Leland v. Oregon
Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.
Status
More on how this was screened
A federal court disagreed with its reasoning, while courts in Connecticut and North Carolina questioned its continued force after Mullaney v. Wilbur. The three confirmed treatments are listed below.
57 later cases cite Leland v. Oregon; 57 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.
Relying on Leland v. Oregon?
This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.
Treatments
Criticized
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The district court treated Leland as binding on the insanity defense while expressly disagreeing with its reasoning about sanity as an element of the offense on conceptual grounds.
United States ex rel. Tate v. Powell · United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania · filed
Hence, we cannot read Winship as overruling, sub silentio, Leland v. Oregon, supra, where the majority posited the fact that Oregon law did require the proof of every element of the crime, of which, under Oregon state law, proof of sanity was not one. The dissent disagreed, and so do we on a conceptual basis, but the dissent is not the law by which we are governed.
Read the full opinion on CourtListener →
Questioned
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The Connecticut court questioned whether Leland survived Mullaney and suggested that, at most, Leland remained confined to its insanity-defense facts.
State v. Anonymous · Connecticut Superior Court · filed
Connecticut by its penal code has enacted the affirmative defense concept into statutory form, apparently in reliance on Leland v. Oregon, 343 U.S. 790, which upheld Oregon’s right to impose a burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt on the defendant to establish insanity as a defense. In light of the discussion in Mullaney v. Wilbur, supra, 696, while Leland was not expressly overruled and Mr. Justice Rehnquist sought in a concurring opinion to distinguish and uphold Leland as still viable, it would appear that Mullaney has probably *30sounded the death knell for Leland. At the very most, if Mr. Justice Rehnquist is correct, Leland has been restricted to its special facts and must be interpreted to require the state as part of its case in chief to establish beyond a reasonable doubt all of the elements of the offense charged without imposing any burden of proof on the defendant.
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The North Carolina Court of Appeals said Mullaney may have cast doubt on the vitality of Leland, without deciding whether Leland remained good law.
State v. Braun · North Carolina Court of Appeals · filed
Mullaney v. Wilbur, supra, did not overrule, but may have cast some doubt on the vitality of, Leland v. Oregon, 343 U.S. *104 790, 72 S.Ct. 1002, 96 L.Ed. 1302 (1952), which held that a state could require a defendant to prove his insanity beyond a reasonable doubt.
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Does this case still carry your argument?
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