On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously on the case Kansas v. Cheever that prosecutors can counter a claim of self-induced mental incompetence.
This ruling is on a grotesque 2005 murder, when Scott Cheever, after smoking methamphetamine, fatally shot a sheriff with an arrest warrant for Cheever. The warrant was for stealing firearms, unrelated to the methamphetamine incident. Cheever shot the sheriff in the chest, left, then returned and shot him again.
In court, Cheever claimed he was mentally incapacitated due to the influence of drugs, but was convicted and sentenced to death anyways due to evidence from the prosecution. However, the Kansas Supreme Court rejected the conviction, declaring it unconstitutional due it being against the Fifth Amendment right preventing self-incrimination, or " the state trying to use [his own] words to execute him." The state rebutted Cheever's defense using testimony from the psychiatrist who examined him.The Supreme Court then countered this claim, ruling that the state could provide evidence when the incompetence was not due to mental disease or defect. Justices focused on the fact that the defendant could rely on a possibly shaky mental health defense without a counter, essentially "tying one hand behind the government’s back." What do you think; does it violate the Fifth Amendment, and what should the ruling on Cheever's case be? NPR also mentioned an interesting fact of the case, which the Supreme Court did not address—the prosecution's psychiatric witness "testified in the first person, as if he actually were Cheever." Should this affect the ruling of the case?
4 comments:
I feel that Cheever does deserve to go to jail, but should not receive the death penalty. He did not consciously intend to kill the sheriff, so he should receive a lesser charge. However he deserves to go to prison as he choose to take meth. If he were allowed to be free, other people could copy him an take drugs before doing heinous crimes and use Cheever's defense. I do not think this would violate the fifth amendment, as he was the one that shot the sheriff.
Well, looking at the 9-0 ruling this seems to be a somewhat straightforward case. I entirely agree with the court's ruling that if the defense is allowed to acquire a psychiatrist that finds the defendant mentally incompetent, the prosecution must also be allowed to seek their own professional medical opinion. The concept that one party in a case should be allowed to present irrefutable evidence is utterly absurd and against the spirit of the American legal system. However, I should hope that the presentation of such conflicting evidence does not lead to the outcome of a case based on the credentials of the psychiatrist. As always, the burden of proof must be borne by the prosecution and, put bluntly, if you're going to sentence someone to death by refuting their mental health claims, you'd better have a damn good psychiatrist.
However, while I personally disagree with the death penalty, the legal basis behind Cheever's execution is clear. While his crime was not premeditated, he committed felony murder, a capital offense in Kansas, by killing during the commission of another felony; in this case, either weapons theft or possession of a Schedule I controlled substance. So, although he did not originally intend to kill the sheriff, he does meet the requirements of capital punishment under Kansas law. Although not hugely consequential in this case, Cheever's gross disregard for human life and safety (by taking hard drugs while in possession of firearms) makes him, in my mind, completely responsible for this murder.
Since voluntary intoxication is a positive defense, Cheever's counsel must prove that he was mentally incompetent at the time of the killing. However, like any other defense, the prosecution must be allowed to attack the content of the defense, as they have done here. As Buchanan states, the prosecution may use an expert witness for the limited purpose of rebutting a mental-status defense.
The Kansas Supreme Court cited Estelle v. Smith, but the Supreme Court overruled this on the grounds that voluntary intoxication fell under mental statuses for Buchanan and thus Estelle was not applicable.
The Supreme Court vacated the Kansas Supreme Court's decision to vacate, which in essence leaves the original jury's guilty vote standing (unless the Kansas Supreme Court decides to vacate on different grounds) and upholds the conviction of murder.
The one thing to keep in mind here is that capital murder requires specific intent, and so Cheever's defense wasn't that he wasn't guilty of killing the officer, but rather that his intoxication prevented him from forming specific intent, and so the capital murder charge should be dismissed.
First of all, fifth amendment aside I think it is ridiculous that he could claim that being under the influence of meth would exonerate him from a murder conviction. The fact that someone could blame drugs that they willingly took to free themselves from spending the rest of their life in jail is simply amazing and is a major flaw in the U.S. court system. I think if all other evidence proves that he did in fact shoot the sheriff, then the words he used should not play a part in his conviction.
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