Thumbnail images: click-on image to read details
*****************************************************
"The abuse of the insanity defense has led to what may be called the alibi of abnormality. Instability is not insanity, maladjustment not psychosis... Neurotics often make for themselves false conscious reasons for their inappropriate behavior. Societies may act in a similar way. It seems that every abuse has its apologists. In the field of the medicolegal handling of violent crime, a number of sweeping generalizations are widely propounded and credited. It is of the utmost importance to analyze them in detail, for they tend to perpetuate violence rather than counteract it." (Fredric Wertham, M.D., A Sign for Cain: An Exploration of Human Violence, Chapter 11)
*****************************************************
USA TODAY (May 1998): the Insanity Defense
"The September 1997 issue of The Atlantic Monthly has an unusually detailed and poignant cover story titled 'A Grief Like No Other.' The lengthy piece (almost 29 pages) by Eric Schlosser, winner of the 1995 National Magazine Award for reporting, decsribes the pain and suffering of the family members of victims of killings, particularly in cases of young victims. The article focuses largely, but not exclusively, on victims whose killers were found not guilty by reason of insanity. Schlosser reminds readers of the unanticipated impact of the insanity defense on the families of victims. He argues persuasively that much more attention and concern is accorded the 'insane' killers than their victims..."
"Schlosser notes that, during the past 25 years, hundreds of articles in psychiatric journals have examined the 'homicidal mind,' while fewer than a dozen have investigated the psychological effects of a murder on a victim's family. Yet, the effect is extraordinary, especially in the permanent misery and anger that is created. In August 1997, we interviewed Karl and Carol Reichardt, the parents of Kevin E. Reichardt, a sophomore at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1995 when he was shot and killed while riding his bike back from class. His killer Wendell Williamson, was charged with murder, attempted murder, and firing into an occupied vehicle, but the jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity on all counts. Three psychiatrists and one psychologist agreed that Williamson was insane at the time of the killings, and testimony was provided regarding his claims of delusion. District Attorney Carl Fox urged the jury to ignore psychiatric experts offered by the defense, telling them, 'There's no test they can give to prove he's insane.' Fox reminded the jury that one of the defense mental health experts even acknowledged on the stand that her conclusions about Williamson represented merely her 'best guess.'
Typical of experts in insanity cases, the defense psychiatrists told the jury what the defendant 'felt' and about his 'thoughts,' rather than talking about what he claimed. This subtly communicated to the jury that these doctors, as a result of their medical expertise, could distinguish self-serving false claims from honest beliefs and feelings about reality. Media sensitivity to this important point typically is lacking as well. The Associated Press reported that Williamson 'believes' he is telepathic, rather than he claims to believe this. This type of inadvertent - but not malevolent - presumption on behalf of the defendant killer troubles the Reichhardts. 'Why', they ask, 'do judges, juries, doctors, and the media so easily gloss over the distinction between claims and beliefs?' Perhaps the answer lies in the continuing respect for and uncritical acceptance of experts - particularly medical ones. In what surely would be difficult to listen to by the Reichardts, the defense attorney portrayed Williamson as a victim, suggesting that the killings were a 'tragedy for Wendell himself.' Adding to the Reichardts' frustrations is the fact that Williamson was a law student at the time of the killing and, because he has not been convicted of any crime, might be readmitted to the University of North Carolina Law School in the event that he is released from confinement in the mental hospital.
From discussions with his family and a review of the news reports on the case, one can conclude that Kevin Reichardt was a particularly engaging, bright, decent, and well-liked young man. Thousands of people attended his funeral. Matt Pugh, a colomnist for the University of North Carolina's school newspaper, wrote a piece entitled 'Murder One. America Nothing.' He was appalled at the insanity verdict. Dr. and Mrs. Reichardt posed difficult and thoughtful questions about the finding that their son's killer was insane when he committed the brutal slaying. 'Where', they asked with incredulity, "is the justice if Wendell Williamson is not convicted?" Williamson's attorneys successfully argued that he was a troubled man lost in a delusion.
It is not unusual to find young men 'lost in delusions' in mental hospitals. In fact, mental patients generally are not dangerous, and even delusional patients are not. Therefore, psychiatrists must believe that those delusional mental patients who do commit violent acts must have chosen to be violent. Why should people - particularly jurors - assume that because an individual has no control over his or her delusion, he or she therefore can not control acting on that delusion? In 1993, Elizabeth Maren Hutson wsa slain by the so-called shotgun killer in the Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Mount Pleasant. Her brother, angry and incredulous, wrote to the killer in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post: 'I don't know why you shot her: gang initiation? Crazy on drugs? Plain crazy?' The killer was found not guilty by reason of insanity, despite evidence that he carefully had planned to evade detection in this and other slayings.
