Opinion ID: 2257625
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Majority's Underlying Philosophy of Moral Blameworthiness is Suspect in These Circumstances.

Text: ¶ 66. We are dealing here with the special circumstance of a defendant who, if the court-appointed expert's testimony is accepted, was mentally ill at the time of the offense and whose mental illness caused the criminal conduct. Yet, the majority's holding prevents this mentally ill defendant from even presenting an insanity defense to the jury. ¶ 67. The majority justifies this anomaly by proclaiming that defendant is morally blameworthy for taking drugs. [18] That rationale might be understandable if the taking of drugs was entirely voluntary and not affected by defendant's underlying mental illness. Although no expert addressed this question because it was not relevant to the legal standard, and the majority has now foreclosed that inquiry by its ruling, it is unlikely to be true. The literature is clear that there is a relationship between mental illness and drug abuse. The research indicates that one's inherent propensity to use drugs or alcohol can be triggered by mental illness, including personality disorders or organic brain disorders such as schizophrenia. M. Sbaiti, Administrative Oversight? Towards a Meaningful Materiality Determination Process for Dual-Diagnosis Claimants Seeking Disability Benefits under Titles II & XVI of the Social Security Act, 35 Colum. Hum. Rts. L.Rev. 415, 432 (2004); see also R. Honberg, The Injustice of Imposing Death Sentences on People with Severe Mental Illnesses, 54 Cath. U.L.Rev. 1153, 1161 (2005) (noting high rates of comorbidityco-occurring mental illness and substance use or abuse); E. Boison, Mental Health Parity for Children and Adolescents: How Private Insurance Discrimination and ERISA Have Kept American Youth from Getting the Treatment They Need, 13 Am. U.J. Gender Soc. Pol'y & L. 187, 208 n. 154 (2005) (accord). ¶ 68. In view of these research findings, I cannot subscribe to the majority's view that every mentally ill defendant who takes drugs is morally blameworthy for any criminal conduct that occurs. [19] I agree with the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts that the moral fault for using illegal drugs is not equivalent to the moral fault for committing the charged offense, particularly when that offense is murder. See Commonwealth v. Herd, 413 Mass. 834, 604 N.E.2d 1294, 1299 (1992) (We are unwilling, in order to justify a homicide conviction, to permit the moral fault inherent in the unlawful consumption of drugs to substitute for the moral fault that is absent in one who lacks criminal responsibility.). By denying defendant an opportunity to present an insanity defense because of his prior drug use, the majority undermines one of the most basic precepts of our criminal law, as stated by Justice Frankfurter over fifty years ago: Ever since our ancestral common law emerged out of the darkness of its early barbaric days, it has been a postulate of Western civilization that the taking of life by the hand of an insane person is not murder. United States ex rel. Smith v. Baldi, 344 U.S. 561, 570, 73 S.Ct. 391, 97 L.Ed. 549 (1953) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).