High court’s insanity ruling might prompt new trials

Thursday, July 26, 2001 | 10:44 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The defense attorney who won a ruling from the Nevada Supreme Court to reinstate the insanity defense in criminal cases says the ruling might help some defendants get new trials.

Howard S. Brooks, a deputy public defender in Clark County, says a "great unknown" is how many times defendants may have gone on trial from 1995 to 2001 who were a "little crazy or with a mental illness" and no insanity defense was raised.

The Supreme Court, in a decision Tuesday, held that a law eliminating the insanity defense passed by the Nevada Legislature in 1995 was unconstitutional. The 4-3 ruling said criminal defendants should be able to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.

Brooks said affected individuals could ask the courts to allow them to withdraw their pleas and have a new trial.

The case on which the Supreme Court based its ruling involved Frederick Finger, who tried to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity in the stabbing death of his mother, Franziska Brassaw, in Las Vegas in April 1996.

The District Court stopped Finger from entering that plea on grounds it had been abolished by the 1995 Legislature. So Finger entered a plea of "guilty to second-degree murder but mentally ill." He was sentenced to a life term with eligibility for parole in 10 years.

The Supreme Court said, "The Legislature cannot abolish the concept of legal insanity. Therefore Finger has the right to argue that he lacked the required mens rea (criminal intent) to commit the crime of murder and is legally insane."

It permitted Finger to enter a new plea of not guilty by reason of insanity and go to trial. But Brooks said he doesn't know what will happen in the Finger case. He said he wants to talk to his client, who has 4 1/2 years more to go before he is eligible for parole.

"Juries just don't like insanity defenses," said Brooks, who added he would be "hard pressed" to recall any successful insanity verdicts in the last 11 years.

He said those who pleaded guilty by reason of insanity may not want to withdraw their plea.

"Some of them have already come to terms" with their punishment, Brooks said. And they may have received a reduced penalty and "may not want to risk it" by going back to trial.

"Your chances of winning are very slim," Brooks said.

One of the problems of the judicial system, Brooks said, is that people who plead guilty by reason of insanity are supposed to get mental health treatment in prison, but don't.

Finger was sent to the state's maximum-security prison at Ely, where he was placed with the other hardened criminals.

The Supreme Court said the District Court may suggest that the prison system provide treatment to those who pleaded guilty but mentally ill. But that treatment isn't available, said Brooks.

Finger has an extensive history of mental illness, said the court. He was first determined to be mentally ill in 1972 at the age of 17.