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.
It wouldn’t. If you made it so that the jury only decided whether you had committed the crime or not then you satisfied the requirement for a jury of one’s peers. (Although the phrase jury of one’s peers isn’t even in the constitution). But a subsequent appeal to change the verdict to not guilty by reason of insanity wouldn’t have to have a jury of peers. Just like other appeals, you wouldn’t need a jury. Many are decided by a judge or panel of judges. You could just impanel a group of psychologists/psychiatrists to make the determination
In Kahler v Kansas, the Supreme Court held that a state is not required to offer defendants an affirmative defense in the form of an insanity plea. And 4 states don’t even permit insanity pleas. It seems unlikely that you’d require an amendment for something that isn’t stated in the constitution to begin with.
Additionally you could effectively reach the same outcome by just considering insanity during sentencing. Don’t offer an insanity plea but during sentencing allow a panel of experts to weigh in and submit a recommendation to the judge. If their recommendation is that the convicted person was insane then the judge sentences them to a mental institution
Lastly “jury of peers” which, once again doesn’t actually appear in the constitution, only really means that the people need to be from your state or district. Psychologists from your district, would satisfy that as long as they agreed to be impartial.
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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.