Court Opinion

ID: 9846566
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:43:46.610284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:38.274102
License: Public Domain

DURHAM, Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The legislature, in abolishing the defense of insanity, has departed so far from fundamental and traditional notions of blameworthiness in the criminal law as to violate the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and the guarantee of due process of law contained in article I of the Utah Constitution.
In a thoughtful and lengthy article published in the Utah Law Review, Professor Martin Gardner reviewed the historical development of the concept of mens rea. The first paragraph of the article points out:
Early in the English legal tradition, the idea arose that criminal liability entails some mental activity on the part of the offender relating to the proscribed conduct. By the time of Coke, the maxim “actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea ” (an act does not make one guilty unless his mind is guilty) had become well ingrained in the common law, and it remains a central precept of Anglo-American criminal law today.
Martin R. Gardner, The Mens Rea Enigma: Observations on the Role of Motive in the Criminal Law Past and Present, 1993 Utah L.Rev. 635, 636 (footnotes omitted).
The article goes on to document the ambiguity that surrounds the meaning and role of mens rea in the criminal law, articulating the problem in a helpful way for our purposes:
[M]any puzzles have become clearer in light of the idea that mens rea is an ambiguous notion, sometimes used merely to describe the mental state which is required by the definition of a given crime, while at other times employed to express the principle that only the morally culpable are justifiably punished.
Id. at 639 (emphasis added) (footnotes omitted). The thesis is that the concept of mens rea evolved in the criminal law within two traditions. Originally, the focus of the law was on the notion of “evil motive,” and criminal liability was not possible without affirmative proof. Under this view, certain defenses (such as duress and insanity) actually negated the general mens rea required for crimi*388nal liability, regardless of the nature of the specific crime.
The modern practice, on the other hand, largely abandons the evil motive tradition at the offense definition level by defining the mens rea required for each crime descriptively in terms of particular states of mind. Most jurisdictions generally retain insanity, and duress as defenses. Proof of these defenses affords excuses, while theoretically leaving unchallenged the state’s proof of the specific state of mind required as the mens rea element of the crime. Thus, current law embraces two levels of mens rea: One level requires proof of a specific state of mind; the other level affords excuses in certain situations, even though offenders act with the specific state of mind required for the crime, but either lack, or lack the capacity to form, the evil motive essential for moral blame.
Id. at 694-95 (emphasis added) (footnotes omitted).
Utah, in adopting the approach of the Model Penal Code, follows the modern practice of defining all crimes with mens rea elements, themselves in turn specifically described in terms of particular states of mind. What the legislature has attempted in section 76-2-305 is to eliminate from the criminal law a significant element of the doctrine of excuse — the notion that a total lack of moral culpability (because of insanity) properly prevents criminal punishment. If the legislature has the power to eliminate blameworthiness as a prerequisite for punishment in the context of insane persons, it may also abolish self-defense, mistake, duress, and infancy as excuses in the criminal law. It could, in fact, totally eliminate the concept of excuse as an element of criminal liability, thereby abandoning centimes of commitment in the western law tradition to the notions of “just deserts,” proportionality, and fundamental fairness, a result that I doubt the majority could tolerate in constitutional terms. I am convinced that these notions have become irretrievably embedded in our understanding of due process and that article I, section 7 of the Utah Constitution precludes abandoning them. Furthermore, permitting the imposition of criminal sanctions, including the death penalty, on persons who cannot be considered morally culpable or deserving of blame for their acts constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” within the meaning of article I, section 9 of the Utah Constitution.1
Because this ease is being decided in virtually abstract terms, it is important to keep in mind exactly what the statute in question permits. The majority opinion accurately points out that
if A kills B, thinking that he is merely squeezing a grapefruit, A does not have the requisite mens rea for murder and would be acquitted.... However if A kills B, thinking that B is an enemy soldier [or the devil, a Martian, or an evil spirit bent on destruction] and that the killing is justified ..., then A has the requisite mens rea for murder and could be convicted under the new law but not under the prior law, because he knowingly and intentionally took another’s life.
Thus, only the nature of an insane person’s delusional system distinguishes those we may punish from those we may not — someone who thinks that human beings are pieces of fruit is not morally blameworthy, but someone who thinks that they are devils, ghosts, spirits, or destructive enemies is. The distinction is irrational and has no theoretical legitimacy. It cannot be justified on any of the underlying bases of our criminal jurisprudence.
The traditional justifications for punishment in the criminal law include retribution, *389incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation.2 Retribution coincides with the theory of just deserts and incorporates the fundamental notion that wrongdoers should deserve the penal consequences of their acts. But a person incapable of forming the general mens rea to do wrong cannot be said to deserve to be blamed:
