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Choisnet v. State

The evidence was far from clear as to whether the defendant acted as the result of any delusional compulsion when he beat, stabbed and strangled his elderly father to death.

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Appellant Fredrick Choisnet, Jr. was indicted and tried for murder and related charges in connection with the stabbing death of his elderly father. Choisnet pled not guilty by reason of insanity, claiming he suffered from mental illness that had rendered him incapable of distinguishing right from wrong in relation to his crimes and caused him to suffer under the delusion that his father was planning to kill him and his mother. The jury found Choisnet guilty but mentally ill, and Choisnet now appeals, contending that the trial court’s instructions to the jury were erroneous in several ways. Finding no error, we affirm.1

Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdicts, the evidence adduced at trial established as follows. On March 5, 2007, Choisnet stabbed his elderly father with multiple implements, including knives and carving forks, at the family’s home. Choisnet’s father died as the result of more than 200 sharp and blunt force injuries, which caused him to bleed to death; he had also sustained injuries consistent with manual strangulation. Choisnet admits to having committed the attack.

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