Opinion ID: 1453510
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Legitimate State Purpose.

Text: The statute authorizing the verdict of guilty but mentally ill is challenged on the basis that it does not advance a legitimate state purpose and is not designed to reasonably remedy the evils it is to prevent. [5] It is asserted that because the statute does not mandate treatment, [6] the state's purpose  to distinguish mentally ill defendants from guilty ones so that the criminally responsible yet mentally ill will be treated  is not legitimate. See People v. Delaughter, 124 Mich. App. 356, 335 N.W.2d 37 (1983). Pursuant to the consent decree entered in Duran v. Apodaca, No. 77-721-C (D.N.M. July 14, 1980), and Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976), the state must make available necessary psychiatric care to all convicted defendants, whether guilty but mentally ill or simply guilty. It is further suggested that, because the jury evaluates the defendant's mental state as it existed at the time the crime was committed rather than as of trial, it is an imprecise measure of who needs treatment. It is concluded that the remaining purpose behind the statute  to induce compromise verdicts and thereby reduce the likelihood that a jury will find a defendant not guilty by reason of insanity  is impermissible. Accordingly, the jury is asserted to believe the verdict of guilty but mentally ill guarantees treatment while keeping the defendant off the streets. Moreover, it is suggested that consideration of the guilty but mentally ill verdict deflects the jury's attention from issues of guilt and innocence by inserting irrelevant issues into deliberations with the accompanying risk of impermissible compromise. We do not agree that there are no legitimate or rational purposes for the statute. The legislature legitimately could have intended the verdict to reduce the number of improper or inaccurate insanity acquittals and to give jurors an alternative to acquittal when mental illness is believed to play a part in an offense. The verdict clarifies for the jury the distinction between a defendant who is not guilty by reason of insanity and one who is mentally ill yet not criminally insane and, therefore, is criminally liable. The verdict also may assist in identification of convicted defendants in need of psychiatric treatment and facilitate just sentencing of mentally ill defendants. See United States ex rel. Weismiller v. Lane, 815 F.2d 1106, 1110-11 (7th Cir.1987); see generally Annotation, Guilty But Mentally Ill Statutes, 71 A.L.R.4th 702, § 18 (1989) (summarizing various purposes of statutes). By focussing the jury's attention on the question of legal culpability, the statute increases the likelihood that the jury will return a verdict in accordance with the appropriate legal standards  and it is a legitimate state interest to see juries return verdicts that accord with the law. The state has a legitimate interest in having juries decide cases according to the law. The legislature could well have believed that many defendants were being found not guilty by reason of insanity even though they did not satisfy the legal standard for the defense. The difficulty is that lay juries are presented with complicated and to some extent conflicting notions of what renders a person insane in legal, psychiatric, and common sense terms. The [guilty but mentally ill] statutes are designed to insure that the jury applies the legal definition of insanity, by underscoring that a person might be mentally ill in clinical terms, crazy in common sense terms, yet not legally insane. As the Michigan Supreme Court has noted, It is well within the power of the Legislature to attempt to cure what it sees as a misuse of the law. We believe it is beyond question that the state could instruct a jury that it cannot acquit on the basis of insanity unless the legal test for insanity has been met. We see no additional objection which can be raised because the state chooses to formalize these instructions by providing a separate verdict form. Weismiller, 815 F.2d at 1112 (quoting People v. Ramsey, 422 Mich. 500, 512, 375 N.W.2d 297, 301 (1985) citation omitted); see also Taylor v. State, 440 N.E.2d 1109, 1112-13 (Ind. 1982) (guilty but mentally ill verdict serves state interest of securing just convictions); Commonwealth v. Trill, 374 Pa.Super. 549, 543 A.2d 1106 (1988) (verdict eliminates wrongful relief from criminal liability  a rational legislative goal), alloc. denied, 522 Pa. 603, 562 A.2d 826 (1989); State v. Baker, 440 N.W.2d 284, 288 (S.D. 1989) (insanity distinguished from mental illness based on requirement of a finding of knowledge or intent creating criminal responsibility; verdict of guilty but mentally ill requires different factual predicate and allows jury a better understanding of the spectrum of criminal responsibility recognized by law). The reasonableness and legitimacy of the state's purpose and means are not diminished because all convicted defendants must be given necessary psychiatric care whether found guilty or guilty but mentally ill and because the statute only provides for care as deemed necessary. The verdict, while allowing the jury to signal to the sentencing court and the department of corrections that in its judgment after having considered the facts presented the defendant is a person in need of evaluation, is not a clinical diagnosis but a legal determination of guilt.