## Facts

- Jerry T. Korell, a Vietnam veteran, experienced psychological difficulties after military service.
- After discharge, he was twice voluntarily admitted to Veterans Administration hospitals for psychological problems and treated with antipsychotic drugs.
- He was briefly jailed in 1976 in Boise, Idaho, for harassing and threatening a U.S. senator.
- Evidence described periodic paranoid episodes, particularly difficulty relating to male authority figures, with dramatic fluctuations in mental health.
- Korell was prosecuted in Montana for attempted deliberate homicide and aggravated assault.
- At trial, Korell contended he lacked the required criminal mental state due to mental illness; expert evidence of paranoid delusions was presented.
- The jury found Korell guilty, implicitly finding he acted purposely or knowingly as required by the charged offenses.

## Issues

1. Whether Montana’s statutory scheme abolishing a traditional, stand-alone insanity defense violates the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause.
2. Whether punishing a mentally ill defendant under that scheme constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Montana affirmed the convictions for attempted deliberate homicide and aggravated assault.
- The court upheld the constitutionality of Montana’s 1979 statutory scheme limiting the role of mental disease or defect.
- The court held there is no federal constitutional requirement that a state provide a traditional insanity defense as a complete bar to criminal liability.
- The court concluded the statute adequately permits consideration of mental illness through (1) evidence negating the required mental state and (2) judicial consideration at sentencing.
- The court rejected the Eighth Amendment challenge because mental condition remains relevant to individualized sentencing and the scheme does not bar consideration of mental illness altogether.

## Legal Principles

- Due process does not require states to adopt or retain any particular formulation of an insanity defense, including a separate insanity acquittal.
- A state may constitutionally restrict mental disease or defect evidence to whether the prosecution proved the offense’s required mental state (e.g., purposely or knowingly).
- A state may treat mental illness as a sentencing consideration even if it does not negate mens rea.
- Punishment imposed under a framework that permits mental illness to be considered on mens rea and at sentencing does not, on that basis alone, constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

## Conclusion

Montana’s abolition of a stand-alone insanity defense, while allowing mental disease or defect evidence to negate mens rea and to mitigate at sentencing, does not violate due process or the Eighth Amendment; Korell’s convictions were therefore affirmed.


State v. Korell, 690 P.2d 992 (Mont. 1984)