Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity Defense

Facts of the Case

Brian Leron Sam, a man in his 30s with a well‐established history of schizophrenia, entered a bank in Duncanville, Texas, on the morning of January 30, 2002, and handed the teller a note: “I HAVE A GUN! SILENTLY AND QUICKLY GIVE ME ALL YOUR MONEY.” Before the teller had a chance to comply, Mr. Sam snatched some money that happened to be on the counter and fled, leaving his note behind. Unfortunately for Mr. Sam, he had composed the abortive note on the back of his disability paperwork containing detailed identifying information. He was quickly captured and confessed to the robbery (a 20‐year felony).

In July of 2002, he was found incompetent to stand trial. Competency was restored with medication by September 2003, and Mr. Sam offered an insanity defense, conceding each factual element of the crime. He claimed that although his actions were wrong, his mental condition prevented him from understanding the seriousness of their consequences. Unswayed, the jury convicted Mr. Sam on October 21, 2004.

He was sentenced in February 2005, and the presentence investigation report recommended a sentence of 92 to 115 months in a federal penitentiary, based on the USSG. The guidelines allow for upward and downward departures, depending on specifics of the offender and the offense. For example, a defendant categorized as a “career offender” may incur an upward departure, whereas both diminished mental capacity and acceptance of responsibility may earn downward departures. Mr. Sam argued that downward departures from the USSG were warranted for both diminished mental capacity and acceptance of responsibility. In essence, Mr. Sam argued that pleading NGRI, an affirmative defense requiring that he concede the factual elements of the crime, was tantamount to accepting responsibility.

The district court refused Mr. Sam a downward departure on both grounds. First, the court ruled that bank robbery is, as a matter of law, a violent crime, and therefore a downward departure for diminished mental capacity is precluded under the USSG. Second, the court found that Mr. Sam's insanity defense challenged a basic factual element of his crime—mens rea, a culpable mental state—and therefore was inconsistent with a sentence reduction based on acceptance of responsibility. Mr. Sam appealed.

Ruling and Reasoning

The U.S. Sentencing Commission was created by an act of Congress in 1984 with a mandate to create sentencing guidelines that “provide certainty and fairness in meeting the purposes of sentencing by avoiding unwarranted disparity…while permitting sufficient judicial flexibility to take into account relevant aggravating and mitigating factors” (http://www.ussc.gov/general.htm). The United States Sentencing Guidelines … provide federal judges with fair and consistent sentencing ranges to consult at sentencing. The guidelines take into account both the seriousness of the criminal conduct and the defendant's criminal record. Based on the severity of the offense, the guidelines assign most federal crimes to one of 43 “offense levels.” Each offender is also assigned to one of six “criminal history categories.”

The USSG were initially mandatory, but the Supreme Court held in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), that mandatory application violates the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury in allowing judges to be the sole fact‐finders during the sentencing phase of a trial. The Court converted the mandatory system into an advisory one. However, Congress made no change to the mandatory language of the sentencing statute, “the court shall impose a sentence of the kind, and within the range, referred to [in the guidelines]” (18 U.S.C.A. § 3553(b) (2005), emphasis added). An editorial note following this section tersely informs readers, “Unconstitutionality of Subsection (b): (1) Mandatory aspect of subsection (b) (1) of this section held unconstitutional by United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738 (2005).” Now legally advisory in nature, Congress enacted legislation requiring that judges explicitly state their reason for any sentence that deviates from the guidelines.

The Fifth Circuit affirmed Mr. Sam's conviction and upheld the district court's finding that an insanity defense is inconsistent with an acceptance‐of‐responsibility sentence reduction. It reasoned as follows: although an affirmative defense, such as not guilty by reason of insanity or self defense, requires the defendant to admit to the facts of the alleged crime, it nonetheless disputes the prosecution's claim that a crime has been committed. The government still must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. This is clearly different from a situation in which someone comes forward and admits to committing a crime unbeknownst to the government, aids the subsequent investigation, and attempts to make restitution, an actual example in the USSG of a situation in which the acceptance‐of‐responsibility departure is warranted. The sentencing guidelines are explicit: “[An acceptance‐of‐responsibility reduction] is not intended to apply to a defendant who puts the government to its burden of proof at trial… .”

Mr. Sam also appealed the district court's denial of a downward departure for diminished mental capacity. According to the USSG, if an offense was committed while a defendant was suffering from diminished mental capacity, a downward departure may be warranted to the extent that the reduced capacity contributed to the offense. However, this departure is forbidden under some circumstances, including an offense that “involved actual violence or a serious threat of violence.” The Fifth Circuit found that the district court erred in considering bank robbery a de facto violent crime. Instead, the court should have considered the particular circumstances of the robbery and made its own determination as to whether the crime was violent. By this ruling, Mr. Sam obtained minor (and temporary) relief from the Fifth Circuit: his conviction was affirmed but his sentence was vacated and the matter was remanded for resentencing. On February 15, 2005, Mr. Sam was resentenced to 92 months imprisonment, the bottom end of the guideline range of 92 to 115 months.

Discussion

Although their status changed from mandatory to advisory after the Supreme Court's Booker ruling, it appears that Congress, and therefore the Sentencing Commission, intends for judges to stay within the guidelines in most cases. Given the strictures of the federal Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984 (enacted in response to John Hinckley, Jr.'s successful use of the insanity defense after he attempted to kill President Reagan), a federal insanity defense requires that the defendant prove that he did not know the wrongfulness of his conduct, a high burden for the defense. Diminished capacity, which has a standard two‐prong test, is the only sentencing allowance made for situations in which mental illness contributed to an offense. But as we see in Sam, this allowance applies only to nonviolent offenses.