Westwood Driver Case Hinges on State Sanity Law

A prosecutor and a psychiatrist sparred over the legal definition of insanity Tuesday as a Santa Monica jury heard two experts testify that Daniel Lee Young was mentally ill--but legally sane--when he drove a car onto a crowded Westwood sidewalk last summer and mowed down nearly 50 people.

One of the court-appointed experts, psychiatrist John M. Stalberg, qualified his opinion by saying that jurors should find the 21-year-old Inglewood man to have been legally sane when he drove his brother’s car onto the sidewalk if they adopt a simplistic interpretation of the state’s sanity law.

But, Stalberg added, “if you interpret with a deeper meaning attributed to (the words) ‘nature’ and ‘quality’ (key parts of the legal definition), then I believe he would be considered insane.”

Stalberg’s two-part statement clearly irritated Deputy Dist. Atty. John H. Reid, who persuaded the Superior Court jury to convict Young last Friday of one count of first-degree murder and 48 counts of attempted murder as a result of the carnage on the Westwood Boulevard sidewalk on the evening of July 27, the day before the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics.

Because Young pleaded both not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity, the jury must now decide whether he was sane when he committed the crimes. Deliberations are expected to begin today.

100-Year Sentence Possible

If Young is found to have been legally sane, he could face a sentence of more than 100 years in prison. If he is ruled to have been insane, he will be committed indefinitely to a state mental hospital.

Reid asserted that the simplistic definition of sanity referred to by Stalberg is the only interpretation permitted under California law. The prosecutor repeatedly quoted sections of Stalberg’s written report on Young’s mental condition that bolstered the district attorney’s case.

Stalberg testily responded that Reid had misstated his position by failing to read the entire psychiatric opinion to the jury.

At the center of the argument is California’s legal standard for sanity--that a defendant, to be considered legally sane, must know and understand the nature and quality of his act and must be capable of distinguishing between right and wrong.

Less Stringent Test

In Young’s case, because of uncertainties over the legal status of that definition, Reid and Young’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Irwin Pransky, agreed to adopt a less stringent test. Instead of proving that Young neither knew right from wrong nor understood the nature of his actions, Pransky must prove only one of those conditions to show that his client was insane when he committed the crimes.

Young, who in recent years has been diagnosed several times as a paranoid schizophrenic who suffers from delusions, told police after the incident that he believed Congress had passed a law requiring him to live in abject poverty and to write hit songs and movies for others--including Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder--who would be paid and would receive credit for Young’s work. Young told authorities that he hit the pedestrians to call attention to this injustice.

Young understood that he would be prosecuted for driving his car into the pedestrians, Stalberg said, so in that sense knew that his action was legally wrong.

Thought It Was Justified

But because of his delusions, the psychiatrist said, Young believed that he was morally justified in driving into the crowd and, therefore, in a larger, moral sense, he did not appreciate the nature and quality of his action.

“If quality is defined as the way I define it, relative goodness and badness, Mr. Young saw (that) some relative goodness would come out of his act. . . . So if we use that as a definition for quality, then he’s insane.”

The second court-appointed expert who testified Tuesday was less equivocal.

Dr. Kaushal K. Sharma agreed with Stalberg that Young is a schizophrenic who suffers from severe delusions.

“In spite of that,” the psychiatrist testified, “he also knew that although he believed he was morally right, other people were not going to buy it. . . . He knew that society had a different standard.”