By Zach Gorchow
Gongwer News Service
Michigan’s six justices on the Supreme Court affiliated with the Democratic Party, with some level of reticence, upended 25 years of precedent in the ability of defendants to argue their mental health should reduce their criminal culpability when charged with crimes.
A 6-1 majority of the court, in an opinion by Justice Richard Bernstein, held that the court erred in 2001 when it held Michigan law only allowed for evidence of legal insanity to be used as a defense where defendants admit guilt but the crimes are excused. A diminished capacity defense is designed to negate specific intent where the defendant does not admit guilt but challenges the charges’ claims the defendant had specific intent to commit the crime.
Justice Noah Hood, one of the six justices to sign the majority opinion in People v. Madison (SC Docket No. 167120), offered an eye-grabbing assessment of the ruling’s effects in a concurring opinion.
“I must acknowledge that the decision to overturn Carpenter carries with it a deluge of logistical, operational, and funding challenges that will have both immediate and distal impacts on our courts. Most immediately, this decision will create further pressure and obligations on the already underfunded and stripped-down mental health infrastructure. It will create widespread slowdowns in criminal cases, which will affect defendants awaiting trial, victims and witnesses waiting for their day in court, and the public, which has a continuing interest in courts administering criminal cases as quickly as we can do it fairly,” Hood wrote. “This is going to have a massive impact on how cases progress through the criminal justice system.”
So significant is the decision for Michigan’s courts, prosecutors and defense attorneys that the Supreme Court immediately issued proposed amendments to the Michigan Court Rules to administer the wide-ranging effects.
In 2022, Cinecca Daquan Madison allegedly shot two people in Holland with whom he was riding bikes. One died of their injuries, the other was critically injured and hospitalized for 10 days. Madison was charged with open murder, assault with intent to commit murder and two counts of carrying or possessing a firearm while committing or attempting to commit a felony.
Madison underwent a competency evaluation where he was ruled competent to stand trial. He had been taking a prescribed antipsychotic medication while jailed, though not when the shooting occurred. Ten months earlier, he had been diagnosed with the precursor diagnosis to schizophrenia. The physician concluded Madison suffered from an impaired capacity to recognize reality but was not legally insane when the crime occurred.
Madison’s attorneys moved to present evidence of Madison’s diminished capacity and have the judge present jury instructions about his diminished capacity, but the Ottawa Circuit Court denied the motion. The Court of Appeals denied his request to hear an appeal.
The Supreme Court stayed trial proceedings after Madison appealed the Court of Appeals’ action.
In 1975, a new law was enacted allowing for a defendant to assert an insanity defense, defined as lacking the capacity to understand the wrongfulness of their conduct or conform to the law. Persons asserting an insanity defense can be found “guilty but mentally ill.”
Defendants could assert diminished capacity toward a ruling of legal insanity.
In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled in Carpenter that the Legislature had made clear that only an all-or-nothing insanity defense is possible, that diminished capacity has no role.
Bernstein wrote that diminished capacity and legal insanity are two completely different concepts that the court wrongly conflated in Carpenter.
Further, Bernstein said there is no language in Michigan law regarding the concept of diminished capacity. There was, however, substantial case law on the presentation of diminished capacity in a defense that Carpenter wrongly overturned, Bernstein wrote.
“Therefore, the Carpenter Court’s erroneous conclusion that the Legislature had created a ‘comprehensive statutory scheme’ governing any defense rooted in mental illness or intellectual disability was not just contrary to the plain language of these statutes; it also improperly used the Legislature’s silence on the use of evidence of diminished capacity outside of legal insanity to overturn decades of common law,” he wrote.
Bernstein acknowledged a “serious concern” in the ruling is how it will affect court operations. He said, however, the court cannot be certain of the effects of a decision before it occurs.
The opinion was signed by Chief Justice Megan Cavanagh, Justice Elizabeth Welch, Justice Kyra Harris Bolden, Justice Kimberly Thomas and Hood.
Cavanagh wrote her own concurring opinion, signed by Welch, regarding the “broader impact” of the decision and “how trial courts should examine diminished-capacity evidence moving forward.”
She wrote that the opinion “should not be interpreted as a free-for-all” for introducing evidence of a defendant’s mental illness or intellectual disability.
