Recently in Insanity Plea Category

The case I'm going to discuss is several years old but I found it very interesting and relevant to psychology and law. In 1992, a hunter found the body of a decomposing woman while hunting. After the police found out that the dead woman had been a prostitute, it led them to believe that a possible suspect was Thomas Huskey, a man known for bringing woman to the area. Huskey had a reputation for taking women, tying them up behind the zoo, beating them, and then having sex with them.

About a week after the first body was found, police searching the area found three more dead women. Huskey was arrested and confessed, on tape, to all four murders. During the confession, Huskey changed his voice and expressions and said that he was now "Kyle". Apparently, "Kyle" was the one who killed the women, not Thomas. After "Kyle" emerged, "Philip Daxx", a British man, surfaced. This lead investigators to believe that Huskey had multiple personality disorder.

After 6 years had passed, the trial finally began. Huskey plead not guilty by insanity. The defense psychologist said that Huskey suffered from multiple personality disorder, however, the prosecution psychologist said that Huskey simply created these personalities to manipulate the court. During the course of the trial, the cellmate of Huskey, testified that Huskey had read Sybil and was going to try to make it seem like he had multiple personality disorder to avoid the death penalty. Huskey's mother also agreed that he did not have this disorder. To further the case against Huskey, the prosecution noted that he gave specific details about the crime while he was Tom but if he really did have multiple personality disorder, he would have no recollection of these memories, since they belong to "Kyle".

After the jury deliberated for quite some time, they still had not come to a unanimous decision. The judge declared a mistrial. Huskey was to be tried again in 2002 but he asked for a lawyer during his confession, which was then ruled inadmissible. Huskey is currently in prison for 44 years for previous rape charges.

On another website, I found that the murder charges against Huskey were dropped due to detective errors. He is still in jail for the rape charges mentioned earlier.

Psychology is obviously present here. Because multiple personality disorder is so rare, it probably wasn't Huskey's  best idea to pretend he had it. Any personality disorder is severe and it's likely that Huskey may have had some other form of one. Although he wasn't proven guilty, it seems pretty possible that he did commit the four murders. I'm glad that he's at least in jail for the rape crimes he committed so that he can't go out and murder more innocent women.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/psychology/multiples/index.html 

Last summer in San Antonio Texas the police were sent to a grizzly crime scene that was almost too grusome to describe. From what they did indicate in news it was something from a slasher zombie movie. The 33 yr old mother used a knife and 2 swords to kill her 3 week old son and that is not even the horrible part is just gets more strange and guresome. The police commented that the infants toes were actually bitten off, decapitated and his face ripped off and some of his brain were eaten. After the mother did that she stabbed herself twice. She is alive still though and when asked why she did it, she said because the devil told her to. So is she in fact mentally ill or suffering from some type of postpartm depression (possibly psychosis)or is it just a way to cover her track so later on she can take the insanity plea. Just as Andrea Yates also did. http://newsone.com/nation/associated-press/police-say-woman-killed-infant-son-and-ate-his-brain/ 

As we all know Parkersburg, Iowa and the whole state of Iowa suffered a tremendous loss, Ed Thomas. Mr. Thomas was the high school football coach, track coach, teacher, driving instructor, and most of all a father, husband, and grandfather.

The trial for Mark Becker is in some of its last states. The jury has been in deliberation for over 8 hours now. They will either find of him guilty of 1st degree murder with life in prison without parole, or they will find him guilty, but categorize him as insane and Becker will undergo dramatic psychiatric evaluations.

This is a trial that is using the Insanity Plea, which is very unheard of for today. It is hard to prove someone legally insane, because you have to prove to everyone that before the crime, the time of the crime, and after the crime, that Mark Becker had no idea what was going on and it was out of his control. I want to make it clear that insanity is a legal term when used in law, not a medical term. Insanity is when they try to see if Mark Becker knew what he was doing, and if he knew right from wrong throughout the whole process of the crime.

This is going to be a hard case to defend based on the facts. Mark Becker did plan out this murder. He dressed so that he could hide a gun in his clothing. He drove himself to the high school and admitted to being scared that he would be pulled over with a loaded gun on him. These are just a few things that push away from the insanity plea.

Below is the Des Moines Register, which has been following the trial very closely. On the left side bar is over 15 blogs that take you through the trial, even a blog just recently posted about the juror's deliberation. In the middle of the web page will a section also taking you through the trial in detail.

I urge everyone to go through theses blogs and really see what it is like for the people of the court system. They have an expert witness, a Psychiatrist that the prosecution hired and his diagnosis and thoughts are very interesting to read.

http://dmjuice.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100225/NEWS01/2250354/1001/NEWS

I haven't been paying much attention to the Mark Becker trial, but I was talking with my secretary and this trial is very important to her because her son knew Mark Becker and was coached by Ed Thomas. I've started paying a little bit more attention towards the end of the trial and I really wanted to have a report on the verdict but it doesn't look as if the jury will have reached a conclusion by 3:15.
Mark Becker has been accused of killing teacher and coach Ed Thomas in a weight room last year.

