1. The Insanity Defense Reform Act Prohibits The Use of Psychiatric Evidence Short of
The Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984, 18 U.S.C.A. § 17 ("IDRA") , redefined the insanity defense under federal law, and placed significant restrictions on the use of mental defect evidence. Section 17 provides:
(a) It is an affirmative defense to a prosecution under any Federal statute that, at the time of the commission of the acts constituting the offense, the defendant, as a result of a severe mental disease or defect, was unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts. Mental disease does not otherwise constitute a defense. (b) The defendant has the burden of proving the defense of insanity by clear and convincing evidence.
The IDRA effected existing insanity law in at least three ways. First, it deleted the "volitional prong of the commonly accepted Model Penal Code approach which permitted acquittal if the defendant "as a result of mental disease or defect . . . lacks substantial capacity . . . to conform his conduct to the requirements of law."
United States v. Pohlot, 827 F.2d 889, 896 (3d Cir. 1987) (quoting Model Penal Code § 4.01 (1962). This change had the effect of returning insanity law to the familiar McNaghten rule.
United States v. Twine, 853 F.2d 676, 678 (9th Cir. 1988). Second, insanity became an affirmative defense, shifting the burden of proof to the defendant by clear and convincing evidence.
Pohlot, 827 F.2d at 896. Third, § 17 provides that, beyond insanity, "[m]ental disease or defect does not otherwise constitute a defense."
Twine, 853 F.2d at 679. See also
United States v. Cameron, 907 F.2d 1051, 1061 (11th Cir. 1990) (Listing these three changes as well as two others).
Therefore, with the IDRA, "Congress intended to restrict a defendant's ability to excuse guilt with mental defect evidence, curtailing the insanity defense."
United States v. Twine, 853 F.2d 676, 679 (9th Cir. 1988) (emphasis added) . The Report of the Senate Judiciary Committee explained that the language stating that "mental disease or defect does not otherwise constitute a defense" was "intended to insure that the insanity defense is not improperly resurrected in the guise of showing some other affirmative defense, such as that the defendant had a 'diminished responsibility'' (
14. "Diminished responsibility" raises a claim of justification or excuse to mitigate crimes based on a mental abnormality of the accused that substantially impaired his mental responsibility. Frisbee, 623 F.Supp. at 1221 n.2. It is a "pure defense" that allows a sane, but mentally disabled, defendant to be held "less culpable than his normal counterpart who commits the same criminal act." Peter Arenella, The Diminished Capacity and Diminished Responsibility Defenses: Children of a Doomed Marriage, 77 COLUM. L. REV. 827, 829 (1977).) or some similarly asserted state of mind which would serve to excuse the offense and open the door . . . to needlessly confusing psychiatric testimony."
Frisbee, 623 F.Supp. at 1220,
quoting S REP. No. 225, 98th Cong., 2nd Sess. 229,
reprinted in 1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3182, 3411;
see United States v. Cameron, 907 F.2d 1051, 1066 (11th Cir. 1990) ("Congress meant to preclude the use of 'non-insanity' psychiatric evidence that points toward 'exoneration or mitigation of an offense...'"),
quoting United States v. Pohlot, 827 F.2d 889, 890 (3rd Cir. 1987),
cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1011 (1988). The Act and its legislative history thus explicitly prohibit psychiatric evidence that amounts to an affirmative defense other than insanity. 18 U.S.C.A. § 17(a); 5. REP. No. 225; H.R. REP. No. 98-177, 98th Cong. 1st Sess. 14 (1983) ("Since ... the Committee is concerned that additional defenses based on mental disorders could be developed by the courts in order to circumvent the tighter requirements developed by Congress ... the bill provides that the Committee's test constitutes the only affirmative defense that will be applicable in Federal courts");
see United States v. Westcott, 83 F.3d 1354, 1358 (11th Cir. 1996) ,
cert. denied, 117 S.Ct. 269, ("Through the Act, Congress intended to prohibit the presentation of mental disease, short of insanity, to excuse conduct").
2.
Psychiatric Evidence Short of Insanity Is Inadmissible Unless It Supports A Legally Acceptable Theory Negating Mens Rea
Despite its stated purpose to restrict the insanity defense the IDRA does not bar psychiatric evidence to negate an element of the offense. As the Court observed in
Pohlot: "Both the wording of the statute and the legislative history leave no doubt that Congress intended, as the Senate Report stated, to bar only alternative 'affirmative defenses' that 'excuse' misconduct not evidence that disproves an element of the crime itself." 827 F.2d at 897, citing
United States v. Gold, 661 F.Supp. 1127, 1130-31 (D.C. Cir. 1987) and
United States v. Frisbee, 623 F.Supp. 1217 (N.D.Cal.1985) . The Ninth Circuit has adopted
Pohlot's reasoning.
United States v. Twine, 853 F.2d 676, 679 (9th Cir. 1988) citing
Pohlot,
Gold and
Frisbee. In
Twine, the Court explained:
Unlike insanity, [the diminished capacity] defense is not an excuse. Diminished capacity is directly concerned with whether the defendant possessed the ability to attain the culpable state of mind which defines the crime. Successful defendants simply are not guilty of the offense charged, although they are usually guilty of a lesser included offense.
853 F.2d at 678.
See also United States v. Fazzini, 871 F.2d .635, 641 (7th Cir. 1989) (distinguishing "diminished responsibility" from "diminished capacity") (
15. In Pohlot, the Court identified three variants of the "diminished capacity" defense. First, admission of evidence of mental abnormality to negate mens rea. Second, admission of evidence that the defendant not only lacked mens rea in the particular case but also that he lacked the capacity to form the mens rea. Third, "partially diminished capacity . . . which permits the jury to mitigate punishment of a mentally disabled but sane offender in any case where the jury believes that the defendant is less culpable than his normal counterpart who commits the same criminal act." 827 F.2d at 903-04. Only the first of these variants survives the IDRA. Id. at 905.)