“All pertinent rules of evidence continue to apply. For example, pursuant to MRE 401, trial courts must ensure that the evidence of mental illness or intellectual disability, if not part of an affirmative defense of legal insanity, is relevant to negating the specific intent included in the charged offense,” she wrote. “While there are undoubtedly new questions and issues that will arise in the wake of our holding, we, counseled by judicial restraint, leave them for another day.”
Hood, in his concurring opinion, offered a more dire assessment.
“Acknowledging that we do not know how many defendants will request or receive diminished-capacity evaluations, this decision will trigger requests in new cases on a scale that our system is ill-equipped to process,” he said.
Hood said he chose to concur in the opinion because logistical concerns should not outweigh “a fear of too much justice,” quoting former U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. He said he has confidence Michigan courts will work through the challenges.
Justice Brian Zahra, the court’s lone justice nominated by the Republican Party, authored a blistering dissent, saying the ruling controverted the Legislature’s clear intent.
“The diminished-capacity defense has no governing statute and, as a result, has no requirement that the defendant be evaluated and treated for mental illness,” he wrote. “Consequently, a defendant who asserts a diminished-capacity defense may realistically avoid a charge as serious as one of first-degree murder or assault with intent to commit criminal sexual conduct, all on the basis of his or her mental illness. And yet, such a defendant will not be subject to mandatory psychiatric evaluation and treatment.”
The majority opinion “contradicts the principle of operational statutory coherence,” Zahra wrote.
“Why would mentally ill defendants receive psychiatric evaluation and treatment if they are legally insane or guilty but mentally ill but not receive similar treatment if they assert their mental illness as a partial defense to even the most serious of crimes?” he wrote.
Zahra also scorched the majority opinion for noting longtime criminal defendants’ criticism of the Carpenter decision.
“Of course criminal defendants question the validity of Carpenter! Carpenter foreclosed their ability to circumvent the Legislature’s scheme for the presentation of intellectual-disability evidence and mental-illness evidence in the criminal context,” he wrote. “It is an egregious dereliction of our duty to conduct statutory interpretation by polling those with a glaringly obvious ulterior motive distorting their arguments.”
Gongwer News Service
Michigan’s six justices on the Supreme Court affiliated with the Democratic Party, with some level of reticence, upended 25 years of precedent in the ability of defendants to argue their mental health should reduce their criminal culpability when charged with crimes.
A 6-1 majority of the court, in an opinion by Justice Richard Bernstein, held that the court erred in 2001 when it held Michigan law only allowed for evidence of legal insanity to be used as a defense where defendants admit guilt but the crimes are excused. A diminished capacity defense is designed to negate specific intent where the defendant does not admit guilt but challenges the charges’ claims the defendant had specific intent to commit the crime.
Justice Noah Hood, one of the six justices to sign the majority opinion in People v. Madison (SC Docket No. 167120), offered an eye-grabbing assessment of the ruling’s effects in a concurring opinion.
“I must acknowledge that the decision to overturn Carpenter carries with it a deluge of logistical, operational, and funding challenges that will have both immediate and distal impacts on our courts. Most immediately, this decision will create further pressure and obligations on the already underfunded and stripped-down mental health infrastructure. It will create widespread slowdowns in criminal cases, which will affect defendants awaiting trial, victims and witnesses waiting for their day in court, and the public, which has a continuing interest in courts administering criminal cases as quickly as we can do it fairly,” Hood wrote. “This is going to have a massive impact on how cases progress through the criminal justice system.”
So significant is the decision for Michigan’s courts, prosecutors and defense attorneys that the Supreme Court immediately issued proposed amendments to the Michigan Court Rules to administer the wide-ranging effects.
In 2022, Cinecca Daquan Madison allegedly shot two people in Holland with whom he was riding bikes. One died of their injuries, the other was critically injured and hospitalized for 10 days. Madison was charged with open murder, assault with intent to commit murder and two counts of carrying or possessing a firearm while committing or attempting to commit a felony.
Madison underwent a competency evaluation where he was ruled competent to stand trial. He had been taking a prescribed antipsychotic medication while jailed, though not when the shooting occurred. Ten months earlier, he had been diagnosed with the precursor diagnosis to schizophrenia. The physician concluded Madison suffered from an impaired capacity to recognize reality but was not legally insane when the crime occurred.
