effyeahscotus:

Decision: May 20, 2013, 9-0

Summary at SCOTUSBlog

This is Burt Lancaster.

No, not that one. This one is from Michigan.

Right. So Burt shot his girlfriend in 1993 as she walked into a restaurant.

At his first trial, he used a defense of insanity, which went pretty well.

Buuuuut that trial was thrown out because of race issues on the jury.

So, hold on a sec. Legal theory light: If you’re trying to say, in court, that you lost your shit and, say, killed a dude, such that you weren’t in total control of your mind, but you weren’t ALL THE WAY insane, then that defense is called “diminished capacity.” Good? Good.

After Burt’s first trial, Michigan’s Supreme Court issued a ruling: when Michigan’s legislature rewrote one of its laws, it failed to include “diminished capacity” as an OK defense, so you can’t use it anymore.

Even so, at his second trial, Lancaster’s lawyer tried to argue diminished capacity.

Clearly, the federal court said,

…no.

So Lancaster is all,

And he runs to the court of appeals with the argument that the unavailability of the “diminished capacity” defense was a surprise and violated his due process rights. They overturned the ruling, siding with him.

So, Michigan brings it on up to SCOTUS, and RBG is like, “This Court has never found a due process violation in circumstances remotely resembling Lancaster’s case.”

Basically, the court said that a totally reasonable court (Michigan’s federal court, in trial #2) interpreted a totally reasonable law in a totally reasonable way, and Lancaster’s surprise didn’t mean his due process was violated.

Sorry, Burt.

 

oh my goddd.