MASON CITY – Thomas Barlas Jr. was found not guilty by reason of insanity on Aug. 6 for the 2013 stabbing death of his father, marking what is believed to be the first time such a defense was successfully argued in Cerro Gordo County.

While a judge found that Barlas was mentally ill when he murdered his father, Thomas Barlas Sr., at the elder man’s Mason City home, the rarely used defense was unsuccessful in three other high-profile North Iowa murder cases.

A jury in Butler County found Mark Becker, 29, guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of Aplington-Parkersburg football coach Ed Thomas, the Mason City Globe Gazette reported.

The defense argued Becker, who had prior psychiatric hospitalizations for paranoid schizophrenia and told investigators he thought Thomas was a demon tyrant, was insane at the time of the crime.

Noah Crooks, 16, Osage, was charged with first-degree murder and assault with intent to commit sexual abuse in the March 24, 2012, death of his mother Gretchen, 37, at the family’s home. He asserted an insanity defense.

Expert witnesses for the prosecution and the defense differed on whether Noah suffered from a mental illness and whether he knew right from wrong when he shot his mother 22 times with a Ruger .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle as she sat on a couch studying.

A Wright County jury spent several days in deliberations, eventually finding the boy guilty of second-degree murder.

A Minnesota man accused of killing two convenience store clerks alleged he was insane during commission of the crimes.

A jury found Michael Richard Swanson, 21, St. Louis Park, Minnesota, guilty of the shooting death of Sheila Myers, 61, at a Humboldt convenience store. He then pleaded guilty to killing Vicky Bowman-Hall, 47, at an Algona convenience store. Both murders occurred on the night of Nov. 15, 2010.

Once again, the insanity defense was not successful.

The insanity defense must be raised by the defense and the defense has the burden of proof.

One of the major differences between Barlas and the other three cases is that the psychiatric experts for the prosecution and defense were in complete agreement about the defendant’s mental state at the time he killed his father.

“When we had Mr. Barlas evaluated by our expert, the expert said that at the time that he committed the crime against his father and took his father’s life that he was mentally ill and that he did not know or understand the nature and consequences of his acts,” said Cerro Gordo County Attorney Carlyle Dalen.

“Because of his mental illness (he) was not able to distinguish between right and wrong and did not have the capability to understand that what he was doing was wrong,” Dalen said.

After being found not guilty, Barlas, 43, was sent for an evaluation at the psychiatric unit at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Oakdale. He was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, extreme psychosis, mania and paranoia.

Following a hearing in district court, Barlas was transferred to Cherokee Mental Health Institute for treatment. He will remain there until he is cured of his mental illness and deemed to no longer be a danger to himself or others. A judge will decide if or when Barlas is released.

Iowa’s insanity statute follows the “M’Naughten” rule, based on the 1843 British case of Daniel M’Naughten, a deranged woodcutter who attempted to assassinate the prime minister. He was acquitted, and the resulting standard is still used in 26 states in the U.S.

Under M’Naughten, a defendant may be found not guilty by reason of insanity if “at the time of committing the act, he was laboring under such a defect of reason from disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong.”

This test is also commonly referred to as the “right/wrong” test.

Three states have no insanity defense, and the remaining 21 states use a model standard developed by the American Law Institute.

Under that standard, a criminal defendant must be found not guilty by reason of insanity if he is diagnosed with a relevant mental defect and at the time of the incident was unable to either appreciate the criminality of his conduct or conform his conduct to the requirements of the law.

Mason City defense attorney Richard Tompkins said an insanity defense can be tricky to prove.

“Insanity is not a medical determination. It is a legal term,” Tompkins said.

The decision to use such a defense, Tompkins said, depends on what the defendant did and “if you don’t seem to have any other viable defense, then it might be the most potentially viable.”

Contrary to what many in the public might think, defendants acquitted by reason of insanity are not immediately released into society. Dalen said the law provides protections for the public and the individual as well.

“If, at some point in time, the defendant was treated to the point where he no longer had a mental illness and he was no longer a danger to himself and others, at that point in time, there would still be a hearing in front of the court to determine whether or if he should be released,” Dalen said.

“It’s my job as a prosecutor to uphold the law,” he said. “The law clearly allows defendants to raise the insanity defense to a criminal charge.

“In this case, all of the evidence supported Mr. Barlas was insane. I think the system worked the way it is set out to work. The law allows for it,” Dalen said. “It clearly applies in this case and he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. I think the law has been upheld in this case.

“Everybody has that right, if the situation is appropriate, to claim an insanity defense. And in this case it was appropriate.”

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Information from: Globe Gazette, www.globegazette.com/

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