stating that alcoholism is not a personality disorder or an abnormality "manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise antisocial conduct" excluded from the definition of mental disease or defect under Or.Rev.Stat. § 161.295(2)
How later courts described this case
- stating that alcoholism is not a personality disorder or an abnormality "manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise antisocial conduct" excluded from the definition of mental disease or defect under Or.Rev.Stat. § 161.295(2)
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
DE MUNIZ, J.,
concurring.
The majority holds that “alcohol abuse” is a mental disease for purposes of PSRB jurisdiction and that there is substantial evidence that petitioner suffers from alcohol abuse. The dissent concludes to the contrary on the basis of persuasive legislative history that the legislature did not intend the definition of mental disease in ORS 161.295 and the PSRB statutes to include alcohol abuse. 1 Although I agree with the dissent’s conclusion as to the legislature’s intent, I write separately because I would not permit petitioner to argue at the PSRB hearing that his alcohol abuse is not a mental disease.
In Hampton Tree Farms, Inc. v. Jewett, 320 Or 599, 609-10 , 892 P2d 683 (1995), the Supreme Court described the concept of “judicial estoppel” as a common-law equitable principle designed “ ‘to protect the judiciary, as an institution, from the perversion of judicial machinery.’ ” Id. at 609 (quoting Edwards v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 690 F2d 595, 599 (6th Cir 1982)). The court indicated that the doctrine may be invoked to “preclude a party from assuming a position in a judicial proceeding that is inconsistent with the position that the same party has successfully asserted in a different judicial proceeding.” Id. Although the state has not sought to rely on judicial estoppel to preclude petitioner’s argument here, I believe it is incumbent on this court to give notice that petitioner’s blatant attempt at manipulation of the judicial process violates the principle of judicial estoppel.
*208 Petitioner is an alcoholic. While at a DMV office in Portland, petitioner stabbed a bystander with a pocket knife inflicting serious injuries. Petitioner told the police and various medical doctors and treatment providers that he stabbed the victim because he believed the victim was member of a gang that was plotting his murder and had pursued him to the DMV office. At trial on the charges of attempted murder and assault in the first degree, petitioner sought to avoid criminal responsibility for his act by claiming that at the time he stabbed the victim he was suffering from alcohol-induced delusions that constituted a mental disease or defect under ORS 161.295. 2 The trial court accepted petitioner’s mental disease defense, entered a judgment of guilty except for insanity, and placed petitioner under the jurisdiction of the PSRB for a period of 40 years. However, less than a year after the judgment was entered petitioner sought his discharge from PSRB jurisdiction.
At the hearing before the PSRB, petitioner claimed that his alcohol abuse is not a mental disease but a personality disorder or an abnormality manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise antisocial conduct, and, therefore, excluded from the definition of mental disease under ORS 161.295 3 — the very statute petitioner relied on initially to avoid responsibility for his criminal act nine months earlier. Petitioner, thus, originally claimed that his alcohol abuse was a mental disease and used it as a shield to avoid criminal responsibility. Now, in order to gain his freedom, he takes the exact opposite approach, arguing that his alcohol abuse is not a mental disease. As noted above, judicial estoppel is intended to preclude a party from assuming a position in one judicial proceeding that is inconsistent with the position the same party successfully asserted in a different judicial proceeding. I would hold, on the basis of judicial estoppel, that *209 petitioner’s reliance at trial on the defense that his alcohol-induced delusions constituted a mental disease under ORS 161.295 precludes him from now arguing that his alcohol abuse is not a mental disease under ORS 161.295.
Petitioner’s only challenge to the evidence is that there is no evidence of a mental disease. 4 As to that argument, there is substantial evidence to support the PSRB’s finding of alcohol abuse. Consequently, I would affirm the PSRB’s order.
Armstrong and Wollheim, JJ., join in this concurrence.
Although not mentioned by either the majority or the dissent, it is interesting to note that ORS 161.125(1) provides, in part, that voluntary intoxication is not a defense to a criminal charge. In light of that statute, it is difficult to understand how alcohol-induced delusions could legitimately constitute a mental disease defense.
Prom the record, it is unclear whether petitioner’s delusions were the result of severe alcohol intoxication or the withdrawal from alcohol. In either event, it is fair to say that petitioner’s delusions about the innocent stranger he stabbed were alcohol induced.
ORS 161.295(2) provides, in relevant part, that the terms “mental disease or defect” do not include an abnormality manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise antisocial conduct, nor do they include any abnormality constituting solely a personality disorder.
I note that petitioner does not contend that he no longer presents a substantial danger to others. ORS 161.346(l)(a).