Nature of the Case
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Facts
Under Georgia law, a jury’s verdict in a criminal case can be set aside if it is “repugnant”-meaning that it involves “affirmative findings by the jury that are not legally and logically possible of existing simultaneously.” D, then 18 years old, killed his mother Diane. Diane had adopted D when he was two years old and struggled for years with caring for him. D was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He responded poorly to psychiatric treatment and sometimes refused to take his prescribed medication. He had trouble in school, including suspensions and low grades, and experienced several run-ins with law enforcement. D’s mental health began to deteriorate. D believed that Diane was poisoning his food and drink with ammonia and pesticides. D also believed that he was an FBI agent who regularly traveled to Russia and had killed multiple people. D was committed to a mental health facility, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. After two weeks staff believed that D was no longer a threat to himself or others and that there was no evidence of further delusions. D was discharged. One week later, D stabbed Diane to death. D then composed a note in which he explained that he had killed Diane because she had been poisoning him and that she had in fact confessed to doing so. D called 911; he told the dispatch officer that he had killed his mother and asked if his actions were wrong. D was taken to a police station for interrogation, where he told the investigator, “I killed my Mom because she poisoned me.” D was charged with malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault. D asserted an insanity defense. In Georgia, a jury may find a criminal defendant “not guilty by reason of insanity” if, at the time of the crime, he “did not have the mental capacity to distinguish between right and wrong” or he committed the crime “because of a delusional compulsion as to such act which overmastered his will to resist committing the crime.” The jury returned a split verdict. D was found not guilty by reason of insanity on the malice-murder charge and guilty but mentally ill on the felony murder and aggravated assault charges. The court sentenced D to life imprisonment based on the felony murder conviction. D appealed claiming that the murder conviction should be vacated because the guilty-but-mentally-ill verdict for that crime was “repugnant” to the jury’s “not guilty by reason of insanity” verdict for malice murder. The Supreme Court of Georgia held that the verdicts were repugnant under Georgia law because the mentally ill verdict on felony murder based on aggravated assault required affirmative findings of different mental states that could not exist at the same time during the commission of those crimes as they were indicted, proved, and charged to the jury. The State Supreme Court vacated both the malice-murder and felony-murder verdicts. On rehearing, D argued that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibited Georgia from retrying him for malice murder in light of the jury’s prior “not guilty by reason of insanity” verdict on that charge. The trial court rejected this argument. D again appealed. The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed. It concluded that the acquittal at issue in this case “lost considerable steam” when considered alongside the verdict of guilty but mentally ill, and because the verdicts were repugnant, “both [were] rendered valueless.” It held that the repugnant verdicts were no different for double jeopardy purposes than a mistrial. D appealed.
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