The Measure of Madness:. Katherine Ramsland

      CITADEL PRESS

      Kensington Publishing Corp.

       www.kensingtonbooks.com

      I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY FATHER,

       HAROLD PARADIS,

       FOR ALWAYS BELIEVING IN ME.

      CONTENTS

      Foreword by Katherine Ramsland

      Introduction

      PART 1 EVALUATIONS OF MENTAL STATE AT THE TIME OF THE OFFENSE

      Chapter 1 The Widower Walks Away

      Chapter 2 A Botched Suicide

      Chapter 3 The Butcher of Tompkins Square Park

      Chapter 4 The Alien Invasion and Other Delusions

      Chapter 5 The Women Who Wept

      Chapter 6 The Man Who Knew Too Little

      PART 2 EVALUATIONS OF COMPETENCY TO STAND TRIAL AND WAIVE MIRANDA RIGHTS

      Chapter 7 The Brain Chip

      Chapter 8 The Good Samaritan

      Chapter 9 A Descendant of British Royalty

      Chapter 10 The Arsonist

      PART 3 EVALUATIONS OF JUVENILES AND ASSESSMENTS OF DANGEROUSNESS AND MALINGERING

      Chapter 11 The Dutiful Son

      Chapter 12 The Lost Boys

      Chapter 13 Fakers?

      Notes

      Bibliography

      Acknowledgments

      FOREWORD

      by Katherine Ramsland

      Andrea Yates drowned her five children one morning before she called 911 and turned herself in. Despite a long and complex history of hallucinations, delusions, and suicidal depression, in the courtroom, months later, she seemed composed. A videotaped interview revealed that just after the quintuple homicide, she’d responded to questions without noticeable emotion, explaining why her children had to die. She looked exhausted and her words were forced, but she appeared oblivious to the enormity of what she had done. People around the world were stunned that anyone—even a killer—could be so seemingly blasé.

      Serious mental illness can be camouflaged. Sufferers might dress well, respond to questions, and have a considered rationale for the murders, rapes, assaults, arsons, or thefts they have perpetrated. By the time they reach trial, they may seem even more normal because medication has restored their clarity. Thus, it can be difficult for ordinary people to accept psychological evaluations of offenders that “excuse” them. The media shows us that the psychotic are wild-eyed, slovenly, jabbering, and deranged—and sometimes they are. But not always. People with little background in psychology can be quite surprised by the diverse manifestations of serious mental illness. Therefore, an important task for a forensic psychologist offering expert testimony is to educate. But how do you persuade members of the TV-viewing public who sit on a jury that a composed, articulate person was too delusional during the commission of a crime to be criminally responsible?

      This is one reason why the insanity defense is rarely used. Many jurors are suspicious of professionals who try to diminish the heinousness of an offender’s harm to others. In addition, some are so attuned to media stereotypes that their preconceptions deflect what a psychologist says. But there’s another factor as well, which is often ignored: mental health professionals must also deal with inaccurate stereotypes about their own role.

      While a great deal of attention has been devoted to how the “CSI effect” has influenced the way laypeople understand forensic science, we’ve heard little mention of its impact on the perception of forensic psychology. Mental health professionals have shown up as characters on television shows such as Law and Order, CSI, Bones, and Criminal Minds. As a result, laypeople develop erroneous ideas. Whenever I say “forensic psychology” to nonprofessionals, I hear a range of impressions: Some people believe that forensic psychologists are investigators or that they deal primarily with serial killers. Others recall images of out-of-touch academics whom clever criminals can easily dupe, of greedy entrepreneurs promoting their own theories, or of “hired guns” saying whatever an attorney needs them to say to win a case. Only a few programs show how such professionals actually work. What, then, is a forensic psychologist? What does such a professional actually do?

      Forensic psychology is the application of psychological concepts, practice, and research to the legal and investigative arena. While this covers a range of activities, the two most common for clinical psychologists are the assessment of competency to stand trial and the assessment of a defendant’s mental state at the time of an offense (the “MSO”). Most people have heard of the latter, so let’s focus on it for a moment.

      The law recognizes that responsibility for committing a crime depends on two things: actus reus, or evidence that the accused could or did engage in the act, and mens rea, the mental state required to have intended to commit the act or foreseen its consequences. The legal system assumes that people are generally rational and can make decisions for which they are morally responsible. Mental health professionals, however, may discover psychological factors that erode an offender’s culpability. Triers of fact (the judge or jury) must then consider excusing the behavior of those with diminished or absent mens rea. Although the defense of “not guilty by reason of insanity” is rarely used, poorly handled cases can draw the media spotlight.

      Edmund Kemper, who’d killed his grandparents in 1964, when he was fifteen, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia but released six years later from juvenile detention. He then picked