Insanity ruling prompts Nevada debate

Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2002 | 9:43 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A Clark County prosecutor says a U.S. Supreme Court decision Tuesday on the insanity defense in Nevada will not result in a rash of new trials.

The insanity defense was not used in a big percentage of murder cases, Jim Tuftland, chief deputy in charge of appeals for the Clark County district attorney's office, said.

But Deputy Public Defender Howard S. Brooks, disagreed, noting that any person who entered a plea from 1995 to 2001 and who had a valid insanity defense has a right to ask that his plea be withdrawn.

"A lot of people may have grounds for relief," Brooks said.

The federal high court Tuesday refused to hear a Nevada case on the defense. That left standing a Nevada Supreme Court ruling last year that held that a 1995 law eliminating the insanity defense was unconstitutional.

The case involved Frederick Finger, who tried to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity on a charge that he fatally stabbed his mother, Franziska Brassaw, with a kitchen knife 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. Consequently, Finger instead pleaded "guilty to second-degree murder, but mentally ill." He was sentenced to life with eligibility for parole in 10 years.

Under the Nevada Supreme Court ruling, Finger was permitted to enter a new plea of not guilty by reason of insanity and go to trial, but he probably won't, Brooks, his attorney, said.

"The intent at this time," said Brooks, is for Finger to serve until 2007, when he will be eligible for parole. "The plea was the appropriate sentence for him," Brooks said.

Brooks said the 2003 Legislature will have to rewrite the insanity plea in the criminal laws. But Tuftland said the way the 1995 Legislature changed the law allowed the defense "to still present mental impairment and get an acquittal."

In addition to challenges based on insanity pleas that were prevented, Brooks said, inmates who had mental illnesses and did not seek the defense could argue their lawyers were incompetent.