Forensic Psych exam 3

legal competency

whether someone is competent enough to be charged with a crime and be tried for it

Types: ability to waive Miranda rights, ability to confess, ability to make treatment decisions, ability to agree upon a will

The case of Jared Loughner

• Nice kid, good family, but peculiar and a loner

• Ex. Told his professor that the number 6 could be called 18

• Dropped out of high school and his friends started keeping their distance because he started acting off and becoming obsessed with lucid dreaming

• Expelled from community college for being too unhinged (college offered to keep him as a student if he sought mental help but he declined)

• Rejected from the army

• Started losing grip of reality and getting into conspiracies

• Went to a political rally in 2011 in Tucson, AZ and killed 6 people including a child and a federal judge

• 13 people wounded, including congresswoman Gabby Giffords

• Federal judge found him mentally incompetent to stand trial because he had an outburst where he said "she died right in front of me, thank you for the freak show"

• Forensic psychologist said Jared had clear signs of schizophrenia

• Judged incompetent to stand trial several times over for 1.5 years = no trial

• Forcibly medicated and sent to a mental hospital until he was deemed well enough to stand trial by a psychologist

• Once he was lucid about what he did he felt remorse and was even suicidal over his actions

What is the most common evaluation given by a forensic psychologist?

competency to stand trial

Dusky standard

• The defendant must understand the charges against him or her

• The defendant must have the ability to aid his or her attorney in his or her own defense

adjudicative competence

• defendant's ability (not willingness) needed to participate effectively in all legal processes

  • 2 components:

    • Foundational competence: capacity to assist counsel

    • Decisional competence: capacity to make informed, independent decisions

what are the 10 functional elements of competency to stand trial (CST)?

• Includes defendant's ability to perform 10 court related functions, including understanding:

  • Current legal situation

  • Penalties if convicted

  • Charges against them

  • Possible pleas

  • Roles of the judge, defense, counsel, and prosecutor

  • It is safe to trust and communicate with counsel

• And must demonstrate the following abilities:

  • Act appropriately during trial

  • Help develop strategy for cross-examining witnesses

  • Make appropriate trial strategy decisions

  • Locate witnesses

competency to plead guilty

• Guilty plea must be knowing, voluntary, and intelligent

• Must understand charges against them

• Understand the consequences of conviction

competency to waive attorney

acting as your own attorney, separate competency standard (famous cases where this happened include: Ted Bundy, the unibomber, and Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme)

who is Scott Panetti and why is his case important?

• Threatened to kill himself, his second wife, their baby, and his father in law by burning down their house

• In 1992 while off his meds he murdered his wife's parents and took his wife and child hostage

• Eventually changed into a suit and surrendered himself to the police

• Put in prison in TX

• CST eval: did not know what year it was or who the president was, hallucinations of seeing Jesus in prison cell, described himself as several different people

• Judged CST despite all this

• Seemed to understand what he did and why it was wrong

• Fired his attorneys and represented himself in the capital murder trial while wearing a cowboy costume and a purple bandana

• He subpoenaed more than 200 people like Jesus and JFK, who was deceased at the time

• He gave excessive and irrelevant details about his life in court like:

  • Describing his birth

  • Killing a rattlesnake

  • Attending cosmetology school and cutting his sister's hair

  • His job as an artificial insemination technician for cattle

  • A girlfriend who got him into rodeo

• He simulated the shooting in court

• He rejected the state's offer of a life sentence in exchange for a guilty plea

• Sentenced to death

• While on death row:

  • Multiple disruption charges

  • Incoherent defenses

  • Lawyers appealed death sentence to supreme court arguing not competent enough to be put to death

• Supreme court halts execution because:

  • More than factual awareness required to understand punishment

  • Must appreciate meaning and reason for punishment

  • There are likely other death row inmates suffering from schizophrenia

what happens if someone is not CST?

they are treated at a mental facility until they are in a process called restoration

malingering

intentional faking of illness motivated by external incentives/goals

who was Lionel Tate and why is his case important?

• 6 year old girl passed away

• Tate was 12 years old

• Tried in an adult court for 1st degree murder

• Claimed they were play fighting and he accidentally went too far imitating fake wrestling moves

• Medical examiner said the injuries could only have been inflicted intentionally

• Offered a plea bargain that would have Tate plead guilty to 2nd degree murder in exchange for a lighter sentence-spending 3 years in a juvenile facility

• His mom rejected the plea bargain, assuring that her son was innocent

• Psychologist said during the trial that it was accidental

• Forensic pathologist said that the wrestling moves could have inflicted the damage but it didn't hold up to cross-examination

• Found a bloody pillow case at the defendant's house, possible his mom was trying to cover up the murder

• Jury agreed it was 1st degree murder which would mean life in prison

• Even the prosecution though life in prison with no parole was too harsh

• Lionel was granted a new trial on the basis that he was not evaluated for CST before the trial

• Offered a plea bargain of 3 years in juvie, 1 year of house arrest, and 10 years of parole, this time he accepted the offer

who was Andrea Yates and why is her case important?

