A combination of factors made the case of Ari Misha Liggett unusual, including the crime for which he was convicted: poisoning and dismembering his mother in October 2012.

But Liggett is now trying to convince the Colorado Supreme Court the criminal prosecution against him has broader implications for whether mentally ill defendants have a right to present their full story to a jury without also giving up other constitutional protections.

“The court must ask itself whether different rules apply because a mental health defense is at issue,” attorney Eric A. Samler argued to the justices on Tuesday.

Liggett pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity for the murder of his mother, Beverly Liggett, in Arapahoe County. However, Liggett did not introduce direct evidence of his mental illness at trial. District Court Judge Michelle Amico had ruled that if Liggett did so, the prosecution would be permitted to call an expert to testify about Liggett’s statements to police – statements that were otherwise barred from trial because officers failed to honor Liggett’s Miranda rights in their interrogation.

The Supreme Court has agreed to examine whether Amico’s allowance of improperly-obtained police statements should have been limited to the far narrower purpose of exposing inconsistencies in Liggett’s story, rather than imposing a blanket deterrent to Liggett’s defense. In considering that question, some members of the court grappled with the unique nature of an insanity plea.

“Once you assert a mental status defense, it sort of feels like it’s cards-on-the-table time,” observed Justice William W. Hood III. “Why isn’t the decision to introduce a mental status defense – that naturally brings about the consequence of the cards being on the table?”

Liggett had been receiving psychiatric care since age three, but he allegedly continued to behave in ways that were not grounded in reality. His lawyers alleged he was “going downhill drastically” by September 2012.

The following month, after police arrested him for his mother’s disappearance and death, Liggett immediately told officers he was insane and that he did not know “right from wrong.” Once in custody, Liggett asked for a public defender, but his interrogators refused to call one. The Supreme Court in 2014 determined that even though Liggett’s interrogators acted coercively, his subsequent statements to police were still voluntary.

By that point, psychiatrist Hal Wortzel had already evaluated Liggett’s competency and based his opinions in part on Liggett’s now-suppressed statements to police. Following the Supreme Court’s findings, Amico decided to exclude Liggett’s comments from the main prosecution because police obtained them without honoring Liggett’s Miranda rights. At the same time, she ruled that if Liggett presented evidence of his mental condition, the prosecution could then call Wortzel as a witness and use the suppressed statements as a rebuttal.

Although Liggett’s lawyer at trial indicated 12 witnesses were prepared to testify about Liggett’s mental illness, the defense did not call them because of the threat of prosecutors revealing details of Liggett’s interrogation.

Samler noted on appeal that suppressed evidence tends to be the strongest evidence for the prosecution. Expanding its use from simply impeaching – or questioning the credibility of – Liggett’s explanations to more broadly attack his defense puts people who plead insanity at a disadvantage, he said.

If police know they can violate a suspect’s Miranda rights but a jury will still hear the person’s statements, “they will lack any incentive to scrupulously honor Miranda’s requirements when they confront a person who appears to have mental illness,” Samler argued.

Last year, the state’s Court of Appeals decided the use of Liggett’s police statements as rebuttal evidence was proper, and declined to overturn Liggett’s conviction. The appeals court also considered another of Liggett’s claims – that a state law waiving confidentiality between an allegedly insane defendant and any “physician or psychologist” applied only to physicians or psychologists.

“Surely, examining physicians and psychologists would want and need to consider information communicated to nurses and other persons,” wrote Judge James S. Casebolt in rejecting Liggett’s literal reading of the law.

At the Supreme Court, Liggett argued he deserved a new trial with different prosecutors if the law did not, in fact, apply to medical professionals other than doctors. Otherwise, the district attorney’s office improperly received his medical records and “essentially obtained a road map of how to defeat Mr. Liggett’s defense,” Samler told the Supreme Court.

The Colorado Attorney General’s Office countered that physicians and psychologists do not work alone, and the Court of Appeals properly recognized patients communicate with other medical personnel during their treatment. It also argued that allowing Liggett’s suppressed statements to be used against the defense more broadly helped with the “truth-seeking process” of a criminal trial.

Members of the Supreme Court at times struggled to understand the unconventional sequence of events in Liggett’s trial. Hood asked if there were any other cases involving a Miranda rights violation in conjunction with an insanity defense. Samler indicated he had not found one.

Justice Richard L. Gabriel was concerned about the clear implication of the trial judge’s ruling – that Liggett’s suppressed statements could be raised even if they were entirely consistent with what the jury heard at trial about Liggett’s mental illness.

“I think your answer is you still get to call Wortzel to testify about that,” Gabriel said to the attorney general’s representative. “And my question is why?”

The case is Liggett v. People.