find him not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI). On remand, we instruct the trial court, upon the State’s petition, to hold a hearing for Payne’s involuntary commitment under Indiana Code section 35-36-2-4.
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On review of a GBMI verdict, this Court will affirm the trial court’s decision “unless ‘the evidence is without conflict and leads only to the conclusion that the defendant was insane when the crime was committed.’” Barcroft v. State, 111 N.E.3d 997, 1002 (Ind. 2018) (citation omitted).
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In Barcroft, this Court affirmed the defendant’s GBMI conviction for the murder of her family pastor, citing her “deliberate, premeditated conduct in the weeks and days leading up to the crime,” along with her efforts to avoid detection of her criminal conduct during and after the crime. 111 N.E.3d at 1005. This “evidence of Barcroft’s demeanor—taken together with the flaws in the expert opinion testimony and the absence of a well-documented history of mental illness—was sufficient to support an inference of sanity.” Id. at 1008.
In distinguishing this case from Barcroft, Payne argues that evidence of his insanity “is overwhelming,” a finding confirmed by each of the court-appointed experts. Appellant’s Br. at 27. And “in light of his chronic schizophrenia and fixed delusion,” he insists, evidence of his demeanor is simply “not probative of sanity.” Id. at 20. To affirm the GBMI verdict, he contends, would conflict with the holding in Barcroft, effectively creating an “impossible standard of review.” Pet. to Trans. at 17. We agree.
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Here, the evidence leads only to the conclusion that Payne was insane at the time he committed the offenses.
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Here, all three court-appointed experts—two psychiatrists and a psychologist—unanimously opined that Payne suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and delusional disorder. Dr. Ashan Mahmood testified that “the records have been quite consistent” in showing Payne’s “long term mental illness,” an illness accompanied by a “pattern of delusions, hallucinations, non-adherence to medications,” and psychiatric treatment. Tr. Vol. 5, pp. 74–75. Payne’s schizophrenia and delusional disorder, Dr. Mahmood opined, ultimately precluded him from appreciating the wrongfulness of his actions at the time of the offenses. The other two experts, Dr. Rebecca Mueller and Dr. Jeffrey Huttinger, likewise concluded that Payne was legally insane when he committed the offenses. And Dr. Huttinger further explained that Payne’s demeanor, though superficially normal to a casual observer, was not necessarily inconsistent with schizophrenia when his actions were “driven by some type of delusion.” Id. at 112–18.
In Barcroft, as in this case, all three mental-health experts testified that the defendant was legally insane, unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions at the time of the crime. 111 N.E.3d at 999–1000. The Court, however, found several “flaws” and “inconsistencies” in the experts’ opinions. Id. at 1008. Conflicting diagnoses, inadequate document review, deficient psychiatric evaluations, and other issues, the Court concluded, “support[ed] the trial court’s rejection of Barcroft’s insanity defense.” Id. at 1006–08.
The record here, by contrast, reveals no discrepancies in diagnosis, no deficiency in evaluations, and no other substantive issues with the experts’ opinion. To be sure, Dr. Mahmood testified that he “d[id] not have a very strong opinion” of whether Payne “appreciated the wrongfulness of his conduct” at the time of the 2005 arson. Tr. Vol. 5, pp. 92–93. But this uncertainty arose in part from the comparatively stronger symptoms of psychosis Payne demonstrated at the time of the 2002 arson. Regardless, while conflicting expert testimony may create a presumption of sanity, a “conflict does not exist” when “one or several experts testify that the defendant was insane” and “another expert testifies that he or she is unable to give [such] an opinion” or, as here, a “strong” opinion. See Galloway v. State, 938 N.E.2d 699, 710 (Ind. 2010) (emphasis added). See also Lawson v. State, 966 N.E.2d 1273, 1279 (Ind. Ct. App. 2012) (same), trans. denied.
In short, this unanimous expert opinion laid a solid foundation for establishing Payne’s insanity. And the lack of “flaws” or “inconsistencies” in this expert opinion lends strong support to this conclusion. Cf. Barcroft, 111 N.E.3d at 1006–08.
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When, as here, there is no conflict in expert opinion, there must be other probative evidence from which to infer the defendant’s sanity. Id. at 1003. This may include evidence of the defendant’s demeanor at the time of the offense. Id. This evidence, which centers on the defendant’s actions and statements, may sufficiently prove the defendant’s sanity, even when expert witnesses conclude otherwise. Id. at 1004.
