The insanity defense isn’t available in every state. It should be [latimes.com]

A longstanding principle of Anglo-American law is that a defendant shouldn’t be held criminally responsible for his behavior if mental illness made it impossible for him to tell right from wrong. Yet the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hold that the Constitution requires that defendants be able to assert an insanity defense. That may be about to change.

On Monday, the justices agreed to hear the appeal of James Kahler, who was convicted and sentenced to death after killing four members of his own family — his wife, two of his daughters and his wife’s grandmother — in Kansas, one of a handful of states that prohibit a traditional insanity defense. In Kansas, a defendant may cite a “mental disease or defect” only as a partial defense, and can be found guilty as long as he intended to commit a violent crime.

Kahler’s crimes were horrific, but he should have been able to argue that he was entitled to a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, as he could have done in other parts of the country. His lawyers are now asking the Supreme Court to hold that Kansas’ refusal to afford him that opportunity “defies a fundamental, centuries-old precept of our legal system: People cannot be punished for crimes for which they are not morally culpable.”