## Facts

- Robert Edgar Garver and two associates planned to rob Ancell Abbott, a janitor believed to be carrying a large amount of cash after work.
- On January 3, 1949, the associates stole a car, obtained guns, and met Garver near the targeted location; Garver carried a .32 automatic pistol.
- The group followed Abbott, stopped on a well-lit street, and Garver and one associate confronted Abbott at gunpoint while the other remained in the car.
- Garver shot Abbott three times during the robbery; Abbott was unarmed and later died from the wounds.
- The robbers fled with a shopping bag that contained clothes rather than money.
- At trial, Garver’s primary defense was insanity.
- Garver’s mother, a lay witness, testified from personal observation that Garver was in “such a terrible shape” and was “mentally and physically ill.”
- The trial court struck those statements as impermissible lay opinion.
- A jury convicted Garver of first-degree murder and did not recommend life imprisonment, resulting in a death sentence under then-existing law.
- Garver appealed, challenging, among other rulings, the exclusion of his mother’s testimony.

## Issues

1. Whether a lay witness with substantial opportunity to observe the defendant may offer opinion or shorthand descriptive testimony regarding the defendant’s mental condition when insanity is the central defense.
2. Whether striking the mother’s testimony describing the defendant as “mentally and physically ill” constituted prejudicial error requiring reversal in a capital case.

## Decision

- The Oregon Supreme Court reversed the conviction and remanded for a new trial.
- The court held the trial court erred by excluding and striking the mother’s lay testimony describing Garver’s mental and physical condition.
- The error was prejudicial because insanity was the principal defense and the excluded testimony bore directly on that issue.
- The court noted that any concern about accomplice corroboration did not warrant reversal; the record contained sufficient non-accomplice evidence to submit the case to the jury.

## Legal Principles

- A non-expert witness who has had adequate opportunity to observe a person may testify to opinions or shorthand descriptions concerning that person’s mental condition, so long as the testimony is grounded in personal observation and assists the factfinder.
- When mental condition is a contested issue, close relatives and other familiar observers may provide admissible lay testimony reflecting composite impressions drawn from repeated observation.
- Excluding admissible lay testimony bearing materially on an insanity defense can constitute reversible error, particularly where the defendant’s mental condition is a central issue in a capital prosecution.
- Challenges to the weight or reliability of lay mental-condition testimony ordinarily go to credibility and weight for the jury, not categorical inadmissibility.

## Conclusion

The court ordered a new trial because the jury was improperly deprived of lay testimony from the defendant’s mother describing his mental and physical condition, evidence directly relevant to the insanity defense and therefore prejudicially excluded in a case resulting in a death sentence.


State v. Garver, 190 Or. 291, 225 P.2d 771 (Or. 1950)