[S]ome mentally disordered persons can be treated justly only by a criminal system that has a defense of insanity. A person who Mils because of a delusional belief that to do so will produce peace on earth, Mils intentionally and probably premeditatedly and has no defense but insanity to a murder charge. Nevertheless, the Mlling is fundamentally irrational; the person is apparently incapable of behaving rationally in the context in which the delusion operates. A person who Mils because of the delusional belief that it is necessary to do so to save one’s own life Mils intentionally and will not succeed with the defense of self-defense. That person may be guilty only of negligent or recMess homicide, but such a verdict is not responsive to the moral character of the killing. Such a person is not properly viewed as a negligent or reckless killer who should be convicted of a risk-creation type of homicide, but is rather a crazy actor who ought to be excused. The immorality of convicting such persons of some degree of homicide can be avoided only by an insanity defense....
Stephen J. Morse, Excusing the Crazy: The Insanity Defense Reconsidered, 58 So.Cal. L.Rev. 777, 802 (1985) (emphasis added) [hereinafter Morse].
Likewise, with respect to notions of incapacitation and deterrence, there is no rational basis for distinguishing between delusions; the person who strangles or shoots what he believes is a piece of fruit is no less dangerous to his (actually human) victim than one who Mils to bring about world peace. Nor is either killer capable of being deterred by the availability of punishment. Finally, neither type of killer is inherently more amenable to rehabilitative efforts than the other. The killer who Mils for peace may be equally or more susceptible to treatment than the “grapefruit killer,” depending on the source and cause of their respective delusions. Thus, no moral or jurisprudential basis remains for punishing one type of insane person but not the other.
The majority opinion relies on the endorsement of section 76-2-305’s approach by “credible branches in the scientific and medical fields,” citing the position of the American Medical Association in a 1984 report. I submit that the analysis contained in the AMA report is basically wrong. As one commentary points out, “[T]he AMA believes that the insanity defense confuses moral and legal concepts with medical concepts, but it is the AMA analysis that is guilty of tMs confusion.” Morse, at 791. The commentary explains:
The AMA correctly notes that free will cannot be explained in medical terms or identified medically, but this is entirely beside the point. Medical models cannot provide a “reliable measure of responsibility” because they are not meant to do so. The AMA errs by claiming that free will is the basis for responsibility and that mental disorder is somehow necessarily the antithesis of free will. Free will is not the basis for responsibility, and mental disorder per se does not negate responsibility: irrationality or compulsion negate responsibility. ... The AMA’s confused argument entirely fails to undercut the moral basis for the insanity defense because it does not recognize and deal with the true criteria for excuse.
*390Id. at 791-92 (emphasis added) (footnotes omitted).
The majority opinion fails to deal adequately with the admittedly difficult distinction referred to earlier — between mens rea as describing the mental state required by the definition of a given crime and mens rea as expressing the principle that only the morally culpable are justifiably punished. The opinion asserts, for example:
The legislature has drawn a line between those who do not comprehend that they are taking a human life and those who do. The offenders in the first group do not know that they are hurting or killing another person, while those in the second group do know. The first group makes no moral judgment, while the second group realizes that they are actually killing someone and therefore their actions come closer to the realm of criminality.
This is sophistry. It is not considered immoral or criminal to kill an enemy soldier in time of war or to kill in self defense or to harm another under extreme duress. The law recognizes, through doctrines of excuse, that some killings are not criminal, and a person suffering from delusions who believes his killing to be excused by the law simply cannot “come closer to the realm of criminality,” by which I understand the majority to mean some sort of culpability or blameworthiness. The majority’s “second group” of killers makes no more of a “moral judgment” than the first. The whole point is that because of their mental condition, they are incapable of recognizing that any moral choice presents itself:
[Severely diminished rationality preclude[s] responsibility ... because our notions of who is eligible to be held morally responsible depend on our ability to make our rather regularly practical syllogisms for actions. One is a moral agent only if one is a rational agent. Only if we can see another being as one who acts to achieve some rational end in light of some rational beliefs 'will we understand him m the same fundamental way that we understand ourselves and our fellow persons in everyday life. We regard as moral agents only those beings we can understand in this way.
M. Moore, Law and Psychiatry 244-45 (1984), cited in Sanford H. Kadish, Excusing Crime, 75 Cal.L.Rev. 257, 280 (1987).
Professor Kadish goes on to observe: “[S]een in this way, it is apparent why the excuse of legal insanity is fundamental. No blaming system would be coherent if it imposed blame without regard to moral agency.”3 Id.
These notions of fundamental coherence and fairness explain the historical development of the insanity defense from its earliest origins in the “evil motive” requirement to its modern usage as an affirmative doctrine of excuse. The legislature’s effort to reverse this history permits punishment (including the death penalty) of persons who cannot be said to be blameworthy. That result constitutes a breach of the guarantees of fundamental fairness protected by the due process clause of our state constitution and the imposition of cruel and unusual punishment, in the sense that it is undeserved punishment.
There is, I think, little question that the insanity defense in many of its present forms is subject to abuse and requires reform. I agree with Professor Morse, who concludes that “thorough substantive and procedural reforms can yield a limited but just insanity defense and that the moral imperative of the defense requires that we attempt reform.” Morse, at 806. In the meantime, the constitution does not permit the imposition of criminal punishment on persons who are not morally responsible, and therefore not legitimately blameworthy, for their actions.

