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453–461.GUILTY BUT
MENTALLY ILLVERDICT
The guilty but mentally ill (GBMI) verdict is a verdict
option that enables juries and judges to find a defen-
dant guilty of committing an offense while formally
acknowledging that the defendant has a mental illness.
The GBMI does not usually replace the insanity
defense standard but presents an additional verdict
option. The GBMI verdict has met with sound criti-
cism and little empirical support; nonetheless, 20 states
have adopted it.
Although the idea of holding mentally ill people
“guilty” for their criminal acts has been brewing for
some time, the single event that brought the guilty but
mentally ill verdict to fruition may have been the
Michigan Supreme Court’s decision in People v.
McQuillan(1974). In this case, the court held that it is
unconstitutional to detain people who have been found
not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) for indefinite
periods, insofar as it violates their due process and
equal protection rights. After some crimes were com-
mitted by those found NGRI and later released, the
Michigan Legislature passed a law in 1982 introducing
a new verdict—GBMI.
A defendant who receives a GBMI verdict is sen-
tenced in the same way as if he or she were found
guilty. The court then determines whether and to what
extent the defendant requires treatment for mental ill-
ness. When, and if, the defendant’s mental illness is
deemed to have been stabilized, the offender is required
to serve out the rest of his or her sentence. This is dif-
ferent from the case of individuals who have been
found NGRI. In those cases, the insanity-defense
acquittee is released from psychiatric commitment
once he or she is deemed to be no longer dangerous.Essentially, the GBMI verdict holds defendants
criminally responsible for their acts but recognizes that
the defendant is mentally ill. The GBMI verdict is typ-
ically employed as an option in addition to the NGRI
and guilty verdicts, leaving it to the jury to decide, for
example, if the defendant should be found guilty, not
guilty, NGRI, or GBMI. The rationale for introducing
the GBMI option was to reduce the number of insanity
acquittals in Michigan and to prevent the early release
of NGRI acquittees, which legislators feared would
occur following the McQuillancase. The GBMI plea
has been termed an “in-between classification,” since
defendants are neither acquitted nor found guilty in the
traditional sense.
The introduction of the GBMI verdict has produced
a rather tumultuous controversy. Proponents of the
GBMI verdict assert that it provides for necessary treat-
ment of mentally ill defendants while still ensuring that
those defendants are punished for their crimes. Other
supporters argue that the GBMI verdict protects the
public because mentally ill defendants serve the
remainder of their sentence in prison after they are well,
which would not happen with defendants found not
guilty by reason of insanity.
Some commentators argue that the verdict has been
successful because it allows defendants to be held crim-
inally responsible for their actions while also enabling
them to seek treatment. In sharp contrast to these bene-
fits, critics argue that the GBMI verdict is simply an
overreaction to a problem that really does not exist—that
is, that the insanity defense does not allow dangerous
defendants to simply “get off.” Moreover, research has
not shown a reduction in the use of the insanity defense
in states where the GBMI verdict has been introduced.
Similarly, critics argue that the GBMI verdict
serves no necessary purpose and is a misleading ver-
dict, introduced because of purely political reasons. It
is argued that the verdict only confuses jurors and
enables them to find a disproportionate number of
defendants “guilty.” Indeed, some mock jury research
has found that mock jurors tend to use the GBMI ver-
dict as a “compromise” verdict where members of the
jury are torn between finding a defendant guilty or
finding the defendant NGRI.
Perhaps the most significant criticism of the GBMI
verdict is that the jury, when instructed about their ver-
dict options, are not informed about the consequences
of a finding of GBMI. Given the dearth of treatment342 ———Guilty but Mentally Ill VerdictG-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:43 PM Page 342