The goal of treatment is recovery, and many families of victims whose killers have been found not guilty by reason of insanity complain that the mental health professionals who support the release of these individuals are insensitive to the threat they still pose to society. The Reichardts are particularly angry at the forensic psychologists and psychiatrists who express little concern over the eventual release of Williamson. How, Dr. Reichardt asks, can they be so sure that he would not kill again? The late syndicated columnist Mike Royko made a pointed recommendation several years ago regarding the willingness of psychiatrists to release 'insane,' but presumably cured, killers: let the killers babysit for the children of doctors recommending their release. Part of the problem in addition to the lack of personal risk suffered by psychiatrists recommending freedom is that they, in effect, are making the argument as to the worth of their profession. To concede that they can not ascertain who will be dangerous and who will not is an admission of the inability of mental health workers to do what the legal system demands of them.
A number of recent studies indicate that psychiatrists can predict no better than one could by chance which released 'insane' killers would repeat their crime. In the 1994 volume of Law and Psychology Review, psychologist Randy Otto reassessed the research and concluded, rightly we think, that 'mental health professionals have some ability to assess [risk of dangerousness] although rates of error remain considerable.' Otto points out that overprediction of violence is the more common error, but what strikes us is the fact, as the American Psychiatric Association stated in its amicus brief to the Supreme Court in Barefoot vs. Estelle, that 'the unreliability of psychiatric predictions of long-term dangerousness is by now an established fact within the profession.' Even Otto's more generous assessment merely means that mental health professionals have some moderate ability to assess risk and make predictions of violence. The corrected assessment brings little relief to families of the victims of insane killers, especially when a prediction of nonviolence is incorrect.
Schlosser relates the story of Terri Smith, daughter of Harriet and Albert Smith, killed in 1987 by Gary Rawlings, who had been introduced to her by her sister. In his confession, Rawlings said that Terri was planning to leave him and was also out to 'get him.' Claiming a variety of delusions and having been diagnosed as schizophrenic, Rawlings was found not guilty by reason of insanity. While defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity in almost every case are committed to mental hospitals for treatment, the process often is not well explained to or understood by victims' families. To the Smiths, it was outrageous that their daughter's killer would receive treatment with the goal of release from the mental hospital at such time as he would no longer be 'a danger to society.' That the commitment of their daughter's killer only is justified legally on the grounds of his 'dangerousness' to society is of little comfort to them. In fact, the judge in the case specifically and sympathetically commented from the bench that, if Rawlings behaved himself and no longer was believed to be having delusions, it would be just 'a matter of time' until he would be released from the hospital.
The Smiths understandably were shocked and felt victimized again when they learned that just three and one-half years after the killing of their daughter, Rawlings was granted day passes to leave the institution where he was housed in order to spend time with his father. It never had been demanded of Rawlings, Schlosser, notes, that, as a condition of his release, he turn over the murder weapon or reveal where it was. It should be remembered, too, that Rawlings never even had contacted the Smiths to express regret, nor had his family sent condolences. As frequently is the case when close families are the victims of killings, the Smiths vowed to fight as best they could against their daughters killer every time he came up for a hearing for release, despite the fact that they probably would not be permitted to testify because, at such hearings, all the issues are defined as medical ones. Nevertheless, their dedication to publicize the existence of such releasing hearings and to lobby publicly against release held a special fear for them, as it must for the Reichardts and others in that situation.
Harriet Smith was a nurse, and she felt frustrated at being prevented from testifying against Rawlings' release because she believed she might be able to offer some insight on the permanent danger of 'insane' killers and how misleading it is to assess their behavior from how they act in the setting of a mental hospital. In addition, she feared that, if she were unsuccessful in her efforts to oppose Rawlings' release, the 'insane' killer might come after her or her family. As of the writing of this article, Rawlings is back in a Kansas City, Mo., mental hospital, having violated rules requiring his taking of medicine. The Smiths remain determined - but frightened - to keep up the pressure every time he seeks release..."
