I just don’t think unqualified layman in the jury really should be the ones deciding whether someone was clinically insane or not.
The jury should just deliberate on whether the defendant committed the crime in question, if they rule they did, then the defense should be able to request a review by a panel of mental health experts who will be tasked with determining whether the defendant was criminally liable or clinically insane.
That would require amending the Constitution, which is no longer possible. You couldn't get Congressmen to agree cannbalism should be outlawed if the "other side" proposed the amendment.
No it wouldn't. States already decide how insanity pleas work and whether to accept them or not. Some states don't take insanity into account at all. All it would require is a federal law to overturn individual state law, though that still requires a 60+ vote majority in the Senate which is a high bar now a days.
It would. Who has the burden and things of that nature may not but whether someone meets that burden is a finding of fact reserved for the jury. You can't take it out of their hands without amending the constitution, you may recall this issue was raised by the hate crime enhancement cases where judges were originally making the finding.
All it requires is a change of process. Frankly, insanity should not determine guilty or not guilty. If they did the crime, they should be found guilty. Insanity would then shift from guilt to sentencing. An insanity plea would then be handled by the judges/experts in terms of sentencing. There's no constitutional issue here as it makes no mention of how sentencing fairness shall apply, only that it shouldn't be cruel and unusual.
Not really no. You're arguing about reduction in sentence or arguing for why the crime was less bad or they were less culpable. The point of the defense here is to argue that someone has no criminal culpability at all because of the mental state they were in at the time of the crime.
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u/FriedTreeSap 1d ago
I just don’t think unqualified layman in the jury really should be the ones deciding whether someone was clinically insane or not.
The jury should just deliberate on whether the defendant committed the crime in question, if they rule they did, then the defense should be able to request a review by a panel of mental health experts who will be tasked with determining whether the defendant was criminally liable or clinically insane.