Kansas death penalty case has implications for mentally ill

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Kansas death penalty case has implications for mentally ill

2019-03-23 23:15 Last Updated At：23:20

The day after Thanksgiving in 2009, James Kahler went to the home of his estranged wife's grandmother, where he shot the two women, along with his two teenage daughters.

No one — not even Kahler's attorneys — disputes that he killed the four relatives. Instead, his lawyers argue that he was suffering from depression so severe that he experienced extreme emotional disturbance, dissociating him from reality.

What had been an open-and-shut death penalty case — Kahler was convicted and sentenced in 2011 — was upended when the U.S. Supreme Court said this past week that it would consider whether Kansas unconstitutionally abolished his right to use insanity as a defense. A ruling from the nation's highest court could have far-reaching implications for mentally ill defendants across the nation.

Kansas is one of five states where a traditional insanity defense in which a person must understand the difference between right and wrong before being found guilty of a crime isn't allowed. Instead, someone can cite "mental disease or defect" as a partial defense but must prove that he didn't intend to commit the crime. The other states with similar laws are Alaska, Idaho, Montana and Utah.

"A favorable decision in this case would make it clear that the Constitution requires that a defendant be able to understand the difference between right and wrong before being found guilty, and, in cases like Mr. Kahler's, put to death," his defense attorney, Meryle Carver-Allmond, said in an email.

Kahler's lawyers argued in their petition to the Supreme Court that although Kahler knew that he was shooting human beings, his mental state was so disturbed at the time that he was unable to control his actions.

"We're hopeful that, in taking Mr. Kahler's case, the United States Supreme Court has indicated a desire to find that the Constitution requires better of us in our treatment of mentally ill defendants," Carver-Allmond said.

The state argues that it hasn't abolished the insanity defense, just modified it.

"We think the state's approach, providing for an insanity defense based on mental disease or defect, satisfies constitutional requirements," Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said in an emailed statement. "We look forward to defending the statute and arguing our case before the Justices in the fall."

Kahler was in the middle of a contentious divorce when he went to Dorothy Wight's home in Burlingame, where his wife, Karen, and three children were spending the Thanksgiving holiday amid contentious divorce proceedings. He found Karen in the kitchen and shot her twice, then shot Wright and his daughter Emily in the living room. He found his daughter Lauren in an upstairs bedroom. His son, Sean, fled to a neighboring house.

Sherrie Baughn, executive director of the Kansas chapter of the National Alliance for Mental Illness, said her organization opposes execution of individuals who have a serious mental illness or mental disability when committing a crime.

"I am happy that they are looking at it and reviewing this," Baughn said of the Supreme Court decision to take up the Kansas case. "Despite constitutional protections, the death penalty is still somewhat applied to people with mental illness or mental disabilities."

It is unclear how often an insanity defense would be used in Kansas, because the state hasn't really had one for so many years now, Carver-Allmond said. Without the option, seriously mentally ill defendants are often left to go to trial with little-to-no defense or forced to plead guilty on bad terms.

Venice tests a 5-euro entry fee for day-trippers as the Italian city grapples with overtourism

2024-04-26 03:49 Last Updated At：03:50

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Under the gaze of the world’s media, the fragile lagoon city of Venice launched a pilot program Thursday to charge day-trippers a 5-euro ($5.35) entry fee that authorities hope will discourage visitors from arriving on peak days and make the city more livable for its dwindling residents.

Visitors arriving at Venice's main train station were greeted with large signs listing the 29 dates through July of the plan's test phase that also designated separate entrances for tourists, and residents, students and workers.

“We need to find a new balance between the tourists and residents,’’ said Simone Venturini, the city’s top tourism official. “We need to safeguard the spaces of the residents, of course, and we need to discourage the arrival of day-trippers on some particular days.”

Not all residents, however, are persuaded of the efficacy of the new system in dissuading mass tourism, insisting that only a resurgence in the population will restore balance to a city where narrow alleyways and water buses are often clogged with tourists.

