Jared Loughner’s federal court arraignment is today. It is expected that he will plead “not guilty,” and that at trial his lawyer will offer an insanity defense. Insanity defenses rarely get a defendant acquitted, but an insanity defense might help Loughner avoid a death penalty.
I’m already seeing a re-hash of the same misinformation about “insanity” that was sluicing around after the massively psychotic Andrea Yates drowned her five children in 2001. For example, some genius always points out that the mentally ill are, statistically, no more likely than the general population to be violent. Which I believe is true. Therefore, they figure, mental illness doesn’t cause violence.
Let’s assume that, statistically, people with heart disease are no more or less likely to cause traffic accidents than people without heart disease. And then let’s say someone has a sudden heart attack while driving, loses control, and causes a five-car smash-up on an interstate. How logical, then, is it to say that the heart attack was not a factor in the accident because statistics tell us heart diseases don’t cause accidents?
By the same token, while mental health experts agree that most mentally ill people are no more likely than anyone else to become violent, I doubt many of them would willingly lock themselves in a room with an armed paranoid schizophrenic.
The next thing we’re gong to hear, and I’m sure it’s been said already, is that Loughner “knew” what he was doing because he planned it. But as I understand it, people with some types of schizophrenia are perfectly capable of making plans and carrying them out. The issue is that the motivation to act largely is being generated by the disease. Dr. Beatriz Luna, an associate professor of psychiatry and psychology, wrote in the New York Times:
For example, Jared Loughner’s criminal act appears to have involved careful planning that required voluntary and well-thought out steps. However, the aim of this planned behavior may reflect a disordered, diseased state. Neuroimaging studies could show that such a criminal engages brain systems to support voluntary acts in a similar way as the normal population. However they could also show abnormalities in brain processes that support the ability to have empathy and control over anger, or show that reported hallucinations recruit brain processes that support real sensory experiences. Although such a person would be able to operate in a voluntary planned manner, their acts would reflect brain abnormalities that contribute to their urge to commit crimes.
The larger problem is that “insanity” is not a medical term. The best psychiatrist in the world couldn’t tell you if Jared Loughner is “insane” under the law, because psychological science doesn’t recognize a condition called “insanity.” The insanity defense is based on antiquated ideas about mental illness that don’t apply to reality.
Dr. William T. Carpenter Jr., a professor of psychiatry, writes in the New York Times:
In the post-Hinckley era, the standard in many states has become a simple cognitive test that has little relationship to the scientific or clinical knowledge regarding psychotic illness. Rather than state of mind and the defendant’s understanding of his or her actions, the standard is close to simply whether the defendant knew the act was unlawful. Insanity acquittals, already rare, now face an almost impossible standard.
One wrinkle in this issue is that Arizona is, I believe, the only state with a “guilty, but insane” verdict. I’m not sure how this works, but I think this gives the court the ability to sentence the convicted-but-insane person to a secure psychiatric facility, but if he gets better and no longer needs hospitalization he is transferred to a prison to finish his sentence. I guess we’ll learn more about this when we get into the state proceedings.
