Kansas death penalty case has implications for mentally ill
Roxana Hegeman, Associated Press
Updated 1:06 pm CDT, Saturday, March 23, 2019
FILE--In this Oct. 2011, file photo, James Kraig Kahler listens to the judge while being sentenced in Osage County Court in Lyndon, Kansas. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider a Kansas death penalty case that could have implications for mentally ill defendants across the nation. The case involves Kahler, convicted and sentenced to death for the 2009 fatal shootings of his estranged wife, her grandmother and his two teenage daughters. His attorneys argue that he was suffering from depression so severe that he experienced extreme emotional disturbance, dissociating him from reality. (Anthony S. Bush/The Topeka Capital Journal via AP, Pool, File)
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) The day after Thanksgiving in 2009, James Kahler went to the home of his estranged wife's grandmother, where he shot the two women, along with his two teenage daughters.
No one not even Kahler's attorneys disputes that he killed the four relatives. Instead, his lawyers argue that he was suffering from depression so severe that he experienced extreme emotional disturbance, dissociating him from reality.
What had been an open-and-shut death penalty case Kahler was convicted and sentenced in 2011 was upended when the U.S. Supreme Court said this past week that it would consider whether Kansas unconstitutionally abolished his right to use insanity as a defense. A ruling from the nation's highest court could have far-reaching implications for mentally ill defendants across the nation.
Kansas is one of five states where a traditional insanity defense in which a person must understand the difference between right and wrong before being found guilty of a crime isn't allowed. Instead, someone can cite "mental disease or defect" as a partial defense but must prove that he didn't intend to commit the crime. The other states with similar laws are Alaska, Idaho, Montana and Utah.
More:
https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Kansas-death-penalty-case-has-implications-for-13711133.php