Law should prevent insanity pleas blamed on alcohol

Get drunk and kill someone, then claim you didn't know what you were doing, and get off by pleading "not guilty by reason of insanity."

Some legal experts say that's not really what happened in a recent case, but Attorney General Jon Bruning wants to make sure it doesn't happen, ever.

In February 2006, Shane Tilley, high on an over-the-counter cough suppressant, stabbed his high school friend to death.

His defense proved to the trial court's satisfaction that Tilley didn't know the difference between right and wrong the day he stabbed his friend, Andy Lubben, to death.

Tilley's attorney said it wasn't just intoxication; his client had a pre-existing mental condition, and intoxication alone isn't accepted as a state of insanity.

Bruning is supporting a bill to be introduced by Sen. Amanda McGill of Lincoln, which would make it clear that the insanity defense could not be used by people who got intoxicated voluntarily.

Bruning is also proposing the outlawing of "live," "incentive" or "promotional" checks under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which sign up the unwary for services once they are deposited; and wants to outlaw the hallucinogenic plant Salvia divinorum, which is currently legal, but which has been blamed for at least one teen suicide.

We have no problem with outlawing the incentive checks as well as a number of other deceptive sales tactics. The plant probably also needs to be banned, although we sometimes question law enforcement priorities.

But making sure someone can't try to use alcohol to escape the consequences for their actions seems like a slam-dunk.