On February 25, the U.S Supreme Court agreed to review a deci­sion by the Kansas Supreme Court over­turn­ing the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Scott Cheever, who killed a sher­iff dur­ing a drug inves­ti­ga­tion. Cheever argued that his own drug use made it impos­si­ble for him to have killed with pre­med­i­ta­tion, a fac­tor nec­es­sary for a cap­i­tal mur­der con­vic­tion. The case had been pre­vi­ous­ly charged in fed­er­al court. In that case, the tri­al judge had ordered a men­tal health eval­u­a­tion because Cheever was sim­i­lar­ly claim­ing a lack of intent due to drug use. The fed­er­al charges were even­tu­al­ly dis­missed, and the state took up the pros­e­cu­tion. At the state tri­al, the pros­e­cu­tion used Cheever’s state­ments dur­ing the men­tal eval­u­a­tion to rebut his claim of inca­pac­i­ty. The Kansas Supreme Court held that to be a vio­la­tion of Cheever’s 5th Amendment pro­tec­tion against self-incrim­i­na­tion. Generally, state­ments from a state men­tal health eval­u­a­tion may only be used against the defen­dant if he has raised a defense based on a men­tal dis­ease or defect. The Kansas Court held that Cheever’s claim of drug use was not such a defense. The case, Kansas v. Cheever, No. 12 – 609, will be argued in the fall.

The Supreme Court agreed to address two issues: 

1. When a crim­i­nal defen­dant affir­ma­tive­ly intro­duces expert tes­ti­mo­ny that he lacked the req­ui­site men­tal state to com­mit cap­i­tal mur­der of a law enforce­ment offi­cer due to the alleged tem­po­rary and long-term effects of the defen­dan­t’s metham­phet­a­mine use, does the state vio­late the defen­dan­t’s Fifth Amendment priv­i­lege against self-incrim­i­na­tion by rebut­ting the defen­dan­t’s men­tal state defense with evi­dence from a court-ordered men­tal eval­u­a­tion of the defendant? 

2. When a crim­i­nal defen­dant tes­ti­fies in his own defense, does the State vio­late the Fifth Amendment by impeach­ing such tes­ti­mo­ny with evi­dence from a court-ordered men­tal eval­u­a­tion of the defendant?

The case was orig­i­nal­ly pros­e­cut­ed in state court. However, Kansas’s death penal­ty was ruled uncon­sti­tu­tion­al by the Kansas Supreme Court, so the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment took over the case and pur­sued the death penal­ty. Subsequently, the U.S. Supreme Court rein­stat­ed the Kansas death penal­ty, (see Kansas v. Marsh), and the fed­er­al charges gave way to the state case. 

(B. Leonard, ​“Justices to Look at Meth User’s Competency Exam,” Courthouse News, February 25, 2013; Kansas v. Cheever, No. 12 – 609, cert. grant­ed Feb. 25, 2013). See U.S. Supreme Court and Mental Illness.

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