Insanity defense and the Supreme Court
The insanity defense in the United States legal system allows defendants to plead not guilty due to mental illness, asserting that they were unable to understand the nature or consequences of their actions at the time of the crime. Historically, states have managed the insanity defense, leading to inconsistencies in definitions, evidence, and post-trial outcomes. The M'Naghten rule, originating in 1843, is the most widely adopted standard, focusing on a defendant's ability to comprehend their actions. The Supreme Court has played a crucial role in shaping the application of this defense, balancing the rights of mentally ill defendants with public safety concerns. Notable rulings, such as Ake v. Oklahoma and Riggins v. Nevada, established due process protections for defendants pleading insanity. However, in cases like Leland v. Oregon and Hendricks v. Oklahoma, the Court upheld stricter standards for the insanity plea, reflecting societal fears of crime and the perception of the insanity defense as a potential loophole. The landscape continues to evolve, with recent rulings affirming that states can choose to eliminate the insanity defense altogether.
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Insanity defense and the Supreme Court
Description: A not guilty plea entered by a criminal defendant on the grounds that an impaired mental condition makes him or her unable to understand the wrongfulness of the act committed.
Significance: The insanity plea, based on the common law principle that a criminal offense implies criminal intent, was first examined by the Supreme Court in 1950 as an aspect of extending due process to criminal suspects while protecting society against the dangerous.
For most of U.S. history, insanity determinations were the province of the states, with intrastate consistency maintained by appellate court decisions and state statutes. Inconsistencies appeared among states on several issues—the breadth of the insanity definition employed, permissible evidence and testimony, and the post-trial disposition of an insane defendant. Most states relied on the M’Naghten rule (created in 1843 in England by the House of Lords), which restricts insanity to a mental condition sufficiently debilitating to preclude “knowing the nature and consequences of the criminal act.” The most common post-trial disposition of a legally insane defendant was an indefinite and long period of institutionalization.
In the mid-twentieth century, two contrasting cultural trends encouraged the Supreme Court to examine the procedures and consequences of the insanity defense. These trends were an emerging concern with the civil liberties of the mentally impaired criminal defendant and a growing fear of crime that highlighted the need for the state to protect the public from criminally insane individuals.
A series of Court decisions protected the due process rights of a mentally ill defendant to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. The court ruled in Ake v. Oklahoma (1985) that a psychiatric expert must be provided for an indigent defendant who wished to plead insanity. In Riggins v. Nevada (1992), the Court ruled that defendants who plead not guilty by reason of insanity may refuse, at the time of their testimony, to take medication that will reduce or eliminate symptoms. It also found, in Jones v. United States (1983) and Foucha v. Louisiana (1992), that the release of someone found not guilty by reason of insanity depends on that individual’s recovery from the mental condition, not the expiration date of the sentence for the alleged offense.
At the same time, the Court recognized the police powers of the state to protect the public from dangerous deranged people. In Leland v. Oregon (1952), the Court upheld state laws that made an insanity plea more difficult by placing the burden of proof on the defendant. In Hendricks v. Oklahoma (1997), the Court refused to extend due process safeguards to such categories of offenders as sexual predators, who may be institutionalized indefinitely beyond their prescribed sentence.
Public concern with insanity as a loophole grew most intense after 1983 when John Hinckley, attempted presidential assassin, was found not guilty by reason of insanity and hospitalized. Several states tried to reduce the use of insanity pleas by adding an alternative guilty but mentally ill category of offender, who was treated, then punished. Other state courts, in contrast, continued to employ definitions of insanity broader than that set forth in the M’Naghten rule, encompassing “irresistible impulses” by lucid people. Challenges to such definitional variations are consistently dismissed by the Court. Although the scope of insanity definitions varies widely, the underlying relevance of criminal intent remains broadly accepted and constitutionally solid.
In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that states have the freedom to abandon the insanity defense in Kahler v. Kansas.
Bibliography
Steadman, Henry J., et al. Before and After Hinckley: Evaluating Insanity Defense Reform. Guilford Press, 1993.
"U.S. Supreme Court Sides with Kansas Over Insanity Defense." American Bar Association, 23 July 2020, www.americanbar.org/groups/committees/death‗penalty‗representation/project‗press/2020/summer/us-supreme-court-sides-with-kansas/. Accessed 5 Apr. 2023.
Wrightsman, Lawrence, Michael Nietzel, and William Fortune. Psychology and the Legal System. 5th ed. Thomson Learning, 2002.