Case Explained: Bill eliminating insanity defense scrapes through first committee stop • Florida Phoenix – Legal Perspective

A Florida bill that would eliminate the insanity defense barely squeaked by its first committee hearing Monday amid withering criticisms but only after the bill sponsor promised to make substantial changes.

SB 1326 would require Florida judges to sentence offenders found guilty who intended to commit their crimes to prison, even if the accused couldn’t tell whether their actions were right or wrong. It was inspired by fears that Florida could accidentally release violent, legally insane offenders onto the street.

But the bill had glaring loopholes: Its language could remove the option for offenders to receive court-mandated mental health treatment. An independent senator called the legislation “crap,” a Democrat deemed it “unjust,” and a Republican voted “no,” resulting in SB 1326 barely passing in a 4-to-3 vote.

However, Republican Sen. Jonathan Martin, the bill’s sponsor, acknowledged problems and promised changes. 

“This bill is something that is far from perfect,” he said in the Senate Criminal Justice committee. 

“At this point, it’s our first attempt to deal with the issue that comes up when somebody is guilty of a heinous act and, but for the fact that they’re being found not guilty legally for reasons of insanity, they would serve a very long prison sentence,” the Fort Myers Republican added.

Florida is one of 25 states that uses the prevailing “right-wrong test,” or “M’Naghten Rule.” The strictest of insanity defenses, defendants can only be declared legally insane if they’re unable to tell the difference between right and wrong. 

Twenty-six other states use looser versions of the defense, while just four states have outlawed it altogether. Florida hopes to follow that latter pattern.

Despite this, the insanity defense is used in fewer than 1% of cases nationwide, and is successful in just a quarter of those attempts. That means roughly 30 Americans every year are declared not guilty by reason of insanity.

Harsh criticism

The measure ran into serious problems during its Monday afternoon stop. 

This included that the language would prevent judges from issuing a lesser sentence than usual if circumstances warrant and fails to mandate mental health treatment for unwell offenders.

“It’s crap the way it’s written right now,” said Sen. Jason Pizzo, a former prosecutor and the sole independent lawmaker in the Legislature. The Hollywood NPA emphasized that he doesn’t believe the Legislature should take “the pen out of” judges’ hands. 

“I know where you’re trying to get … but we have some judges that … I would trust to find the appropriate remedy,” he added. Despite this, Pizzo voted yes because he believes the insanity defense needs reform and if Martin’s bill dies Monday, so would the issue.

Democratic Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, representing Orlando, took a different approach. He called the idea of removing judges’ ability to make special changes “unjust,” and a “public safety risk,” deriding the idea of putting a violent offender in prison with no available treatment options.

“We know what our prisons are dealing with. They are bursting at the seams, they are overcrowded, they are understaffed,” Smith said. “And this bill forces more people with serious mental illnesses deeper into a prison system that’s already failing.”

Joining Smith in his “no” vote were Democratic Sen. Mack Bernard from West Palm Beach and Miami Republican Sen. Ileana Garcia.

Where did it come from?

SB 1326 is a priority bill for Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. In October, Uthmeier called for sweeping reforms to the state’s insanity defense, inspired by a 2015 case out of Kentucky.

Ronald Exantus stabbed a 6-year-old to death in Versailles, Kentucky. He was convicted of assault, but found not guilty by reason of insanity of murder. After serving less than half of his 20-year sentence, he was placed on mandatory supervised release.

Exantus moved to Florida, where he lived in Marion County near an elementary school and subsequently failed to register as a felon. So, Uthmeier in October led the charge to repatriate him to Kentucky.

“We cannot allow what happened in Kentucky to ever occur in Florida,” he said at the time.

Of note, Kentucky abides by a weaker version of the insanity defense than Florida, called the Model Penal Code. This allows defendants to be declared legally insane if they couldn’t tell right from wrong or could not control an impulse that led to the crime. 

Although 21 states use the MPC, it largely fell out of favor when the attempted Ronald Reagan assassin, John Hinckley Jr., was found not guilty by reason of insanity through it.

If Martin’s bill backed by the AG passes, it would replace the “right-wrong test,” with intent to commit a crime. This closely reflects a controversial, yet landmark, law out of Kansas. The Kansas law, fully eliminating the insanity defense, was battled up to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020, where it was ultimately decided that states don’t have to adopt insanity defense laws.