In January 2017, Anthony Montwheeler kidnapped his second ex-wife, attacking her with a knife and fleeing with her in his car. The following police chase ended in a high-speed collision with another car, and Montwheeler was finally arrested. His ex-wife and the driver of the other vehicle were pronounced dead at the scene. However, this was not the beginning of Montwheeler’s story.
Just over twenty years earlier, in 1996, Oregon courts found Anthony Montwheeler “guilty except for insanity” for kidnapping his first ex-wife and ordered Montwheeler subject to state jurisdiction for seventy years. During his years in custody, Montwheeler benefitted from Oregon’s conditional release program, which also helped him obtain housing. Eventually, Montwheeler convinced the state review board that he did not in fact have mental illness and that he could be released. At the hearing to determine Montwheeler’s sanity, the forensic psychologist reviewing Montwheeler’s file determined that Montwheeler had an increased risk of violence if released unsupervised. However, the psychiatrist at the state hospital disagreed based on Montwheeler’s clinical records from the previous two decades—Montwheeler was released before the completion of his term, just a month before the events of January 2017. Like other offenders discharged from the state hospital in Oregon, he was not diverted into the penitentiary.
The public has a multitude of fears regarding the insanity defense, which are clearly presented by the Anthony Montwheeler case: the safety of the public, the potential for malingering, and the indiscriminate use of such a defense, among others. Intense media coverage of cases like these has repeatedly encouraged states to narrow or even do away with their insanity defenses. The prevalence of these fears are reflected in the restriction on insanity defense legislation, but these misconceptions are largely unfounded. For example, a common misconception exists that the insanity defense is used in a significant portion of trials—this simply is not true. In fact, the defense is only used in around one percent of criminal cases, and of that number only one in four is successful. This low number can be traced to the stringency of insanity defense statutes. While proving highly contentious over the years, the insanity defense is necessary as a means of protecting the most vulnerable in our population when they are no longer able to follow public norms.
Those with mental illness still operate with a consistent internal logic and worldview. However, these constructs within the private mind can fail to conform to constructs held by society as a whole. A severely mentally ill individual simply interacts with the world in a different way than someone without mental illness. The misconception that the mentally ill are dangerous may have arisen because those with mental illness have more difficulty conforming their behavior to societal norms.
This Note first examines the background of the insanity defense, including the various tests that have been used in U.S. jurisdictions. Part III of this Note explores the greatest dangers to the insanity defense, including public misconceptions of the defense and the impact of stigma. Part III also investigates the public, legal, and judicial skepticism shown to psychiatrists and mental health experts. Part III concludes by pointing out the lack of a system protecting the mentally ill in the United States. This Note then considers, in Part IV, the potential impact of increased psychological consideration in the field of law by delving into personality disorders, specifically exploring the impact of antisocial personality disorder and why these individuals are excluded from the defense.