Leonard Gall, right, with attorney Stephen McCaughey, pleads guilty but mentally ill in September 2003.
Associated Press
Posted on 09/01/2004 4:09:16 PM PDT by MizSterious
Deseret Morning News, Sunday, August 29, 2004
As defense, insanity is tough sell
Few attempt it because of Utah's strict statutes
By Linda Thomson
Deseret Morning News
When someone is charged with murder, the first response of many people is "He must have been insane."
Leonard Gall, right, with attorney Stephen McCaughey, pleads guilty but mentally ill in September 2003. Associated Press |
For now there is no definitive word as to what Hacking's defense will be, and he is presumed innocent until proved guilty. Hacking's lawyer, Gil Athay, has suggested Hacking's mental state might play a role in his defense. Athay has hinted several legal issues could be raised, including the credibility of Hacking's alleged confession to his brothers while in a psychiatric ward.
However, mounting an insanity defense in Utah is an uphill road attempted by few defense attorneys.
"Utah has one of the strictest laws in the nation," said defense attorney Stephen McCaughey. "The defense of insanity in Utah is so restrictive that it's practically nonexistent."
In 30 years as a lawyer, McCaughey has seen only one case in his practice that fits the tough standards of Utah's statutes: Leonard Preston Gall.
Gall, who has been diagnosed as schizophrenic, pleaded guilty but mentally ill to second-degree felony manslaughter and theft in September 2003 in connection with the murder of his mother, Susan Gall, who had been attacked in her home with an ax.
The complex plea agreement was intended to get Gall, 27, placed in the Utah State Hospital rather than prison. He originally was charged with first-degree felony murder and second-degree felony theft of his mother's car.
"In a homicide, in order to be insane, you can't have the ability to form the intent to kill a human being," McCaughey said. "Leonard Gall thought he was destroying a torture machine because he did not comprehend he was destroying a human being because of his mental illness."
Helping the defense was the fact that Gall had a lengthy and well-documented history of mental illness, including desperate efforts by his mother to get additional help for Gall when he stopped taking his medication and his condition worsened.
 Mark Hacking, charged with the death of his wife, Lori, enters a Salt Lake courtroom on Aug. 16. Associated Press |
"Competency" and "insanity" are two different concepts — the first describing a defendant's ability to understand court proceedings and the second his mental state at the time of the alleged crime.
McCaughey said in order to prove someone was insane at the time of a crime, two things are needed: the statement of the defendant as to what he was thinking, and a psychiatrist's testimony that the defendant is telling the truth.
McCaughey notes that "insanity is a pretty transient sort of concept" and refers to a landmark Utah case involving Tomas Herrera. Herrera was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the killing of his wife in 1991 but guilty and mentally ill of trying to kill her mother and brother a few seconds later.
Herrera twice unsuccessfully appealed his conviction to the Utah Supreme Court. He claimed the insanity defense law adopted in 1983 was unconstitutional, but the state's high court disagreed with him both times.
Before 1983, defendants in Utah homicide cases who were mentally ill had to show they did not understand that their crime was wrong. But the Legislature changed the law to require mentally ill homicide defendants to show they were not capable of understanding that their victim was a human being — which represents a substantially higher standard.
"I'm not saying the current standard is unconstitutional," said Erik Luna, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Utah College of Law. "It is the bare, bottom minimum that the Constitution would permit. I can't imagine a stricter standard without violating constitutional due process."
 Brian David Mitchell, walking in Salt Lake in 2002, has a competency hearing scheduled Tuesday in the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case. Associated Press |
The so-called M'Naughton rule, with several variations, has been applied in many courts in the United States since then, with lawyers for defendants claiming that their clients are insane because the individual's severe mental disease or defect prevented the person from telling right from wrong or appreciating the consequences of his actions.
But many states and the federal government revisited their insanity defense laws after John Hinckley shot President Ronald Reagan in 1982 and was sent to a mental institution instead of prison.
However, Luna said even the amended and tougher federal insanity defense is arguably still more lenient than Utah's law.
The federal standard says that at the time a crime is committed, "the defendant, as a result of severe mental disease or defect, was unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts."
Luna said a handful of states still use what is termed "irresistible impulse" as defense, meaning a defendant must be acquitted of a crime because mental illness kept him from controlling his conduct even though he knew what he was doing was wrong.
Other states have adopted a variation of the "guilty but mentally ill" verdict option. Luna said that in many cases these laws are influenced by studies that have shown juries, incorrectly believing that acquitting someone who is mentally ill will mean he will walk free, have tended to convict a defendant even though that person is suffering from a mental defect and likely will be civilly committed to a hospital.
"These more or less allow the criminal defendant to be held in a mental ward within a prison until their disease or defect allows the defendant to be released into the general prison population," Luna said.
Luna doesn't offer an opinion as to whether states have gone too far in tightening insanity defense laws. "I don't know," he said. "That's a real judgment call.
"The general movement has been to restrict the defense."
However, it is possible the pendulum might swing back in the near future.
Luna predicts advances in medical science, and especially neuroscience, will begin to have a profound impact on the court system.
As research yields a better understanding of neurochemistry and neurobiology, "the basic predicates of our criminal-justice system, of volition and free will, will be challenged," Luna said. "There is a lot of interesting work done by neurobiologists and neurochemists on the cognition of defendants who commit antisocial conduct.
"Our entire system is based on a post-Enlightenment understanding of human cognition and volition, and at the core, there is a belief in free will, with those basic principles put into law," he said.
In the future, new discoveries about how the brain functions may dramatically reshape that thinking — and perhaps, ultimately, the law.
