Brace yourself; the package you open in tomorrow's mail may inflict upon you considerable distress. For if you subscribe to any of the major opinion magazines, there's going to be a carpet bombing of mental health professionals and their involvement in the courts by the pedestrian sages of the four syllable word. The occasion? The trial of Theodore Kaczynski, which figures to thrust psychiatric defenses uncomfortably into a level of critical scrutiny not seen since the Jeffrey Dahmer eclipse of 1992. And as in the cases of Dahmer, John Hinckley and the many others before and since, pundits and public will shriek their dismay over how psychological testimony is just a tool to excuse the guilty.
Is this our fault? After all, what's a lawyer to do, when you have a defendant who writes, "I mailed the bomb" and leads so isolated an existence that the incriminating materials could not have even been planted by the Freemen? For all the stigmas about the mentally ill, criminal trials labor under the naive notion that once psychiatrically diagnosed with one of the Big Ones (bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia), the defendant is incapable of malice.
Misrepresenting science is as good as perjury.
As is usual in such cases where the mad go bad, the prosecution will emphasize the acts; the defense will dramatize the actor. And mental health professionals will be the puppets in the nationally watched theatre. For it is the attorneys who ask the questions, with wordsmithing and manipulation truly befitting The Devil's Advocate. But bemoaning how we shrinks take the rap for good lawyering, when all we do is mind our own business, isn't the whole truth.
I was recently part of a panel discussing the case of Mary Kay Lefourneau, the 35-year Washington State schoolteacher who carried on an affair with a sixth grader and gave birth to their child. Before her trial, I wondered, "What does psychiatry have to do with this?" But the parade of experts at trial tossed around words like delusion and manic depressive illness with as much merit as tabloid television. Asked for his opinion, an Oregon prosecutor groused, "For enough money, you can find an expert who will say anything." Guess what? He's right. Ironically, one of our panel guests was attorney Leslie Abramson, herself notorious for allegedly asking a psychiatrist to alter the treatment notes of one of the Menendez brothers to avoid damaging her clients at the trial for the murder of their parents.
What is it about high profile cases that lures some experts, regardless of their origin, stature, or affluence to their fifteen minutes of fame, testifying in a manner that even they know is totally false? The consequences are immense and far reaching. We forensic psychologists and psychiatrists bear the brunt of cynical commentary, from the pompous Sunday morning quarterbacks, to the emesis of Margaret Hagen in her recent diatribe, whores in the court, to the future jurors at the neighborhood bar. The impact of the hired gun deepens a crisis of confidence even as America justifiably embraces forensic science testimony as never before.
There is much to the fascinating science of the mind that has been well researched and substantiated. Was Ted Kaczynski legally insane? Did he understand the moral wrongfulness of what he was doing? We'll see. The testimony regarding Mr. Kaczynski's diagnosis and state of mind will be watched closely by the forensic mental health community The case participants will work harder, bill more, and owe it to colleagues to preserve the integrity of the field. Sure, there's room for honest disagreement, but misrepresenting science is as good as perjury by a witness who should not be for sale at any price.
