SCOTUS - Kansas v. Kahler

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In November 2009, James K. Kahler went to his wife’s grandmother’s house, shot and killed his wife, his two daughters, and the grandmother. Kahler was arrested, charged, and sentenced to death for the four killings.

After the attorneys swore to conduct themselves according to the law and support the constitutions of the United States and the judges swore to administer justice equally, the known landmark case, "Kahler v. Kansas", tried by the Supreme Court of the United States started.

First, Attorney 3 and Attorney 2 on behalf of Kahler highlighted that the defendant suffered from mental illnesses and that Kahler was not in his right state of mind, bringing up the Constitution of the United States, especially the 8th amendment. Attorney 2 called the capital punishment “unconstitutional”.

Second, Attorney 3 of Kansas mentioned that Kahler refused to take any prescribed medication, so the defendant would actually be at fault for his own mental state during the killings.

Furthermore, Attorney 3 of Kahler has said that “the insanity defense is seen as a constitutional safeguard”, also supported by Attorney 1 of Kahler, that addressed moral and cognitive examples of reactions. By using the whiteboard, the attorney drew a scheme explaining this theory with a tree metaphor: if a person kills another person thinking it’s a tree, is he just as insane as a person that kills another person thinking a tree made him do it? However, Attorney 2 Kansas disagreed, stating that “how exactly was he cognitively incapable of murdering, but cognitively capable of letting his son go”.

Moral challenges have been addressed throughout the trial, associating this “insanity defense” case with the following hypothesis: “If a child shoots an adult, do we send the child to jail? No, because we know that the child cannot discern right from wrong, as they are not mentally developed enough”.

A lot of objections have been used, especially by Attorney 3 of Kahler, and the justice was not bypassed. The judges have been stopped many times when asking questions, reminded to use the word “allegedly”, especially when accusing the defendant of abusing his family before the tragic murder that happened.

Finally, the witnesses have been brought, and the psychiatrist Steven Peterson, brought by Attorney 3 on behalf of Kahler testified that the abuse was not confirmed and that he should not be convicted to capital punishment. The psychiatrist pledged the Fifth Amendment many times, and the advocates seemed to not know how to get the proof they truly needed.