Newspaper Article

Insanity defense under attack // Ax murder trial renews debate

McAuliffe, Bill, Staff Writer

1989

Overview

Many critics, such as Terry Walters, who is Brom's attorney, and Judge [Ancy Morse], argue that M'Naghten is simply too narrow, failing to recognize the many shades of mental illness established by modern psychiatry. Walters had asked Morse to allow the Brom jury to consider whether Brom, who has been diagnosed as severely depressed, might have been driven by mental illness to commit murder, even though he knew what he was doing and knew it was wrong. The last successful insanity defense in Hennepin County was that of June Mikulanec in 1978. Mikulanec killed the wife of her former boyfriend by stabbing her nearly 100 times. Mikulanec is a resident of the Minnesota Security Hospital at St. Peter. William Erickson, medical director at the security hospital, said the insanity defense is \"certainly not a cop-out in terms of freedom.\" In reality, the insanity defense is seldom used in Minnesota and is even more rarely successful. But the current trial of David Brom, the 17-year-old Rochester youth charged with the ax murders of four family members, is revealing a growing sense that the current insanity standard in Minnesota may actually be too rigid. Jurors are being chosen in Rochester to hear the case against Brom.

• Publisher: Star Tribune Media Company LLC
• Subject: Brom, David / Hinckley, John W Jr / Kelly, Randy / Morse, Ancy / Reagan, Ronald Wilson