Insanity Defense Baffles Justices in First High Court Argument (1)

Whether states have leeway to decide when to punish mentally ill individuals, or whether the Constitution sets a minimum floor, was too close to call during the court’s first oral argument of the 2019 term.

At issue is whether Kansas can formally abolish the insanity defense. Three states, Montana, Idaho, and Utah, have also done so.

Societies have wrestled “for centuries in trying to balance the medical and moral and legal judgments that go into crafting an insanity rule,” and those efforts have “yielded no single formula” yet, said Department of Justice Lawyer Elizabeth B. Prelogar, who argued on behalf ...