Supreme Court Reverses Kansas Self-Incrimination Ruling

On December 11, the U.S. Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly reversed a Kansas Supreme Court rul­ing that had grant­ed relief to death row inmate Scott Cheever. The Kansas court had held that Cheever’s 5^th Amendment right against self-incrim­i­na­tion had been vio­lat­ed because tes­ti­mo­ny was giv­en at his sen­tenc­ing hear­ing by a psy­chi­a­trist who exam­ined Cheever pur­suant to a court order. Cheever had claimed he was under the influ­ence of drugs at the time of the crime. The psy­chi­a­trist tes­ti­fied that his ​“anti­so­cial per­son­al­i­ty,” rather than his drug use, explained his crime. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writ­ing for the Court, said, “[W]here a defense expert who has exam­ined the defen­dant tes­ti­fies that the defen­dant lacked the req­ui­site men­tal state to com­mit an offense, the pros­e­cu­tion may present psy­chi­atric evi­dence in rebut­tal.” Since Cheever was rely­ing on his men­tal state for his defense, the pros­e­cu­tion was enti­tled to present con­trary evi­dence on his men­tal state. In an ear­li­er case, the Court had ruled psy­chi­atric state­ments could not be used against a defen­dant who ​“nei­ther ini­ti­ates a psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion nor attempts to intro­duce any psychiatric evidence.”

(D. Savage, ​“Supreme Court restores death sen­tence for Kansas mur­der­er,” Los Angeles Times, December 11, 2013). See Supreme Court and Mental Illness. Read the opin­ion in Kansas v. Cheever.