. This perception is a long-standing one in Utah law. In State v. Brown, 36 Utah 46, 57, 102 P. 641, 645 (1909), this court said:
The true test is whether the defendant at the time of the commission of the offense, had the mental capacity to know that in doing the act he was doing wrong.
Id. The court also quoted with approval the following language from the Nebraska Supreme Court:
“[Wjhere an individual lacks the mental capacity to distinguish right from wrong, in reference to the particular act complained of, the law will not hold him responsible."
Id. (quoting Howe v. State, 11 Neb. 537, 538, 10 N.W. 452, 453 (1881)). The court announced, in the context of this understanding of the meaning of insanity, that "[a]n insane person cannot legally be guilty of criminal intent." Brown, 36 Utah at 58, 102 P. at 645.

. See, for example, Robert A. Pugsley, Retributivism: A Just Basis for Criminal Sentences, 7 Hofs-tra L.Rev. 379 (1979):
There are four commonly accepted goals of criminal punishment: Retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation/isolation. However, only retributivism contains a valid philosophical premise upon which a coherent, organized system of just punishment can be built. It is the sole penal rationale concerned exclusively with doing justice. A retributive punishment scheme is not inherently incompatible with other enumerated penal goals. Indeed, any incidental deterrent, rehabilitative, or preventive effects which result from just punishment are certainly welcome. However, these additional social-utilitarian goals cannot morally justify the imposition of criminal sanctions.
Id. at 381 (footnotes omitted).

. The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit acknowledged the same fundamental principle in United States v. Denny-Shaffer, 2 F.3d 999 (10th Cir.1993):
Whatever the specific formulation of the defense has been throughout history, it has always been the case that the law has been loath to assign criminal responsibility to an actor who was unable, at the time he or she committed the crime, to know either what was being done or that it was wrong.
Id. at 1012 (emphasis added).