Utah has one of the strictest insanity laws in the country and, because of this, the defense is rarely raised by attorneys.
Assistant Utah Attorney General Creighton Horton said like many states, Utah tightened its insanity defense laws in reaction to the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, in which John Hinckley was acquitted by reason of insanity and sent to a mental hospital in 1981.
Since the laws were tightened, Horton said he couldn't think of a single case in Utah in which a jury returned a verdict of "guilty and mentally ill."
However, Horton said had a case like Eric Clark's gone before a Utah judge, Utah's laws are so different from Arizona's that a judge in Utah would not have so easily thrown out the insanity evidence.
It all boils down to a person knowing what he is doing is wrong, vs. proving that they intentionally killed, Horton said.
Arizona uses a standard in which a prosecutor must prove that, despite being delusional, a person knew what he or she was doing was wrong. Horton said in Utah, a prosecutor must prove, despite being delusional, that a person intentionally killed.
It's a subtle difference but both very strict standards, Horton said. In other states with looser insanity defense laws, insanity is proven "if they didn't appreciate the wrongfulness of what they were doing," Horton said.
In a Utah homicide, a defense attorney can raise the issue of sanity by attempting to show that the defendant did not have the ability to form the intent to kill a human being. That defense would need to be supported by testimony from mental health professionals stating that he or she believed that was true of the defendant at the time the crime was committed.
One recent case in 3rd District Court involved Leonard Preston Gall, a diagnosed schizophrenic, who pleaded guilty but mentally ill to second-degree felony manslaughter after killing his mother, Susan, with an ax in 2002.
Gall had a long and documented history of mental illness and his defense attorney, Stephen McCaughey, said Gall believed his mother was a "torture machine" at the time Gall killed her.
A plea agreement worked out between McCaughey and prosecutor Kevin Murphy of the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office arranged for Gall to be placed in the Utah State Hospital rather than prison.
Gall was initially charged with first-degree felony murder, but the plea reduced the charge. He also pleaded guilty to stealing his mother's car, another second-degree felony.
Third District Judge Judith Atherton in 2003 accepted the plea bargain, imposed two consecutive sentences for the two felonies, and sent Gall to the psychiatric hospital. He could remain in state custody for as long as 30 years. The judge left it up to the discretion of the state Department of Corrections regarding any future transfers to the state prison or back to the hospital, depending on possible changes in Gall's condition.
Horton said it will be interesting to see what the U.S. Supreme Court comes up with in terms of a standard for insanity. At this point, Horton said, the nation's highest court has left it up to each state to set their own standard, resulting in a "patchwork" of insanity defense standards.