Insanity defense accepted; Kane acquitted of murder

By Matt Pordum (contact)

Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2004 | 9:39 a.m.

Michael Kane was insane when he stabbed a friend to death in October 2001, a Clark County jury decided Tuesday when it acquitted Kane of a murder charge.

Kane, who was 19 and under the influence of LSD at the time, stabbed 23-year-old John Trowbridge several times while the two were listening to the radio and playing fighting video games in a house on the 5200 block of Koa Avenue, near Flamingo Road and Nellis Boulevard.

Kane, who told his attorneys he was "a little nervous" before the verdict was read" may have avoided a potential life sentence, but he will not be a free man.

Deputy Public Defender Scott Coffee said Kane would now be placed in the custody of a mental health facility until it can be proven he "is no longer mentally ill or has no mental illness."

Coffee said doctors at the facility Kane is ultimately placed in would make such a determination with the final say held by a District Court judge. If Kane is never found to be legally sane, he will never leave the mental health facility he is sent to, Coffee said.

Such knowledge provided little solace to the family of John Trowbridge who cried and looked on in disbelief after the verdict was read.

Both Coffee and Chief Deputy District Attorney Ed Kane, who is no relation to the defendant, initially said Lake's Crossing, the state mental hospital in Sparks, would be the most likely destination for Kane.

Ed Kane said Michael Kane would now be placed in custody at Clark County Detention Center just as a defendant deemed incompetent would be until a decision on the mental health facility could be made.

Ed Kane said the jury simply disagreed with the prosecution's interpretation of Nevada law regarding legal insanity.

"We thought he didn't meet the burden of legally insane by statute, the jury apparently did," the prosecutor said. "Every psychologist that testified in this trial said he was mentally ill, but we still don't feel he was legally insane."

During his closing arguments Ed Kane said none of the mental health experts who testified were qualified to understand how narrow the legal definition of insanity is.

Ed Kane said Trowbridge never posed a threat to his killer, and even if the jury found Michael Kane delusional, he failed to act as a reasonable person would have if they were in the same situation.

During opening statements, Deputy Public Defender Dan Silverstein said the extent of Michael Kane's mental problems could be better understood by looking at his actions since Trowbridge's death. Silverstein said upon being placed in custody at Clark County Detention Center, Michael Kane attacked the guards, and after being restrained in bed and unable to attack them he began "chewing holes into his own shoulder. He began gnawing on himself."

Silverstein said after being declared incompetent to stand trial in 2002, Michael Kane was sent to Lake's Crossing, the state mental hospital in Sparks. He said that on the plane ride to the facility, Michael Kane said he believed the "guards accompanying him on the flight were terrorists who were poisoning the air in the plane." Silverstein said Michael Kane went to the plane's bathroom where he "stuck his head in the toilet because he thought it was the only way to get safe air."

Silverstein said Michael Kane was only able to sit in court because he was heavily medicated.

Not guilty by reason of insanity is a rarely used plea that was reinstated during the 2003 Legislature. The Legislature had abolished the plea in 1995, but in 2001 the Nevada Supreme Court ruled the law violated the due process rights of the defendant.

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 because it had been abolished by the Legislature in 1995. Finger instead pleaded "guilty to second-degree murder, but mentally ill." He was sentenced to life with eligibility for parole in 10 years.

On appeal, Finger argued that Nevada's abolishment of insanity as an affirmative defense violated his right to due process as protected by the Eighth and 14th Amendments and the Nevada Constitution

The state's high court reasoned that barring an insanity defense could result in a person being convicted of a crime even though they lacked the mental capacity to form the intent to commit the crime, which violates the due process clauses of the state and federal constitutions,

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.