"The most common criticism of opponents of the insanity plea is that they don't realize how rarely the plea is used. Forensic psychiatrists are fond of pointing out the infrequency of successful insanity pleas (invoked in just one percent of criminal casesand successful in but one-fourth of those in which it is pleaded). This defense of the insanity plea - articulated in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, quoted to us in a debate we participated in on the insanity plea on CNN's 'Crossfire' several years ago, and found in virtually every defense of the plea - ignores the fact that emphasizing the relative rarity ignores the absolute number of such pleas and the devastating effect on the victims' families when successful. This not only is a misleading defense of the insanity plea, but a particularly insensitive one. Psychologists Hugh McGinley and Richard Pasewark, prolific defenders of this argument, point out that, although data are incomplete concerning the use and success of the insanity plea, the fact that it is employed just a few thousand times and may be successful about 1,000 times each year should mollify the critics. This consistent emphasis on what they call relative rareness of the plea and its success provides little comfort to victims' families. Moreover, the rarity of the plea's success ignores, as Irving Kaufman, former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, points out, the disproportionate harm it does to the public's faith in the criminal justice system." (the authors of The Insanity Defense, Richard E. Vatz and Lee S. Weinberg, are Associate Psychology Editors of USA Today)
*****************************************************
Will the Real Criminal Please Stand Up
"A dentist who pleaded guilty to having fondled between one and two hundred young girls and women patients... has now sued his insurance company, claiming that his sexual disorder makes it impossible for him to work as a dentist, so the insurers should give him $5,000 a month in disability payments. Harold Lief, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, supported this claim, telling the court that the dentist suffered from 'frotteurism', a compulsion to touch women's genitals." (Paula J. Caplan, Ph.D., They Say You're Crazy: How the World's Most Powerful Psychiatrists Decide Who's Normal)
*****************************************************
Subverting the Law or Just a Bad Hair Day?
On October 20th, 1992, April Dell'Olio, a 15-year-old from New York stabbed a 17-year-old twenty-two times. During her trial two psychiatrists took the stand and testified that April posed no threat to society, resulting in her acquittal of murder by reason of insanity, after which she was released and allowed to return home scot-free. The Honorable Kevin Dowd, the judge who tried the case, was later quoted as saying that his hands were tied by the insanity defense laws and that he had been forced to adjudicate the murder "with the psychiatric equivalent that April had had a 'bad hair day' on October 20th, 1992." ("No Blame, No Shame," Freedom, September 1994)
*****************************************************
Right and Wrong: the Backbone of Law and Order
Since time immemorial "Law and Order" has been maintained only because of the acceptance that certain acts are wrong. Otherwise, anarchy would rule. The taking of a human life for instance (for reasons other than self-defense), is looked upon in most civilized societies as wrong. Concurrently, the foundation of justice has always been based on the understanding that each individual is responsible for his or her own actions and accountable for them. These have been the building blocks that have held civilization together. Today these building blocks are crumbling down and our societies are falling apart. With the intrusion of the DSM into criminal proceedings we have entered a new era of no fault, no blame, no right and no wrong. Murder is no longer a question of right or wrong. The question now is - what "mental illness" was present at the time of the crime. "Illnesses" listed in the DSM which have usurped criminal codes and subverted the law include:
Kleptomania Disorder: the inability to restrain oneself from stealing. This designation can cover anybody from shoplifters to carjackers.
Pedophilia Disorder: the unstoppable urge to molest or rape children.
Frotteurism: the abnormal sexual impulse to rub oneself against a non-consenting person - not to be confused with...
Toucherism: fondling a non-consenting person.
Intermittent Explosive Disorder: the complete loss of one's temper, resulting in physical assault or property damage.
Pyromania Disorder: the irresistible impulse to set fire to people and their property.
Telephone Scatologia: the compulsion to make obscene telephone calls. (Just to cite a few.)
Of course there are those who are comforted by these diagnoses and by the knowledge that they are not responsible for their own behavior because they are "mentally-ill." The old cliche "the devil made me do it," has now been revised to "mental illness made me do it." Consider the irony that in 1991, Michael Gilbert, a nationally known criminal psychiatrist was convicted of conspiring to bribe a public official to frame a Miami lawyer on cocaine charges. Gilbert, who had personally testified on behalf of the insanity defense in about 5,000 cases, argued that he too was insane. His lawyer told the court that Gilbert was "crazy. He's short-circuiting in his brain." (The Miami Herald, 3/19/91). Frank Snyder, a counselor from a California suicide-prevention hotline slashed the throat and wrists of a 53-year-old man to make it appear as though the man had attempted suicide. Snyder insisted that he had done this because the man was "sucking everything out of me." Three psychiatrists testified that Mr. Snyder was incapable of "knowing what was right or wrong" at the time of the offense (the irony here is that psychiatry does not distinguish between right and wrong). The judge disagreed, saying that it was "one of the most bizarre cases" he had ever seen. He sentenced Frank Snyder to life in prison.
*****************************************************
"Criminals are quick to pick up on the disease concept and invoke it as a convenient rationalization. Said one man, "I'm an explosive person. I may yell at you, but not hit you. It's part of my disease." Even the most heinous of crimes may be attributed to the 'disease.' A criminal told me that it was not he who killed a man, it was his disease." ("Inside the Criminal Mind", Chapter 7, Stanton E. Samenow, Clinical Psychologist)
