http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/04/16/news/state/z3540fc6fda1bf87c8825759a00129722.txt
Experts say insanity defense a tough sell in Cantu slaying
By MARCUS WOHLSEN - Associated Press | Thursday, April 16, 2009 12:01 PM PDT ∞
SAN FRANCISCO ---- Melissa Huckaby was enrolled in a court-ordered mental health program at the time authorities say she kidnapped, raped and killed an 8-year-old Northern California girl who lived down the street.
But to succeed with an insanity defense, Huckaby will need to show that she truly did not know what she allegedly did was wrong. That scenario could be especially difficult to prove, experts say, if prosecutors can show she deliberately hid Sandra Cantu's body by putting it in a suitcase and dumping it in a pond in Tracy.
"She might be extraordinarily mentally ill but still legally responsible for the crime," said Loyola University criminal law professor Laurie Levenson.
The criminal complaint filed against Huckaby on Tuesday includes no details about how, where or why she allegedly killed her own 5-year-old daughter's playmate.
While Huckaby remained jailed without bail, Sandra was laid to rest Wednesday.
Following a private service attended by several dozen people at Fry Memorial Chapel, a horse-drawn carriage carried the girl's small casket to the Tracy Mausoleum. A public memorial service is scheduled for Thursday at a Tracy high school.
Huckaby is charged with one count of murder with three special circumstances: kidnapping, rape with a foreign object and lewd or lascivious conduct with a child under 14.
Huckaby's attorneys are likely to raise the question of whether she is mentally competent to assist in her defense and stand trial, legal analysts said. That determination will hinge on psychiatric evaluations and her mental health history, including use of medications.
Huckaby's family has said she would sometimes become depressed as she struggled with the challenges of single motherhood and finding and holding a job.
After Huckaby was arrested in November and charged with burglary and petty theft from a store, records show that the judge suspended the case and appointed a doctor to assess Huckaby's mental health. Court records do not indicate what led to that decision.
Based on the doctor's report, the court found Huckaby competent to stand trial. In a deal with prosecutors, she pleaded no contest in January to the petty theft charge and the burglary charge was dropped.
The court sentenced Huckaby to three years probation and ordered her to participate in a county mental health program for a year. But records show she failed to appear at a scheduled April 3 hearing ---- a week after Sandra's disappearance ---- for a progress report on her participation in the program. The hearing was rescheduled for this Friday.
If Huckaby is declared competent to stand trial on the murder charge, experts said her attorneys will face a steep climb to prove insanity.
The insanity defense relies on showing that the defendant was mentally unable to distinguish between right and wrong at the time of the crime.
"Hiding the body shows you knew what you were doing was wrong," Levenson said.
Police say they believe Sandra was killed shortly after she went missing March 27, and her body was found 10 days later stuffed in a suitcase discovered by farmworkers draining an irrigation pond.
Prosecutors may try to prove that Huckaby also had the presence of mind to create a cover story, Levenson said. Police reinterviewed Huckaby and arrested her after reading an interview in the Tracy Press that investigators said was inconsistent with the woman's earlier statements.
Regardless of the evidence, convincing any jury of insanity in a child-killing case is difficult, said Sacramento defense attorney William Portanova, a former state and federal prosecutor.
Jurors are likely to believe that anyone who murders a child is "crazy" but should not escape punishment on that basis alone, Portanova said. Such a sentiment, he said, is especially likely to hold true in California's conservative Central Valley.
"You're talking about salt of the earth jurors who are not impressed with lawyers spinning on behalf of killers," Portanova said.
The defense also might find itself fighting to discredit any confession, experts said.
Although police have not said Huckaby confessed, they described her as "resigned" during questioning before she was arrested.
A confession loses its credibility if an attorney can show the suspect was mentally disturbed at the time, Portanova said.
"For all you know, you're dealing with somebody who is delusional," he said.
If Huckaby is convicted, experts said, her mental health history and the apparent absence of a violent criminal background will make it less likely that she receives the death penalty. Still, they said the heinousness of the alleged crime could trump all other factors.
"Even without a bad background, the details of an individual case can be so bad that the jury would impose the death penalty," Portanova said.
