People v. McCaughan

A jury found defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter (Pen. Code, § 192, subd. 2), and the court denied her motion for a new trial. Judgment was suspended, and defendant was admitted to probation for a term of three years on the condition that she serve one year in a county detention facility. Defendant appeals.

Defendant was a psychiatric technician at the state hospital in Modesto in charge of a ward of 50 mental patients. One of the patients in defendant’s ward was Grace Belill, a 71-year-old woman suffering from involutional psychosis, a mental condition that commonly causes a patient…