Ake v. Oklahoma (1983)
Question: In capital cases, does the Fourteenth Amendment require the government to provide the necessary psychiatric assistance to prepare an effective insanity defense?
Holding: Yes; when a defendant has put forth that sanity will be an issue during trial, the Constitution requires the government to provide psychiatric assistance if the defendant cannot afford it.
Clark v. Arizona (2006)
Question: Did the court violate due process rights by excluding evidence of the defendant’s mental illness that might negate the criminal intent element?
Holding: No; due process did not require the trier of fact to consider evidence of mental illness to determine whether mens rea was present, as that is a separate issue from sanity. Furthermore, they argued that states are not required to offer an insanity defense, nor are they obligated to apply all aspects of the M’Naghten rule.
Durham v. US (1954)
Question: Did the trial court err in applying rules governing the burden of proof for the insanity defense? Should the existing tests of criminal responsibility be replaced?
Holding: The trial court incorrectly applied the rules governing burden of proof, and the existing tests of insanity were obsolete and inadequate. The Court adopted a more liberal standard: “The accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act is the product of mental disease or defect” (or “the product test”). The court defined “disease” as “a condition which is considered capable of either improving or deteriorating,” and “defect” as “a condition which is not considered capable of either improving or deteriorating and which may be either congenital, or the result of injury, or the residual effect of a physical or mental illness.”
Foucha v. Louisiana (1992)
Question: Is it a violation of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to confine an insanity acquittee based on dangerousness alone?
Holding: Yes; an insanity acquittee can only be confined if found to be both mentally ill and dangerous. The potential for dangerous behavior based on an assertion of an “antisocial personality” is not sufficient cause for confinement in the absence of the mental illness that rendered the individual insane.
Frendak v. US (1979)
Question: What right does a court have to impose the insanity defense upon an unwilling defendant if that defendant voluntarily and intelligently asserts the right to forego that defense?
Holding: A defendant who voluntarily and intelligently refuses the defense of insanity and is found to be competent to make such a decision, cannot have the defense on insanity forced upon him by the court.
Kahler v. Kansas (2020)
Question: May a state abolish the insanity defense without violating the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments?
Holding: Yes. Kansas law did not violate Kahler’s due process rights, and definitions of culpability and mental illness have been reserved for the states. The majority opinion stated no single insanity standard was so ingrained in U.S. law as to be fundamental; states are not required to adopt a definition of the insanity defense that accounts for knowledge of wrongfulness.
McDonald v. US (1962)
Question: At what point can the jury consider the NGRI verdict as a viable legal option? What factors should be included in this decision?
Holding: Evidence of a mental disease or defect is sufficient to raise the issue of a defendant’s criminal responsibility. The legal definition of “mental disease or defect” differs from the definition utilized for clinical purposes. In considering sanity, “the jury should be told that a mental disease or defect includes any abnormal condition of the mind which substantially affects mental or emotional processes and substantially impairs behavior controls.” In rendering the verdict, the jury should consider the defendant’s “capacity, or lack thereof, to distinguish right from wrong and ability to refrain from doing a wrong or unlawful act” when “determining whether there is a relationship between the mental disease and the act charged.”
M’Naghten’s Case (1843)
A person is insane if, at the time of the criminal act, he was laboring under such a defect of reason, from a disease of the mind, that he did not know the nature and quality of the act – or if he did know it, he did not know that what he was doing was wrong.
Montana v. Egelhoff (1996)
Question: Is it a violation of Fourteenth Amendment rights to exclude of voluntary alcohol consumption as a mitigating factor?
Holding: No; voluntary consumption of alcohol cannot be used as a defense when arguing innocence. Common law prohibits consideration of voluntary intoxication in determination of mens rea. Voluntary ingestion is a conscious decision, and most individuals recognize the negative effects of substance use.
Powell v. Texas (1968)
Question: Is the conviction of a chronic alcoholic for public intoxication in violation of the Eighth Amendment?
Holding: No; the law prohibiting public intoxication did not punish the defendant for his alcoholism, but for his being drunk in a public location. The record did not prove that alcoholics were totally unable to control their consumption.
Rex v. Arnold (1724)
“For one to be exempt from punishment in such a case, it must be a man that is totally deprived of his understanding and does not know what he is doing, no more than an infant, than a brute or a wild beast.” (This became known as the “wild beast” test.)
State v. Carreiro (2013)
Question: Did the trial court err not instructing the jury that consideration of wrongfulness should include whether the defendant believed he was acting under God’s decree (i.e., moral wrongfulness)?
Holding: No; the court did not err in limiting the definition of wrongfulness to that which was legally wrong.
State v Hancock (2006)
Question: Does a review for sufficiency of the evidence apply to affirmative defenses?
Holding: No; insanity is an affirmative defense that must be proven by a preponderance of the evidence. Proof of an affirmative defense does not detract from proof that an accused committed a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
State v. Jennings (2006)
Question: Does “wrongfulness” encompass a moral standard? Might one be insane if they believed the act charged was not morally wrong?
Holding: In limited instances, a defendant may know his or her actions to be legally wrong, yet may not know the wrongfulness because that defendant acts not on his or her subjective beliefs, but “under the delusive but sincere belief that what he is doing is by the command of a superior power, which supercedes all human laws, and the laws of nature.” When this is so, “it cannot be said of the offender that he knows the act to be wrong.”
State v. Tibbetts (2001)
Question: Did counsel err in failing to enter a plea of NGRI?
Holding: No; the trial court had “ample basis to conclude that an insanity plea had no reasonable chance of success,” particularly since the defendant’s own expert concluded he would not qualify, and the defense would have the burden of proving insanity by a preponderance of the evidence.
US v. Brawner (1972)
Question: Should the District of Columbia replace the Durham “product test” for insanity?
Holding: The District of Columbia adopted the American Law Institute (ALI) standard: “A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he [or she] lacks the substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality [wrongfulness] of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law.”
US v. Marble (1991)
Question: Should the court impose an insanity defense against the will of a competent defendant?
Holding: The court cannot impose the insanity defense on behalf of an inmate, even if they are mentally ill, as long as they are competent and make a well-reasoned choice in the matter.