Mark Sisti, in Belknap County Superior Court in Laconia on Friday afternoon, said the test to settle the question of insanity as a legal defense is unique in New Hampshire.
He and Amy Ashworth are defending Hassan Sapry, 27, in his second trial in the 2019 killing of Wilfred Guzman Sr. in Guzman Sr.'s Blueberry Lane apartment. Sapry has invoked the not guilty by reason of insanity defense which, in New Hampshire, is adjudicated by the jury, not psychological experts.
The legal question of insanity, in New Hampshire, is governed by the Durham test.
In the case Durham v. United States, a defendant had been discharged from the U.S. Navy in 1945, at the age of 17, after a psychiatric evaluation showed he was mentally unfit for service due to a personality disorder, according to a 1955 artic