SCOTUSblog by Amy Howe 3/23/2020
Until 1979, every jurisdiction in the United States allowed mentally ill defendants to assert what was traditionally regarded as an insanity defense – that is, to argue that because they did not understand that their actions were wrong, they cannot be held criminally responsible for those actions. Since then, five states, including Kansas, have abolished that defense. Today, by a vote of 6-3, the Supreme Court ruled that a state’s failure to allow a mentally ill defendant to raise such a defense does not violate the Constitution.
The ruling came in the case of James Kahler, who in November 2009 shot and killed four members of his family: his estranged wife, the couple’s two daughters and his wife’s grandmother. At Kahler’s trial on four counts of first-degree murder, the prosecution’s expert testified that Kahler could have formed the kind of premeditated intent to kill required for a death sentence, while an expert for Kahler countered with testimony that at the time of the shooting Kahler had been so depressed that he could not help himself. But Kahler could not defend himself by arguing that he was insane: In 1995, Kansas had abolished the traditional insanity defense, replacing it with a new law that allows defendants to argue only that they could not have intended to commit the crime because of their mental illness. Kahler was convicted and sentenced to death.
On appeal, the Kansas Supreme Court rejected Kahler’s argument that the state’s failure to allow him to raise an insanity defense violated the Constitution. Today the Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Elena Kagan, upheld that ruling.
More:
https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/03/opinion-analysis-majority-upholds-kansas-scheme-for-mentally-ill-defendants/#more-292615
