High court allows insanity defense

Wednesday, July 25, 2001 | 10:17 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Supreme Court in a split decision has ruled that a criminal defendant must be allowed to raise the defense of insanity to avoid conviction.

The court said the 1995 Legislature was wrong to abolish the right of a defendant to enter a plea of "not guilty by reason of insanity."

"The Legislature cannot abolish the concept of legal insanity," Justice Nancy Becker wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision, issued Tuesday, allowed Frederick Finger to withdraw his plea of guilty but mentally ill to second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of his mother, Franziska Brassaw, in Las Vegas in April 1996. She was stabbed once in the head with a kitchen knife at their home.

Finger, who was sentenced to life in prison, sought to enter a plea of "not guilty by reason of insanity." The District Court judge, however, told him that plea had been repealed by the Legislature. He entered the guilty plea but claimed he was mentally ill.

Becker said Finger had the right to argue he lacked the required intent to commit the crime because he was mentally ill.

"The attempt by the Legislature to wipe away more than a century of criminal jurisprudence tramples on the due process rights of mentally unsound defendants and is unconstitutional," Justice Myron Leavitt, in a concurring opinion, said.

However, wrote Justice Miriam Shearing in the dissent, the present law does not violate either the U.S. or Nevada Constitution. She said under the Nevada law, Finger was not required to plead guilty.

"Every person accused of a crime has a right to a trial," she said. Finger, she said, could have refused to enter a plea and the District Court would have been required to enter a plea of not guilty. Then a trial could be held at which evidence of the mental state of Finger could have been presented by the defense.

Dissenting were Justice Miriam Shearing, Chief Justice Bill Maupin and Justice Bob Rose.

Joining Becker and Leavitt in the majority decision were Justices Cliff Young and Deborah Agosti. They said Finger has the right to argue he lacked the required intent to commit murder and is legally insane.