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Here, the prosecutor at trial introduced demeanor evidence to “show consciousness of guilt,” including Payne’s effort to avoid witnesses by acting late at night, his deceptive explanation to police that he had purchased the fuel found in his car for camping, and his attempt at establishing an alibi by presenting convenience store receipts. Tr. Vol. 5, pp. 199, 202–04. Standing alone, this evidence could, as in Barcroft, reasonably lead to an inference that Payne appreciated the wrongfulness of his conduct at the time of the offense.
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In Barcroft, this Court pointed to “the absence of a well-documented history of mental illness” to support an inference of sanity. 111 N.E.3d at 1008 (emphasis added). With only “periodic psychiatric assessments on an outpatient basis” and with no formal diagnosis of “schizophrenia, delusional disorder, or other acute mental illness,” Barcroft’s “questionable” history of mental illness (as her medical record described it) offered little evidentiary support for her insanity defense. Id.
Unlike Barcroft’s sparse medical record, Payne’s long history of mental illness is consistent and thoroughly documented.
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This well-documented and consistent history of mental illness, along with the unanimous expert opinion, fully undermines the probative value of any relevant demeanor evidence. And with no “reasonable [or] logical” inferences to draw from the evidence in support of the verdict, see Thompson, 804 N.E.2d at 1149, we come “only to the conclusion that [Payne] was insane when the crime[s were] committed,” see Galloway, 938 N.E.2d at 710 (citation omitted). Cf. Lawson, 966 N.E.2d at 1282 (opining that the “lack of a long-standing history of mental illness,” though not dispositive, may support an inference of sanity). To be sure, the “factfinder’s determination that ‘a defendant was not insane at the time of the offense warrants substantial deference from’ an appellate court.” Barcroft, 111 N.E.3d at 1003 (citation omitted). But this standard does not and should not deprive this Court of meaningful appellate review. To conclude otherwise would amount to an abdication of our constitutional duty. See Ind. Const. art. 7, § 4.
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Because the State presented insufficient demeanor evidence with which to rebut the unanimous expert opinion and evidence of Payne’s well-documented history of mental illness, we reverse the GBMI conviction to find Payne NGRI. On remand, we instruct the trial court to hold a hearing on the State’s petition for Payne’s commitment to “an appropriate facility” or “therapy program.” See I.C. § 35-36-2-4(a); I.C. § 12-26-6-8(a); I.C. § 12- 26-7-5(a).
Rush, C.J., and David, J., concur.
Massa, J., dissents with separate opinion in which Slaughter, J., joins.
Massa, J., dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from this opinion fundamentally misapplying the time-honored standard of review this Court recently reaffirmed in Barcroft v. State, 111 N.E.3d 997 (Ind. 2018). Today, the Court reverses a unanimous jury verdict rejecting the insanity defense, despite acknowledging the “‘substantial deference’” we should show that decision. Ante, at 4 (quoting Barcroft, 111 N.E.3d at 1002). Instead, because we shouldn’t undermine this factfinder’s determination “‘unless the evidence is without conflict and leads only to the conclusion that the defendant was insane when the crime was committed,’” ibid. (quoting Barcroft, 111 N.E.3d at 1002) (internal quotation marks omitted), we should affirm.
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The Court ultimately does not—and cannot—conclude that the evidence of Payne’s insanity is without conflict. Instead, it asserts that there is “no ‘reasonable [or] logical’ inferences to draw from the evidence in support of the verdict.” Ante, at 10 (quoting Thompson, 804 N.E.2d at 1149). But as noted above through the Court’s own words, the jury could reasonably and logically infer sanity based on Payne’s behavior before, during, and after the crimes. Indeed, the Court notes that Galloway cited “cases in which trial courts have found evidence of flight from police and evidence of cooperation with police both probative of a defendant’s sanity” and that Barcroft recognized “that the defendant’s decision to spare the life of a witness to the crime could reflect either insanity, as the experts opined, or ‘an understanding that killing is wrong.’” Ibid. at 8 (citing Galloway, 938 N.E.2d at 714; Barcroft, 111 N.E.3d at 1005). That demeanor evidence can often lead to different inferences underscores why we should leave this determination undisturbed.
In the end, the Court discounts the evidence of Payne’s demeanor, elevates the documentation of his mental illness, reweighs the conflicting evidence, and supplants the factfinder’s determination. I fear the Court’s opinion, by flouting our standard of review, quiets the immutable trust we place in factfinders and permits appellate courts to inconsistently establish rejected insanity defenses. Yes, our appellate review must mean something. See ibid. at 10 (“[T]his standard does not and should not deprive this Court of meaningful appellate review.”). But that oversight must uniformly flow from the proper standard of review. Because today’s opinion does not, I respectfully dissent.
Slaughter, J., joins.