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Crawford v. State6/26/2002
ON DIRECT APPEAL
Tracy Crawford was found guilty, but mentally ill, for the murder of her husband and sentenced to sixty-five years imprisonment. She raises six issues for review, which we restate as five. She contends: (1) the trial court erred by allowing expert witnesses it appointed to examine her to be called out of order at trial; (2) the trial court erred by admitting her husband's journal into evidence; (3) the trial court erred by preventing her from calling rebuttal witnesses; (4) the trial court imposed an improper restitution order; and (5) the trial court imposed an improper sentence. We affirm Crawford's conviction for murder and remand with instructions to reduce Crawford's sentence to fifty-five years.
Factual and Procedural Background
On March 5, 2001, Crawford shot and killed her husband Kent while he slept in their Madison County home. After her attempt to dispose of his body failed, she drove off with the couple's child. A passerby stopped to aid Crawford's car, which was parked on the side of a Michigan road with "help" written on a diaper in the window. Crawford asked for the police and initially told investigating officers that a couple had broken into her home and abducted her and her son. She also asked the police to check on her husband.
Crawford later admitted that she had killed Kent. She told police that Kent had repeatedly abused her sexually and that he had threatened to take their child away when she told him she had filed for divorce. She admitted having taken the gun she used to kill Kent from her grandparents' home because she wanted to be able to protect herself. She shot Kent, she said, hours after he had forced her to perform oral sex.
The State charged Crawford with murder, and a jury found her guilty but mentally ill. The trial court imposed the maximum sentence of sixty-five years and awarded $9,960.40 to Kent's estate for funeral expenses.
I. Order of Witnesses
Indiana Code section 35-36-2-2 states that when a notice of insanity defense is filed, "the court shall appoint two (2) or three (3) competent disinterested psychiatrists, psychologists endorsed by the state psychology board as health service providers in psychology, or physicians, at least one (1) of whom must be a psychiatrist, to examine the defendant and to testify at trial." The statute is explicit as to when those appointed mental health professionals are to testify at trial: "This testimony shall follow the presentation of the evidence for the prosecution and for the defense, including testimony of any medical experts employed by the state or by the defense." Ind. Code ยง 35-36-2-2 (1998).
The meaning of this statute is not in doubt. Court-appointed mental health professionals are to testify after the prosecution and defense have concluded their presentations of evidence. We have held as much since at least 1954, when we stated that "it is the clear intent of the statute that an expert appointed by the court shall not be permitted to testify on the subject of the sanity or insanity of the accused until after the presentation of the evidence of the prosecution and the defense." Henderson v. State, 233 Ind. 598, 602, 122 N.E.2d 340, 342 (1954). In Blackburn v. State, 260 Ind. 5, 25, 291 N.E.2d 686, 698 (1973), this Court stated, "The reason for the final sentence in the statute . . . is clear. It relieves both parties of the burden of having the court-appointed physicians become their witnesses with the result that they would be bound by such testimony." In Palmer v. State, 486 N.E.2d 477, 482 (Ind. 1985), we held that " he statute requires that these witnesses be called following all the evidence presented
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