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- Title
KAHLER V. KANSAS: A DEFENSE DENIED.
- Authors
Poché, Elizabeth
- Abstract
The roots of the insanity defense date back to ancient times, and the defense is repeatedly discussed in English common law. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, refuses to provide a bare minimum threshold for the defense, despite the fact that the essence of it lies in principles that should be ranked as fundamental. James Kahler, the defendant in Kahler v. Kansas, challenged Kansas's treatment of the insanity defense as unconstitutional. Kansas only allows evidence of mental illness to negate the requisite mens rea for a crime or to show that defendants are not aware of the nature of their acts. Notably, evidence that defendants do not realize their actions are wrong cannot be submitted in support of the insanity defense. The Court held that Kansas's treatment of the insanity defense was constitutional because the "moral incapacity" test, which asks whether defendants knew their conduct was morally wrong, could not be ranked as fundamental among our legal history. This Comment first argues that the "right and wrong" test, which asks whether defendants acted with the knowledge that their conduct was wrong, dates back to ancient texts about legal responsibility, supporting the conclusion that such a test should be ranked as fundamental within our legal history. This Comment then transitions to an argument that the primary reason that the majority and the dissent come to different conclusions is because the two opinions apply different meanings of the term mens rea, and that the dissent has the right interpretation. Next, this Comment argues that the approach to insanity that Kansas employs does not pass constitutional muster, as it does nothing more than afford the defendant a right to present evidence that he did not possess the necessary mens rea, a right which is available to every defendant, mentally ill or otherwise. Finally, this Comment asserts that not setting the moral incapacity standard as the baseline of the insanity defense is inconsistent with well-established and accepted common law defenses such as infancy and duress. As such, this Comment argues that the constitutional threshold of the insanity defense, at the very least, should be that defendants possess the ability to discern between right and wrong at the time of the committed crime.
- Subjects
UNITED States; INSANITY defense; PLEAS (Criminal procedure); CRIMINAL procedure; CRIMINAL justice system; LEGAL status of defendants
- Publication
Denver Law Review, 2021, Vol 98, Issue 4, p867
- ISSN
2469-6463
- Publication type
Article