Hundreds of Venetians protested against the program, marching festively though the city's main bus terminal behind banners reading “No to Tickets, Yes to Services and Housing.” Protesters scuffled briefly with police with riot gear who blocked them from entering the city, before changing course and entering over another bridge escorted by plainclothes police officers. The demonstration wrapped up peacefully in a piazza.

Tourists arriving at the main station encountered almost as many journalists as stewards on hand to politely guide anyone unaware of the new requirements through the process of downloading the QR code to pay the fee.

Arianna Cecilia, a tourist from Rome visiting Venice for the first time, said she thought it was “strange” to have to pay to enter a city in her native country, and be funneled through separate entrance ways for tourists. She and her boyfriend were staying in nearby Treviso, and so downloaded the QR code as required. But she was still caught off-guard while soaking in her first view ever of Venice's canals by the sight of the entrance signs and her boyfriend telling her to get out the ticket.

On the other side of the entrance ways, workers in yellow vests carried out random checks at the train station. Transgressors face fines of 50 to 300 euros ($53 to $320), but officials said “common sense” was being applied for the launch.

The requirement applies only for people arriving between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Outside of those hours, access is free and unchecked.

Venice has long suffered under the pressure of overtourism, and officials hope that the pilot project can help provide more exact figures to better manage the phenomenon.

The city can track the number of hotel visitors, which last year numbered 4.6 million and is down 16% from pre-pandemic highs. But the number of day visitors, which make up the majority of the crowds in Venice, could only be estimated until recently.

A Smart Control Room set up during the pandemic has been tracking arrivals from cellphone data, roughly confirming pre-pandemic estimates of 25 million to 30 million arrivals a year, said Michele Zuin, the city’s top economic official. That includes both day-trippers and overnight guests.

But Zuin said the data is incomplete.

“It’s clear we will get more reliable data from the contribution” being paid by day-trippers, he said.

Venturini said the city is strained when the number of day-trippers reaches 30,000 to 40,000. On peak days, local police set up one-way traffic for pedestrians to keep the crowds moving.

Residents opposing the day-tripper tax insist that the solution to Venice's woes are to boost the resident population and the services they need, limiting short-term rentals to make available more housing and attract families back from the mainland.

Last year, Venice passed a telling milestone when the number of tourist beds exceeded for the first time the number of official residents, which is now below 50,000 in the historic center with its picturesque canals.

“Putting a ticket to enter a city will not decrease not even by one single unit the number of visitors that are coming,’’ said Tommaso Cacciari, an activist who organized a protest Thursday against the measure.

“You pay a ticket to take the metro, to go to a museum, an amusement park. You don’t pay a ticket to enter a city. This is the last symbolic step of a project of an idea of this municipal administration to kick residents out of Venice,” he said.

Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro declared the launch day, coinciding with an Italian holiday, a success, registering 15,700 paying visitors, 50% more than anticipated.

More than 97,000 others had downloaded a QR code denoting an exemption, including to work in Venice or as a resident of the Veneto region. Hotels in Venice, including in mainland districts like Marghera or Mestre, provided a QR code for visitors to attest to their stay, which includes a hotel tax — accounting for 40,000 of those.

Venturini, the tourist official, said that interest in Venice’s pilot program has been keen from other places suffering from mass tourism, including other Italian art cities, and municipalities abroad such as Barcelona, Spain, and Amsterdam.

But Marina Rodino, who has lived in Venice for 30 years, doesn't see the fee as the cure-all. Neighboring apartments in her residential building near the famed Rialto Bridge once inhabited by families are now short-term apartment rentals.

The corner butcher shop closed. Yet she noted that the new entrance fee requirement will still allow young people to flood the city in the evening for the traditional aperitivo, which can grow rowdy.

She was passing out mock European Union passports for “Venice, Open City,” underlining the irony of the new system, and challenging its legal standing with citations from the Italian Constitution guaranteeing its citizens the right to “move or reside freely in any part of the national territory."

“This is not a natural oasis. This is not a museum. It is not Pompeii. It is a city, where we need to fight so the houses are inhabited by families, and stores reopen. That is what would counter this wild tourism,’’ Rodino said.