The Insanity Defense: A Constitutional Right?

[WSJ Law Blog]

A group of law professors is urging the Supreme Court take a case that asks whether such a defense must be available to criminal defendants under the U.S. Constitution.

In a court brief, the professors wrote,

Blame and punishment by the state are fundamentally unfair and thus a violation of Due Process if an offender was not responsible for his crime. The affirmative defense of legal insanity applies this fundamental principle by excusing those mentally disordered offenders whose disorder deprived them of rational understanding of their conduct at the time of the crime.

The brief is signed by professors Stephen J. Morse of University of Pennsylvania and Richard J. Bonnie of University of Virginia, both experts in law and psychology. The appendix includes the signatures of 30 other law professors.

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