Justices to weigh in on insanity case

The Wisconsin Supreme Court will decide Tuesday whether to grant a new trial for a Milwaukee man who admitted killing his parents in 2010, despite the fact that there was no error or unfairness in his original trial.

In 2014, the Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that Corey Kucharski, now 40, deserved a new insanity phase trial. That decision reversed a circuit court judgment convicting him of two counts of firstdegree intentional homicide with the use of a dangerous weapon.

In February of 2010, Kucharski admittedly shot and killed his parents in the south side home they shared. He then called police and turned himself in.

He said he had been hearing voices in his head for months but got along with his parents and had no apparent motive for their killings.

He pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or

defect. He then entered a no contest plea to both counts.

At his court trial, two psychiatrists testified that Kucharski was suffering from schizophrenia when he killed his parents, and was unable to distinguish between real voices and the ones he heard in his head that were telling him what to do.

Though she agreed that he was mentally ill, Circuit Judge Jean DiMotto said Kucharski failed to prove he lacked the capacity to tell right from wrong, or that it was beyond his ability to control his behavior to the confines of the law — as the psychiatrists had testified.

Kucharski, she said, seemed to know that his actions were illegal and that he would be “rotting in jail.”

He appealed his sentence of two terms of life at Waupun Correctional Institution with the possibility for extended supervision in 30 years.

The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court decision, holding that Kucharski

is entitled to a new trial on the issue of his mental responsibility. Evidence of mental disease or defect was strong, it said, and comprised the weight of the credible evidence presented.

Ultimately, the probability that a new trial could produce a different result is great enough for Kucharski to deserve a new trial, that court ruled.

In its opinion Tuesday, the state Supreme Court will decide:

If the Court of Appeals, in its reversal, substituted its own judgment for that of the trial court. And whether a defendant denied an insanity defense should ever be entitled to a new trial if there was no trial error or unfairness, just a different view from that of a trial judge.

If he were found not guilty by reason of insanity, Kucharski would be committed for treatment at one of the state's secure psychiatric treatment facilities in Madison or Oshkosh.