Are There Better Ways to Use the Insanity Defense?

The time is overdue to reassess how we use and define the insanity defense (NGRI) in our present-day legal system. Medical professionals should determine mental illness, diagnosis, and symptomatology prior to court proceedings. Mental illness is not the crime. This methodology will leave the issue of mental illness to the medical experts and the trial component of guilt, innocence, and the weight of the mental illness in the crime to the courts. Hopefully, this would lead to fewer defendants with mental illness residing in our prison populations.

NGRI, at times, can serve as a cloak for a legal plea by a defendant who would otherwise have no other defense.

Research has not conclusively articulated the correlational relationship between criminal culpability and mental illness. Are there better ways to use NGRI in our present-day legal system?

The ferocity of violence in our country at this time is almost unparalleled. For the following discussion, I will be using the FBI's definition of mass shootings. Their definition includes four or more people shot and killed in one incident, excluding the perpetrator(s), which occurs at one location.

On April 22, 2018, a mass shooting occurred at a Waffle House restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee. Travis Reinking, 29-year-old, who was naked except for a green jacket, fatally shot four people and injured two others with an AR-15 style rifle. Travis Reinking’s attorney told the court that Travis believed the restaurant patrons and employees were government agents whom God had commanded him to kill.

Due to severe symptoms of schizophrenia, he was found incompetent to stand trial (ICST) and committed to a mental hospital for restoration. The case was delayed four years due to his unstable mental health. A judge ultimately deemed him competent, and he was later convicted of four counts of first-degree premeditated murder. The jury dismissed the NGRI defense, yet all the evidence and testimony suggest that he was NGRI.

On March 22, 2021, a mass shooting occurred at a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder, Colorado. Ten people were killed. The alleged shooter, 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Al-Issa, was arrested, and after undergoing several mental evaluations, he has continued to be found ICST. He has yet to appear in court, leaving open the question of the nature or severity of his mental illness and its role in the brutal murders.

In one of the deadliest mass shootings in recent U.S. history, on Nov. 7, 2022, 19 children and two teachers were killed after a gunman opened fire with an AR-15- rifle inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Seventeen people also suffered injuries. The mental state of the alleged shooter at the time of the crime was unknown.

However, evidence suggests 18-year-old Salvador Ramos was isolated and obsessed with school shootings after years of struggling at home and abruptly dropping out of school without ever receiving any mental health support. He had even earned the nickname "school shooter" among those who knew him.

On Nov. 22, 2022, in Colorado Springs, five people died, and 17 suffered gunshot wounds after an alleged armed shooter, Anderson Aldrich, opened fire in an LGBTQ nightclub. The defendant later testified about an affinity for shooting firearms and had a reported history of mental health problems.

A judge had dismissed a 2021 kidnapping case involving the defendant’s grandparents. Other relatives had told the Judge at the time about Aldrich's struggles with mental illness, emphasizing he needed treatment or "it's going to be so bad," which turned out to be an accurate forecast.

In our criminal justice system, conviction and subsequent punishment are based on the premise that during a crime, the perpetrator is the agent of their action. One question that confounds our legal system is whether a person suffering from a serious mental illness shifts the agency away from the person to the illness.

In western society, we do not level punishment unless we can assign blame.

The NGRI description of mental illness or defect does not conform to a standard definition. Legal tests for insanity differ by state.

The methodology that each doctor may use to opine does not follow specific crafted guidelines and can vary widely. The "Battle of the Experts" ensues. Doctors may disagree on the psychiatric diagnosis, manifestation of symptoms, or even presence of mental illness.

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The time has come to abolish the use of the traditional legal insanity defense. I would suggest a bifurcated system where the first step is to decide whether the individual has a history of or presently suffers from significant symptoms of mental illness with a cogent explanation of past and present history.

The first question to be answered is whether there exists a mental illness. This is a question to be decided by the medical profession of psychiatrists and psychologists. It is not a legal question. For example, a panel may be used with practitioners presenting to a group of peers to reach a consensus. Those findings are then admitted to the court. It will arbitrarily eliminate those individuals who falsely claim they suffer from mental illness and clarify the details and implications of those who actually do.

The next question is a legal one and addresses men's rea and acteus reus. If the committee of mental health experts has decided there was evidence of mental illness, then the court must decide whether the defendant acted with the requisite men's rea or not, which is a required element of the offense. The basic question is whether the defendant acted with purpose or knowledge. This decision rests with a jury of one’s peers.

During a trial, evidence of mental illness may be admitted to prove that the defendant did not act with the men's rea that is required at the time of the alleged offense. If a jury finds that the state failed to prove that the defendant had the requisite state of mind, it must return a special verdict of NGRI due to a mental disease or defect.

This approach will hopefully shorten legal proceedings.