Peter J. Buzynski v. Richard M. Oliver, Warden, Maine State Prison

COFFIN, Chief Judge.

This appeal presents the question whether the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits a state from requiring a criminal defendant, who pleads legal insanity, to carry the burden of persuasion on that issue. Maine is one of a substantial number of states which require a criminal defendant who raises the defense of legal insanity not only to produce evidence on that issue 1 but also to persuade the jury of his insanity by a preponderance of the evidence. In the instant case, defendant failed to satisfy this burden. In the first stage of his bifurcated trial,…