Читать книгу The Measure of Madness: - Katherine Ramsland - Страница 6

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 up, murdered, and dismembered hitchhiking coeds in Santa Cruz, California. At the time of his post-release evaluation by a team of psychiatrists, who pronounced him cured, he had the head of one victim in the trunk of his car outside. Such stories sully the mental health profession, and people on juries remember them. So it’s important to contrast the normal course of an evaluation and its consequences against these aberrant cases.

To be effective, forensic psychologists must know the operations and expectations of the court. As expert witnesses, they must be credible, confident, competent, and prepared. They should understand that the court prefers clear decisions, jargon-free evaluations, and objective information that directly address the issues at hand. While they must offer information that can assist those who will decide on guilt or innocence, they should refrain from making this decision themselves. They must also resist an attorney’s attempt to persuade them about what to say.

In addition to competency and insanity evaluations, forensic psychologists appraise behaviors such as malingering (faking an illness), confessing, and threatening suicide. As consultants, psychologists may assist a forensic artist with behavioral factors for a facial reconstruction, or they may help an attorney select a jury. They might defuse a potentially violent situation with negotiation, offer a threat assessment, or assist a coroner with an ambiguous death determination. Some psychologists are employed at police departments to determine fitness for duty or perform trauma counseling. Many others work in prisons or hospitals for the criminally insane. Psychologists may also participate in forensic work outside the courtroom, including consulting for a cold-case team or a serial killer task force.

In this compelling collection of stories from a twenty-five year career, Dr. Cheryl Paradis offers a window into the world of a clinical psychologist who has made many assessments for the courts. Whether for the prosecution or defense, her job is to remain neutral as she offers the results of her interviews, assessment instruments, and observations of a range of disturbed people—and those who merely pretend they’re disturbed. She’s been hired to evaluate a person’s present mental ability to stand trial, to waive rights, or to confess, and she’s evaluated whether certain offenders appreciated the difference between right and wrong while committing their crimes. Her clients in the following chapters include an angry juvenile, a battered woman, a psychotic arsonist, a clever con man, a range of liars, and even an accused cannibal. What keeps you reading is that, while the issues from one case to another are similar, each case is also unique. Many are surprising.

In the end, forensic psychology is really about the defendants, and Dr. Paradis wisely recalls one of her earliest lessons: “Don’t believe everything your patients tell you.” In other words, listen with your third ear: Gather the facts as they know them, but be wise to their agendas and/or illnesses. This advice covers not just the delusional, but also connivers, psychopaths, and people with poor or distorted memories. While Dr. Paradis explains the steps of her clinical evaluations, the manifestations of mental illness (or its faux counterpart) take center stage, framed within important legal precedents. It’s clear that these tales are not about therapy sessions and that the forensic psychologist is not a defendant’s advocate. She’s an essential player in a complex and difficult legal proceeding.

Psychologists who testify must be prepared for anything—aggressive attorneys, confused jurors, canceled sessions, and even uncooperative defendants. They do not make moral judgments or apportion blame. They simply make an assessment to the best of their ability and let the chips fall where they may. They may not know the outcome of a case unless they make an effort to find out. What makes these stories most compelling is Dr. Paradis’s compassion. Once her part is over, she still wants to know what happened to the people she evaluated, so we get the end of the story. There’s little doubt that this work is challenging, even risky at times, and it can be both depressing and satisfying. One thing is for sure: Each case offers something to make us ponder what it means to be human. Whether it’s a demented mother with fatal religious delusions, a scheming psychopath hoping to slip his bonds, a person who cooks the flesh off his former friend, or a frightened victim acting out, each and every person’s behavior teaches us about the human condition.

—Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D.

Chair, Department of Social Sciences at DeSales University

Associate professor of forensic psychology

Author of The Criminal Mind: A Writers’ Guide to

Forensic Psychology