Kansas Capital case to examine man's mental state

By John Hanna Associated Press LYNDON, Kan. (AP) -- Defense attorneys in a Kansas capital murder case are expected to raise questions in court this week about the sanity of a man accused of killing his estranged wife and three other family members, but the state has an unusual standard for determining when someone is too mentally ill to be held legally responsible for a crime. The second week of James Kraig Kahler's trial began Monday in Osage County District Court. He is accused of shooting his wife, their two teenage daughters and his wife's grandmother the weekend after Thanksgiving 2009 in the grandmother's home just outside Burlingame, a town of some 930 residents about 20 miles south of Topeka. Kahler, 48, is a former city utilities director in Weatherford, Texas, and Columbia, Mo., who lost his job in Missouri amid a contentious divorce and moved back to Kansas in 2009 to live with his parents. His attorneys contend he snapped mentally because of the divorce and his wife's sexual relationship with a Weatherford, Texas, woman. Kansas is among a few states in which jurors aren't asked to consider whether defendants understood at the time that their alleged actions were criminal. Instead, Kansas jurors consider whether an accused murder's mental state kept him from forming the intent to kill specific victims and reflecting on actions he might take. "Kansas does not have 'not guilty by reason of insanity,'" said Jeffrey Jackson, a law professor at Washburn University of Topeka. "Was he so lacking in his mental state that he did not intend to do what he did? That's kind of a squishy standard." Prosecutors called the last of their scheduled witnesses Friday and are expected to formally rest their case Monday. They have argued that the killings were premeditated, and they are pursuing the death penalty. The victims of the shootings were Karen Kahler, 44; her grandmother, Dorothy Wight, 89; and the Kahlers' daughters, Emily, 18, and Lauren, 16. Law enforcement officers and emergency medical personnel have said Wight and Lauren Kahler identified the defendant, who often went by his middle name, as the gunman before dying. The Kahlers' son, Sean, now 12, also was at the scene but escaped without physical injury. He testified earlier in the trial that he saw his father shoot his mother. Authorities haven't found the .223-caliber assault rifle identified as the murder weapon, but they said there were seven casings for .223-caliber shells at the murder scene and a box for a .223-caliber rifle in the back of Kraig Kahler's sports-utility vehicle after his capture. Also, blood found at the scene belonged to Kraig Kahler, according to a Kansas Bureau of Investigation forensics scientist. While Kraig Kahler's lawyers haven't conceded he was the gunman, defense attorney Thomas Haney focused in his opening statement on the stresses that could have led the defendant to snap. Haney has portrayed Kahler as a loving husband and father with a seemingly perfect marriage for more than two decades before Karen Kahler's sexual relationship with Sunny Reese, a fellow fitness trainer at a Weatherford, Texas, gym. Reese has testified the relationship began in 2008, shortly before the Kahlers moved from Weatherford to Columbia, Mo. Reese said her affair with Karen Kahler had Kraig Kahler's blessing as it began, and he even once proposed three-way sex -- something defense attorneys dispute. Haney has said in court that Kraig Kahler consented to the relationship to keep his marriage alive. Haney also has said evidence will show that Kraig Kahler was depressed and suffering from hallucinations months before the shootings, and that a doctor prescribed medication, though he never took it. Haney contends Kraig Kahler lost his job in Columbia, Mo., because of his deteriorating mental health. "The defendant's evidence is going to focus on why things happened," Haney told jurors. "No sane person could do this." In half of the states, including those bordering Kansas, the basic issue in an insanity defense is whether a defendant was so impaired by a mental illness or defect that he couldn't understand that his alleged conduct was criminal, according to the FindLaw.com website. The rule dates to 1840s England. Twenty others adopted a standard developed by the American Law Institute in the 1960s that a defendant "lacks substantial capacity" to appreciate the criminal nature of his conduct or keep his behavior within the law. New Hampshire says a defendant is not criminally responsible if his act is the product of a mental illness or defect. Kansas once followed the older, most popular standard, but legislators occasionally tinkered with the law into the 1990s, requiring defendants to give written notice of plans to pursue an insanity defense at least 30 days before a trial started. In 1995, Kansas did away with the traditional insanity defense in favor of its current standard, which deals with whether a defendant could form criminal intent. Idaho, Montana and Utah have done the same, but unlike Kansas, each allows a specific verdict of guilty but insane or guilty but mentally ill. Jackson said the current Kansas standard was described as narrower when lawmakers adopted it, and he said it's arguably stricter. But veteran Topeka defense attorney Joe Huerter, who has tried murder cases, wasn't so sure. He said defense attorneys must show more skill in presenting evidence to the jury, but also don't have to "pigeonhole" their arguments to whether a defendant could understand that his alleged conduct was criminal. "I think it maybe gives a little more flexibility," Huerter said, not speaking about the Kahler case specifically. Published: Wed, Aug 24, 2011