U.S. Supreme Court lets states bar insanity defense

(Adds background on legal case, details from ruling) By Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley

March 23 - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday limited the rights of criminal defendants, declaring that states can bar them from using the so-called insanity defense in a ruling involving a Kansas man sentenced to death for killing four members of his family. The justices ruled 6-3 that a 1995 Kansas law eliminating the insanity defense - which bars holding criminally responsible mentally impaired defendants who do not know right from wrong - did not violate the U.S. Constitution. The justices affirmed a 2018 decision by the Kansas Supreme Court upholding the conviction of the man convicted in the case, James Kraig Kahler.

Under the Kansas law, defendants cannot argue they were insane and unable to make a moral judgment as an excuse to criminal liability. But the law allowed defendants to argue that, due to mental defect, they did not intend to commit the crime. In a ruling authored by liberal Justice Elena Kagan, the court rejected the argument that the due process clause of the Constitution requires the acquittal of any defendant who is unable to tell right from wrong.

"Contrary to Kahler's view, Kansas takes account of mental health at both trial and sentencing. It has just not adopted the particular insanity defense Kahler would like. That choice is for Kansas to make," Kagan wrote. Kahler used a high-powered rifle in 2009 to shoot his wife and two teenage daughters at the home of his wife's grandmother, who he also killed. He spared his son, who was 9 years old at the time. Kahler carried out the killings the weekend after the Thanksgiving holiday and months after his wife filed for divorce and he had been fired from his job.

Kahler was diagnosed with major depression and obsessive personality disorder. A psychiatric expert hired by the defense said Kahler's illness was so severe he "lost control" of his actions. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 2011. Idaho, Montana and Utah have like Kansas discarded the traditional insanity defense, while 45 other states, the federal criminal justice system and the District of Columbia have retained it. Alaska includes elements of both approaches.

Kagan sided with the court's five conservatives in the majority, with her three liberal colleagues dissenting.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)