The Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments for Kahler v. Kansas and Ramos v. Louisiana on Monday, October 7, 2019. The issue in Kahler v. Kansas, is whether a state can abolish the insanity defense, without infringing on an individual’s Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The plaintiffs are arguing that removing this fundamental principle from the criminal justice system violates the 14th Amendment’s due process clause, which was created to protect these such principles. They also posit that Kansas’ rule violates the Eighth Amendment’s statute regarding cruel and unusual punishment because, “by convicting and punishing people who are not blameworthy, cannot be deterred, and require incapacitation and rehabilitation that the criminal justice system cannot provide,” it doesn’t advance any of the justifications for punishment.
Contrastingly, the state of Kansas asserts that any differences between its relatively unique approach and a more typical insanity defense based on knowing the difference between right and wrong are practically irrelevant in Kahler’s case because under any of these tests, he would not have been able to prove that he was insane.
In Ramos v. Louisiana, the plaintiff Ramos was arrested, tried, and convicted of second-degree murder in Louisiana with a non-unanimous jury (10-2 conviction). Consequently, he received life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Because Louisiana state law only requires ten jurors to enter a guilty verdict, his conviction stood. The plaintiff repealed the case and the appellate court affirmed the previous decision. The Louisiana Supreme Court denied his next appeal. The question the Supreme Court will be addressing is whether the Fourteenth Amendment fully incorporates the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a unanimous verdict at the state level.
Featuring:
Giancarlo Canaparo, Legal Fellow, The Heritage Foundation