Kohberger, Vallow Daybell cases can’t involve insanity defense in Idaho. Here’s why | Opinion

In most states, a person accused of a crime may claim insanity as a defense, meaning that if they can prove they lacked the mental capacity to form the intent to commit a crime, they could be found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Not in Idaho, though.

Idaho is just one of four states in the country that doesn’t have an insanity defense, along with Montana, Utah and Kansas.

The Idaho Legislature in 1982 repealed Idaho’s insanity defense statute and passed a law stating “mental condition shall not be a defense to any charge of criminal conduct.”

“When I became attorney general, we looked at whether we could eliminate the old, common law understanding of mental health as a determinant in the commission of a crime,” David Leroy, who was Idaho attorney general from 1978 to 1982, told me in a phone interview.

Leroy said that the insanity defense was being abused and overused, and defense and prosecuting attorneys were hiring their own psychiatrists to prove or disprove whether mental illness played a part in crimes, leading to trials that became “expensive spectacles.”

Beyond the expense, Leroy said whether someone is mentally ill doesn’t change the fact that they committed a crime.

“We hold them to the same standards of guilt or innocence as any other citizen as long as the prosecution has proven all elements of the crime with which the defendant is charged,” Leroy said. “It matters little to the public whether there is a mental breakdown, alcohol use or other mental health origin to the commission of a crime. We hold all citizens to the same standard.”

Kohberger, Vallow Daybell cases

Leroy said the recent high-profile murder cases of Lori Vallow Daybell and Bryan Kohberger provide “two superb examples of the application of the law in Idaho.”

Vallow Daybell, convicted of murdering two of her children, 7 and 16, had espoused radical doomsday religious beliefs about light and dark spirits, people becoming zombies and a chosen few preparing for the end of the world. Kohberger is accused of stabbing four University of Idaho students to death late at night in their off-campus home.

“The degree to which ideas lead to the commission of a crime, whether those ideas are distasteful or abhorrent, based on religion or insanity, does not necessarily matter to a community or society at large if that person has committed a crime,” Leroy said.

I tend to agree with that argument. I don’t care why Lori Vallow Daybell did what she did. Whether she was “insane” when she did it or whether she did it because of bizarre religious ideas doesn’t matter one bit to me. The result — two dead children — is the same.

Still, most disagree on whether insanity should be available as an option for the defense.

“First of all, Idaho is among a very small minority of states to abolish the insanity defense,” Scott McKay, a Boise lawyer with Nevin, Benjamin and McKay, said in a phone interview. “And frankly, it’s wrong. It is a departure from the long-standing principle in our law that criminal punishment is not appropriate for those who cannot tell right from wrong.”

McKay has 30 years’ experience as a criminal defense lawyer, among other areas of practice, and has served on the board of directors for Federal Defender Services of Idaho and on the Judicial Fairness Committee of the Idaho State Bar. He was not speaking about any case in particular, rather on the general concept of the insanity defense.

Insanity defense

Idaho’s prohibition against an insanity defense is “inconsistent with the constitutional principle which forbids cruel and unusual punishment,” McKay said.

“I’m not saying that a criminally insane person who commits a crime should be allowed to wander the streets and commit other crimes,” McKay said. “In fact, a person found not guilty by reason of insanity may be confined civilly for as long as they continue to be a danger to themselves or others.”

But what about abuse of the insanity defense?

You might recall the case of Anthony W. Montwheeler, who in January 2017, kidnapped an ex-wife, stabbed her to death outside an Ontario, Oregon, convenience store and then killed another man and seriously injured his wife in a head-on collision while fleeing police.

Montwheeler three weeks earlier had been discharged from the state hospital by the Oregon state security review board after he contended that he had been faking mental illness for nearly 20 years to avoid prison in an earlier kidnapping case.

McKay cited studies that show only about 1% of felony cases use an insanity defense, and of those, only about a quarter are successful.

“So it is not widely used, and I submit that it is also not widely abused,” McKay said. “And while there may be examples of that, I have faith in our criminal justice system and our jury system and our jurors are able to tell a case where it’s appropriate and a case where it would not be appropriate.”

Leroy said Idaho’s law banning an insanity defense has withstood the test of time — and court scrutiny — over the past 40 years.

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case, Delling v. Idaho, in which a defendant challenged his inability to claim insanity as a defense in Idaho.

“I can think of no case where the state of Idaho and the law enforcement prosecution process has shown to have been cruel and unusual in convicting anyone in which mental health played a role,” Leroy said.

Forty-six other states have some form of an insanity defense, and most mental health advocates support insanity as a defense.

“The insanity defense has always been grounded in the belief that there are defendants whose mental conditions are so impaired at the time of the crime that it would be unfair to punish them for their acts,” according to the official position of the American Psychiatric Association.

It’s a legitimate concern whether someone who has a diminished mental capacity should be thrown in with the general prison population.

Leroy said judges have discretion to consider a convicted person’s mental health condition at the time of sentencing. But McKay counters that latitude is limited, and someone convicted of a crime in Idaho is turned over to the custody of the Department of Correction.

“When a criminally insane person is convicted of a serious felony (in Idaho), they are subject to punishment in our state prisons,” McKay said. “And our prison systems are often overcrowded, understaffed and frankly, ill-equipped to properly treat mentally ill inmates.”

Idaho’s prison system provides mental health services, and prisoners experiencing serious mental illness that puts themselves or others in danger are segregated from the general population, according to Jeff Ray, spokesperson for the Idaho Department of Correction. The state has two main units for those with serious mental illness: the Behavioral Health Unit at Idaho State Correctional Institution and C block at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution, Ray said.

Still, prison is not the ideal place for those will mental illness.

Mental Health America, a national nonprofit advocating for the well-being of people living with mental illness, advocates for civil commitment, rather than criminal punishment, for those deemed not guilty by reason of insanity.

“Criminal sanctions promote public safety through the deterrent effect of the punishment itself and the stigma of a criminal conviction,” according to a position paper by the association. “However, without blameworthiness, deterrence is not effective and punishment is not justified.”

That’s a reasonable objection, particularly in Idaho. If Idaho denies the accused the option of an insanity defense, the state should at least have a better system of housing those deemed to have a mental illness.