Law & Psychiatry: Does the Constitution Require an Insanity Defense?

In March 2007, John Delling left California with the intent to kill all the people he imagined would eventually kill him. He flew to Idaho where he tracked down and murdered a former high school classmate and an online gamer he had met on the Internet. But because Idaho has no insanity defense, when the case came to trial he pled guilty to second-degree murder, even though evaluators found him severely psychotic. Thus began another odyssey, this time through the courts, as Delling argued that Idaho's laws violated his constitutional right to an insanity defense.

Idaho is one of four states that have abolished the insanity defense. Hence, John Delling, on trial for two murders in Idaho, was unable to plead insanity or to argue that he lacked intent to kill, the only available option under Idaho law. After being sentenced to life in prison without parole, Delling challenged the constitutionality of Idaho’s law. The state’s supreme court rejected his appeal, holding that—despite the long history of the insanity defense and its widespread acceptance—there was no constitutional right to an insanity defense. Delling’s petition to the U.S. Supreme Court was turned away, leaving the constitutional status of the insanity defense uncertain.