Agonia: Mental Health Advocates

A Dead-Letter-- Kentucky Constitution 145(3)-- As Dead-Wrong:
The Franchise to Vote as Privilege-- Not Right-- for the 'Insane' in Kentucky

I have beaten a drum for the statutory qualification of Kentucky Constitution 145(3) as being restricted into the present not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity law-- Kentucky Revised Statutes 504.020, with any other usage in-- for example 'testamentary capacity' being termed 'incapacity' only. The feedback I am getting is that "we [mental health consumers] CAN vote'-- by implication 'what's the big deal?'

The 'deal' is that the franchise-to-vote is a RIGHT for all adult people who are not disabled by felony conviction, bribery in an election, or "idiots or insane persons"-- the last designation being in case-law defined as "every degree of unsoundness of mind" [ Pulaski County v. Hill, 97 Ark. 450, 134 S.W. 973 (1911)] -- which is persuasive authority across jurisdictions until statute defines-otherwise. That in Kentucky we DO vote as mental health consumers only conveys that times-have-changed toward lenient definition of what "insanity" is by venues in this state. Nonetheless, this practice is a PRIVILEGE extended to consumers, and in the same way that times-have-changed for now, times-can-change-back.

Frankly, the ghastly occurrence of the April 16, 2007 mayhem by a should-be-consumer at Virginia Tech has occasioned tightening of the mental health laws in that Commonwealth [see the Washington Post article on this subject, at this link]; the February 15 slayings at Northern Illinois University predictably may have a similar effect; psychiatric maven Dr. E. Fuller Torrey would seem in this vein to be recommending to the old-days with mental health asylum for 'bad actors" among mental patients [see the article from the Orlando Sentinel on this topic, here]. Given the 'official' case-law and statutory-law on this suffrage question-- which I find expansive-- I cannot rule out that the PRIVILEGE of voting I have practiced since age 18-- yea through all my mental tailspins-- would not be court-definable as "every [any] degree of unsoundness of mind" and thus this PRIVILEGE could-- 'just-like-that'-- be-booped from me... and you, too, if you are one who has some degree at some time of such "unsoundness."

There is ebb-and-flow to American history, to Kentucky history. The law that is 'on the book' about the disenfranchisement of the unsound-of-mind was actually to-the-crossing-of-t-and-dotting-of-i what was practiced up to the first half of the 20th century. Only by the grace-of-chlorpromazine, movies like The Snake Pit and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the Kennedy New Frontier Legislation in the Community Mental Health Centers Act of (October 31) 1963, and the persistent agitation over time of do-gooders-- that we do have the privilege even to set the dinner-table free-to-eat in our places-- let alone the franchise to vote. Zeal to "do something about these nuts running around committing no-no's" could in time have the cumulative effect of reversal to total disenfranchisement we had when the case-laws were written which would in turn do-us-in.

Consider the black-civil-rights experience. One might have thought that the 13th Amendment (abolishing slavery) and the 14th Amendment (defining all as citizens, and that all thus having civil liberties) would effectively provided the civil-liberties black people ought to have into perpetuity. But something came along-- case-law again-- originating right here in Kaintuck-- the Plessey v. Ferguson which upon arrival at the United States Supreme Court [163 U.S. 537 (1896)] defined the civil liberties of people of color as being OK if they are "separate but equal." This had the real "unequal and separate" effect of legitimating 'Jim-Crow' culture in this land until-- with great exertion-- the civil rights movement and Brown v. Board of Education [347 U.S. 483 (1954)]-- the Supreme Court reversed itself and posited the valence of integration. It is not especially encouraging to me to hear-tell that conservative courts and political conservatism are pushing to eliminate the "strong" interpretation of integrationist law. It means, in so many words-- 'what-comes-around-goes-around'-- and that nothing good we in commonweal 'have' is necessarily 'ours for keeps.'

Yes. 'We' DO vote in Kentucky, and in places where these old laws are practically disregarded. These are "dead letters" on our books [see the related disambiguation in Wikipedia. ] But don't rest on those laurels, affected-ones-- just a single hard decision from a high-court, or a similar judgment from the Kentucky General Assembly-- say after some hopelessly misguided soul goes on a rampage-- disownable by us-- but our-definite-problem-not-a-definite-solution-to-woe-- could get re-read this old law with all the old vigor that once it had. I say again, do-not-rest-on-your-laurels. In spirit and truth, the-vote extended to the mentally ill is a modern perk-- a generosity extended not-to-cause-trouble-- but at opportune time the PRIVILEGE can be taken just as Cinderella's carriage turned into pumpkin at the appointed hour. Do not rest on your laurels.

What we have is not what black folk have with the 14th Amendment-- or what women got with the 19th Amendment-- no: we if definably 'insane' cannot vote here-- what option we have for suffrage is merely a kind of "wink" at the highest law in this land-- our Kentucky Constitution-- and a willingness to let-pass-in-order-not-to-make-trouble. But this placidity is legally only apparent-peace-- trouble obtains here, nonetheless. The CHARTER under which we operate-- our 'Kentucky Magna Carta' is whopperjawed. For this reason, I am troubled by the wording of the constitutional language, and want legal redress-- best as can be obtained-- with responsibility and equally-responsible-civil-action. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty-- --power is ever stealing from the many to the few"[Wendell Phillips, American abolitionist]; therefore let us keep-vigil-without-ceasing!

I do not rest my case!

--Vernon Lynn Stephens, MSSW
D.S.M. IV-TR # 296.44

Telephone: 1 (502) 561-5419
Anytime re MH/social-justice/human-civil-rights.
Email: freethink@insightbb.com
Anytime re MH/social-justice/human-civil-rights.

posted by Louisville Hermitage @ 4:24 PM