Myers v. State
Annotate this CaseIn 2000, Appellant was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. In 2004, while unprovoked, Appellant fired a shotgun several times at multiple vehicles, including a police cruiser. The jury returned verdicts of guilty but mentally ill on four counts of Class A felony attempted murder. Appellant was sentenced to an aggregate sentence of 120 years. The court of appeals reversed Appellant’s convictions, concluding that (1) jury clearly erred in rejecting Appellant’s insanity defense, and (2) the admission of evidence regarding Appellant’s post-arrest silence and request for counsel, and the prosecution’s closing arguments relying on those instances as evidence of sanity, violated Appellant’s constitutional due process rights. The Supreme Court granted the State’s petition to transfer, thereby vacating the Court of Appeals opinion, and affirmed the the jury's verdict finding Appellant guilty but mentally ill, holding (1) there was sufficient evidence for a jury to draw a reasonable inference that Defendant was able to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct at the time of the offense; (2) there was no due process violation; and (3) Appellant’s sentence was appropriate.
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