People v. Wetmore

Wetmore (defendant) was released from a veterans' hospital and, while suffering delusions that he owned it, entered Joseph Cacciatore's apartment and stayed three days before Cacciatore returned and called police. Wetmore was charged with burglary and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity (NGI), triggering California's bifurcated guilt/insanity trial procedure. At the guilt phase, the trial court excluded psychiatric evidence showing Wetmore believed the apartment was his own, relying on dicta suggesting mental-capacity evidence belonged only in the insanity phase. Wetmore was found insane at the insanity phase and committed, then appealed the exclusion of the psychiatric evidence at the guilt phase.