The Supreme Court Should Let the States Define Insanity
Our legal understanding of mental illness shouldn’t be restricted to a 19th-century precedent.
The Supreme Court’s building is newer than the legal definition of insanity.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesThe Supreme Court is back in session today. And in this mad political season, it somehow seems fitting that one of the first cases it will consider is whether it is constitutional for a state to punish a person who cannot tell right from wrong because of mental illness.
On the surface, the question seems like one with obvious liberal and conservative answers: liberals, it would appear, should think that the Constitution protects people with certain serious forms of mental disability, whereas conservatives should think that states may be as harsh as they like in defining crime. And indeed, it seems probable that the court will split roughly on ideological lines in the case, Kahler v. Kansas.