Madison’s attorneys moved to present evidence of Madison’s diminished capacity and have the judge present jury instructions about his diminished capacity, but the Ottawa Circuit Court denied the motion. The Court of Appeals denied his request to hear an appeal.
The Supreme Court stayed trial proceedings after Madison appealed the Court of Appeals’ action.
In 1975, a new law was enacted allowing for a defendant to assert an insanity defense, defined as lacking the capacity to understand the wrongfulness of their conduct or conform to the law. Persons asserting an insanity defense can be found “guilty but mentally ill.”
Defendants could assert diminished capacity toward a ruling of legal insanity.
In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled in Carpenter that the Legislature had made clear that only an all-or-nothing insanity defense is possible, that diminished capacity has no role.
Bernstein wrote that diminished capacity and legal insanity are two completely different concepts that the court wrongly conflated in Carpenter.
Further, Bernstein said there is no language in Michigan law regarding the concept of diminished capacity. There was, however, substantial case law on the presentation of diminished capacity in a defense that Carpenter wrongly overturned, Bernstein wrote.
“Therefore, the Carpenter Court’s erroneous conclusion that the Legislature had created a ‘comprehensive statutory scheme’ governing any defense rooted in mental illness or intellectual disability was not just contrary to the plain language of these statutes; it also improperly used the Legislature’s silence on the use of evidence of diminished capacity outside of legal insanity to overturn decades of common law,” he wrote.
Bernstein acknowledged a “serious concern” in the ruling is how it will affect court operations. He said, however, the court cannot be certain of the effects of a decision before it occurs.
The opinion was signed by Chief Justice Megan Cavanagh, Justice Elizabeth Welch, Justice Kyra Harris Bolden, Justice Kimberly Thomas and Hood.
Cavanagh wrote her own concurring opinion, signed by Welch, regarding the “broader impact” of the decision and “how trial courts should examine diminished-capacity evidence moving forward.”
She wrote that the opinion “should not be interpreted as a free-for-all” for introducing evidence of a defendant’s mental illness or intellectual disability.
“All pertinent rules of evidence continue to apply. For example, pursuant to MRE 401, trial courts must ensure that the evidence of mental illness or intellectual disability, if not part of an affirmative defense of legal insanity, is relevant to negating the specific intent included in the charged offense,” she wrote. “While there are undoubtedly new questions and issues that will arise in the wake of our holding, we, counseled by judicial restraint, leave them for another day.”
Hood, in his concurring opinion, offered a more dire assessment.
“Acknowledging that we do not know how many defendants will request or receive diminished-capacity evaluations, this decision will trigger requests in new cases on a scale that our system is ill-equipped to process,” he said.
Hood said he chose to concur in the opinion because logistical concerns should not outweigh “a fear of too much justice,” quoting former U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. He said he has confidence Michigan courts will work through the challenges.
Justice Brian Zahra, the court’s lone justice nominated by the Republican Party, authored a blistering dissent, saying the ruling controverted the Legislature’s clear intent.
“The diminished-capacity defense has no governing statute and, as a result, has no requirement that the defendant be evaluated and treated for mental illness,” he wrote. “Consequently, a defendant who asserts a diminished-capacity defense may realistically avoid a charge as serious as one of first-degree murder or assault with intent to commit criminal sexual conduct, all on the basis of his or her mental illness. And yet, such a defendant will not be subject to mandatory psychiatric evaluation and treatment.”
The majority opinion “contradicts the principle of operational statutory coherence,” Zahra wrote.
“Why would mentally ill defendants receive psychiatric evaluation and treatment if they are legally insane or guilty but mentally ill but not receive similar treatment if they assert their mental illness as a partial defense to even the most serious of crimes?” he wrote.
Zahra also scorched the majority opinion for noting longtime criminal defendants’ criticism of the Carpenter decision.
“Of course criminal defendants question the validity of Carpenter! Carpenter foreclosed their ability to circumvent the Legislature’s scheme for the presentation of intellectual-disability evidence and mental-illness evidence in the criminal context,” he wrote. “It is an egregious dereliction of our duty to conduct statutory interpretation by polling those with a glaringly obvious ulterior motive distorting their arguments.”
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