• HS valedictorian

• Athlete

• Worked as a nurse

• History of depression and bulimia

• Deeply religious

• Married Russel Yates after college, who was also religious

  • Both believed they should have as many babies as nature allowed

• Severe post-partum depression after 4th child

  • Multiple suicide attempts, hospitalization, medication, and the doctor warned her to not have another child due to her worsening depression

• She had a 5th child, a baby girl

• Her father dies after the 5th child and her depression gets worse

• Hospitalized after this for depression and psychosis, she was ordered to not be left alone

• She thought she was possessed by Satan

• She thought she needed to punish herself for being possessed by Satan

• Wanted to save the children's soles from her demonic possession

• One day her husband left for work and Andrea's mom was supposed to supervise her an hour after Russel left

• In the span of that hour Andrea went to the bathroom, filled up the tub, and drowned all 5 of her children

• She called the police repeatedly saying she needed an officer but didn't say why

• Then she called her husband

• Police arrived and saw the awful scene and arrested her

• She said this was an act of mercy because she wanted to rescue her kids from Satan who possessed her

• Her deaths were her punishment, not theirs, because they were going on to eternal life

• Evaluated by a forensic psychologist who ruled her competent to stand trial

• She confessed to murdering her children but plead not guilty by reason of insanity

• Expert testimony from multiple forensic psychologists (confirming psychosis)

• Guilty verdict from the jury of 8 women and 4 men

• Sentenced to life in prison

• Faulty expert witness testimony leads to 2nd trial

  • Expert witness said that Andrea got the idea to drown her kids from a law and order episode and she wasn't insane

  • However, after reviewing all of the law and order scripts they found that there were no episodes with that premise, so the expert witness said that they made a mistake

• Second trial resulted in the court finding Andrea not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI)

• Post 2nd trial:

  • Andrea Yates was sentenced to live the rest of her life in a mental hospital

  • Grieves for her children

  • Has very few visitors

  • Hasn't sought release even though her case comes up for review every year, she chooses to stay in the facility and not apply for parole

  • She makes crafts and sells them and donates the money to a charity that helps low income women with their mental health issues

  • Russel Yates divorced her 3 years after the second trial

is CST the same as the insanity defense?

no, CST is about mental health at the time of the trial and the insanity defense is about mental health at the time of the crime

what did insanity law look like in Ancient Rome?

• People without "mastery of mind" (control) should not be punished for crime

• 'mens rea' = guilty mind: awareness of wrongfulness is required to be found guilty

what did insanity law look like in 14th-16th century England?

• Religiously inspired "good from evil" test (if the person can tell good from evil then they're guilty because they're morally bad)

what did insanity law look like in 1724 England?

Rev vs. Arnold and the wild beast test: person does not know what they are doing is bad, they're no different than a shark killing someone (cognitive failing, not a moral one)

M’Naghten rule (England, 1843)

every man is presumed to be sane, to use an insanity defense you need to prove that either the person didn't know what they were doing or didn't know it was wrong

what did US courts add to the M’Naghten rule when they took the idea from England?

policeman at the elbow test, which included: Imagine you're about to commit a crime and there's a cop there, if you still do it even though you know you'll get caught then you must be insane

Durham standard (US, 1954)

not criminally responsible if unlawful act was product of mental disease or defect

revised Durham standard from the American Law Institute

have to have pre-existing evidence of mental illness separate from the case to prevent loopholes like intoxication and circular effect (the implication that someone is depressed because they committed the crime, the crime caused them to become mentally ill and not the other way around)

who was John Hinckley and why is his case important?