Competency and insanity different in eyes of the law
By Linda Thomson
Deseret Morning News
When people charged with serious crimes behave in erratic ways, the news media often begin discussing "competency" and "insanity," but the two concepts are different in the eyes of the law.
Although the issue of competency is tied to an individual's sanity, it arises at the beginning of court proceedings and under Utah's laws has a fairly low standard.
Competency simply means a person understands the charges against him, understands reasonably well how the court system works and can assist his attorney in his defense.
While competency relates to a defendant's present mental state and ability to function in court, insanity describes a defendant's mental state when the alleged crime was committed.
In a Utah homicide case, an insanity defense presented by an attorney attempts to show the defendant did not have the ability to form the intent to kill a human being. This would need to be backed by a mental-health professional testifying he or she believed that to be true of the defendant at the time the crime was committed.
Someone who is severely mentally ill still can be "competent" to stand trial.
Individuals who are deemed not competent can be sent to the Utah State Hospital for mental health treatment. If their mental condition improves, they may be able to proceed with court hearings. Defendants in such situations receive periodic reviews by the courts.
If someone charged with a serious crime doesn't improve enough to be considered competent, that doesn't mean criminal charges are just dropped and the person goes free. Prosecutors can go to court to seek a civil commitment to a mental institution.
High-profile cases where competency has been debated are:
• Brian David Mitchell, who is charged with several crimes including kidnapping Elizabeth Smart. Mental-health experts are divided as to his competency to stand trial. He is scheduled to undergo a three-day competency court hearing starting Tuesday.
• Wanda Eileen Barzee, who also is charged with kidnapping Elizabeth Smart, has been found to be incompetent. She currently is at the state hospital. Her next court competency hearing is Aug. 10, 2005.
• De Kieu Duy, who is charged with several crimes including homicide in connection with a 1999 shooting spree at the Triad Center, still is considered incompetent to stand trial. However, Duy has been receiving treatment at the state hospital for years, and prosecutors believe she may become well enough to be considered competent. Her next court competency hearing is Feb. 1, 2005.
Lori Hacking pinglist--if you want on or off, let me know via freepmail.
**Note: Thee should be a court date coming up soon for this case. I'll post the info when it becomes available.
Considering the lengths he went to, I doubt insanity will work. To be sure, just watch to see how intense the media coverage is, y'know what I mean.
Heaven knows insanity was disreputable enough, long ago; but now that the lawyers have got to cutting every gallows rope and picking every prison lock with it, it is become a sneaking villainy that ought to hang and keep on hanging its sudden possessors until evil-doers should conclude that the safest plan was to never claim to have it until they came by it legitimately. The very calibre of the people the lawyers most frequently try to save by the insanity subterfuge ought to laugh the plea out of the courts, one would think.
MARK TWAIN
Well....I've known this from the beginning. Now, I just wish they'd get on with it.
If they find the body at all, it could take years. By then, the body won't reveal much evidence wise. It probably won't reveal much if they find it tomorrow.
Ooops, from the title I thought this was another Kerry thread....I'm outta here.....
That's what I thought: it must be about how hard it is to get people to vote for you when your national defense policy is to run around acting like a raving lunatic.
You beat me to the punch. Meet you over on the "Former Viet Cong says John Kerry deserved medal" thread. LOL
I honestly think there is such a thing as criminal insanity, although it is my personal opinion that this does not apply to Mark Hacking. He just seems to me to have been a very calculating, lying murderer. Running around naked and checking into a mental hospital seem to me to be very calculated attempts at constructing an insanity defense.
I know a lot of people are unsympathetic to the very idea that someone could be so insane as to not realize the extent of what they are doing. And I think Utah's statute is too strict. I agree with the more recognizable standard, that of not knowing the difference between right and wrong. For example, if you try to cover up your crime in any way, then you know it's wrong.
Ooops, from the title I thought this was another Kerry thread....I'm outta here.....
ROFLMAO
Miz, I never did hear. Did they ever find the body in the garbage dump? Are they still looking there or have they given up?
Thanks for the ping, MS!
They are still searching! Apparently they have to give the dogs a rest, then after a few days they resume the search. On a SLC site that covers the case pretty thoroughly, the headlines read, "Search back on," "Search off for a few days," "Search resumes" etc., etc. It must be awful work for dogs and handlers.
LOL--I can see where the headline might suggest that! An insanity plea might be his best bet right now, the way things are going!
I have serious doubts that they'll ever find her body, poor lady. For one thing, I'm not yet convinced he disposed of her the way he said--after all, he lied about everything else. For another, the elements and critters in a dump like this tend to consume all that's consumable quickly--and it's been weeks now.
The media (other than SLC) seems to have lost a lot of interest in this case, which might be good for putting on a fair trial. I am very interest in the Peterson case also, but like many, find the coverage a bit excessive, and in some cases repititious.
What this article doesn't mention is another factor in the mind of the jury. A distrust of mental health professionals.
Does anyone remember the Berwitz case from around 1980 ? Adam Berwitz went insane and tried to kill his wife. He was committed, screaming death threats against his wife in the courtroom. The judge noted in his file that should he ever be released for any reason to CALL HIS WIFE AND THE POLICE IMMEDIATELY.
Well, years passed. Adam Berwitz's therapy showed tremendous progress. The shrinks were pleased. He persuaded them that he deserved a pass from the hospital. They agreed. He took that pass, went to his wife's house, and stabbed her to death. Of course the good doctors did not bother warning anyone that they were releasing him. This, coming at about the same time as the "Twinkie Defense" in the Charles White case, made the public wonder whether psychology was much more than guess work, opinion, not science. Obviously a whole hospital full of shrinks could be fooled.
The public will err on the side of extreme caution rather than let some murderous sociopath talk his way out of the loony bin.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.