• John Hinckley shot Reagan in order to impress Jodi Foster whom he was obsessed with

• He followed her to Yale and stalked her, slipping poems, pictures, and messages under her door and calling her on the phone

• She was creeped out and filed a restraining order

• Hinckley plotted to hijack an airplane and commit suicide in front of her to get her attention, then decided against it

• Settled on a scheme to win her over by assassinating the president like the main character in Taxi Driver (which is a movie that she's in)

• Before the mission he writes to Jodi Foster and then he opened fire on the president and his crew in 1981

• Fired 6 shots

• Shot Reagan and a few others but everyone survived, he wounded:

  • Press secretary James Brady, who became paraplegic from this

  • A police officer

  • A secret service agent

  • President Reagan

• Hinckley was arrested

• Prosecution reports say he was legally sane

• Defense psychiatric reports found him to be legally insane

  • Earliest neurolaw expert testimony linking brain abnormality to behavior (sighted widened sulci and schizophrenia)

• Found not guilty by reason of insanity

• Placed in St. Elizabeth's hospital with limited freedoms

• Continued his obsession with Foster and tried sending her more letters and photos

• Was upset his love was not reciprocated

• Exchanged letters with Ted Bundy

• Sought the address of Charles Manson because he inspired the attempted assassination of Ford

• The aftermath of the Hinckley case:

  • There was widespread anger: 76% of people wanted a conviction

  • Congress and a number of states rewrote the law regarding the insanity defense to shift burden

  • Idaho, Montana, and Utah abolished the defense altogether

  • He was recently released from St. Elizabeth's hospital because he was rehabilitated for his schizophrenia

what was the first case to use neuroscientific testimony in the courtroom?

the Hinckley case, a psychologist linked his widened sulci to schizophrenia

1984 insanity defense reform act

• Sanity presumed

• Burden of proof placed on defense

  • Clear and convincing evidence of insanity

• Experts barred from ultimate issue testimony (i.e. can describe mental state but can't state insanity opinion)

• Kind of a rewind to the McNaghten standard

guilty but mentally ill

• Usually additional verdict to guilty, not guilty, or NGRI

• Like a normal guilty verdict with treatment in prison or in a mental hospital until well enough to be jailed

• Still jailed but some accommodations are made for mental illness

• Permitted in 20 states (only Utah adopts in place of NGRI)

mens rea (guilty mind) defense

• Defendant lacks the mental capacity for certain crimes (e.g. argues against specific intent, not right-wrong awareness)

• Applies only to crimes that require a specific mental state (e.g. 1st degree murder: premeditated and intentional murder)

• Can be used with insanity defense

• Aka diminished capacity defense

• Often used when defendant was drunk, high, or otherwise mentally impaired while committing the crime

what defense was controversially used in the indictment Dan White for the murder of Harvey Milk and the mayor of San Francisco?

mens rea/diminished capacity, the defense argued that White was stressed out and bingeing on Twinkies which was unusual for the health nut

who is Lorena Bobbit and why is her case important?

• Lorena accused John of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse

• Lorena took justice into her own hands and cut off John's penis in 1993

• She cut it off and drove away with it in her car

• She threw it out the window and called 911

• His penis was reattached in an operation

• During the trial it was argued Lorena suffered from depression and possible PTSD due to the abuse

• Had an "irresistible impulse" to take away the tool her abuser was using to harm her

• Judge ordered her to undergo a 45-day evaluation at central state hospital

• Found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity

Manson criteria

safeguards that protect eyewitness testimony:

• Opportunity to view- did they see the whole thing? Did they have an obstructed view?

• Level of attention- were they looking directly at the crime or were they preoccupied?

• Accuracy of definition

• Time between crime and identification

• Degree of certainty

competency screening test

test for evaluating CST, the participant was asked to complete 22 sentence fragments like: when I go to court, the lawyer will ____.

competency assessment instrument (CAI)

test for evaluating CST, noteworthy for its attention to several components of CST, including the following:

• ability to communicate with an attorney

• awareness of defenses that are realistically available

• understanding of the roles played by participants in the trial

• understanding of the charges and their seriousness

• understanding of the sequence and purpose of trial procedures

• awareness of the likely outcome of the trial and the potential penalties if convicted

• ability to inform the defense attorney of relevant facts and distortions in the testimony of prosecution witnesses

• capacity to provide useful testimony on one’s own behalf (if necessary)

what are the three underlying components of why it’s immoral to convict someone who has been ruled insane?

• Responsibility: immoral to punish people who were not responsible for their actions, who commit crimes without full awareness or control

• Retribution: punishment should be proportional to harm committed, but free will matters (not fair to punish people who didn't have a choice)

• Deterrence: if mentally ill then won't learn consequences or be deterred by punishment, other mentally ill won't be deterred by seeing others punished

what are the MSE and R-CRAS used for?

insanity determination

unconscious transference

a face that is familiar from some other context is transferred to the scene of a crime, for example a witness might accidentally identify someone who was at the scene of the crime as the perpetrator

post-identification feedback effect

tendency for biased feedback to distort the memory of eyewitnesses