The prosecution has explained a timeline of events in their opening statements saying Becker broke into his parents' gun cabinet and practiced shooting a 22-caliber gun at a bird house.

The prosecution says Becker then went to the school and asked the junior high assistant principal where Coach Thomas was so they could talk about the Tornado Relief Fund. According to the prosecution, Becker went into the weight room, shot Thomas multiple times, then began kicking Thomas and swearing at him.

The prosecution says even if Becker suffered from a mental illness, it does not mean he was insane at the time of the crime.

The defense argued during their opening statement that Becker suffered from mental illness that kept him from distinguishing right from wrong. The defense says Becker had delusions the night before the murder and believed Thomas was Satan and was turning people into fish.

The defense has brought in four medical experts that all diagnosed Becker as having paranoid schizophrenia. In light of this, I believe that Becker was insane at the time of the murder, and while he should be held fully responsible for his actions, he should not be sent to prison.

I say this because I believe that he will only get worse in prison. He needs to be sent to a place where he can receive proper care and support. He should be sent to an asylum where he can receive proper medical care and rehabilitation. If he is sent to a prison, he will degenerate and likely cause more harm to himself and others, and he will not be rehabilitated, and if he is eventually paroled or released, he will be much worse off than he is now.

I know that many people disagree with my thoughts on this trial, and I would love to have people politely explain their views in the comments to this post.

To learn more about the trial and to learn what the jury decides, visit www.kwwl.com

Reading this case that was brought before the Supreme Court in 2006 made me think about the insanity defense. In a short sentence at the end of the article it is pointed out that the insanity defense is used in less the 1% of all cases and is successful less the a quarter of the time it is tried. One of the key points of the defendants argument is that state laws unfairly shifts the burden of proof from the State to the Defendant which runs counter to almost everything else in the legal system. As much as I think that people should pay for their crimes it seems wrong to not only hold someone who entire deck short of a deck of cards responsible for their actions, but to force them to prove that they are insane. This is further complicated when you consider Justice Souters question "What if he knew right from wrong, and knew it was wrong to kill aliens?" how do you handle people who are clearly nuts but are doing something wrong even within the standards set by their delusion. I honestly don't have an answer for this. 

Everyone knows about the insanity plea, how hard it is for someone to plea this way and how justice isn't always served when they do. The origin of the insanity plea begins with one of three cases, Queen v. Daniel McNaughton, along with Hadfield, and Oxford before the McNaughton case. All three cases set the basis for the insanity rule and all three were very similar in their plea for the insanity defense. Claiming they were mentally ill or had a mental disease. McNaughton was indicted for murder and had four doctors analyze him to determine the condition he had. He shot the Prime Minister's private secretary, civil servant Edward Drummon, in the back once. The police came and stopped him before he could get a second shot off. He claimed he was seeing delusions of persecution by what he called "the Tories". He said "I was driven to desperation by persecution".The jury, eventually without retiring, duly returned a verdict of not guilty on the ground of insanity. Through his trial, he has given the legal test of criminal insanity the name of M'Naghten Rules or McNaughton rules. The rule says To establish a defence on the ground of insanity it must be clearly proved, that, at the time of committing the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or if he did know it, that he did not know that what he was doing was wrong.

More on the case can be found at this website.

http://books.google.com/books?id=jNgsrjZxBh4C&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=McNaughton+case&source=bl&ots=We92MHSIMF&sig=NQdRciC3MdPpOQoofC4KIxDvvO4&hl=en&ei=i-OFS_HfOI_uM9e9tMUM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=McNaughton%20case&f=false

In 2001 Rusty Yates received a call from his very calm, cool, and collected wife Andrea telling him that he needed to come home the children were dead. That day Andrea's plan that had been in progress finally happened. Andrea had been suffering for years from post-pardum depression and schizophrenia. She had been on medication for her illnesses and seeing a therapist, until recently when she just stopped helping herself all together. Her family attended church regularly and she, as a woman, was drilled with her being a bad mother. She heard it from her husband and her preacher, and the voice of the devil she heard in her head. She was told that since she was a bad mother her children would be eternally damned, and who wants that to be the fate of her children. So the devil agreed to help her solve her problem. If she killed her children- she was guaranteeing there way in to heaven instead of eternal damnation. So she planned for months the murder of her 5 children ranging from ages 6 months- 7 years. Finally the day came for her to execute her plan. SO she filled the bathtub full of water and drowned each one starting with the 2, 3, and 5 year olds followed by the baby and then her oldest son who actually managed to get free and run- where she chased him down and listened heartlessly to him crying and telling her he was sorry! She then called her husband and the police. She knew what she was doing was wrong, knew she was going to get punished, and was totally alright with what she'd done.

The following site leads to a full case run-down of the Andrea Yates trial: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/women/andrea_yates/5.html 

  In October 2008, Michelle Kehoe drove herself and her two boys, Seth (age 2) and Sean (age 7) to Hook-n-Liner Pond near Littleton, IA. She then tied both of her boys up, duct taped their eyes, nose, and mouths, and slashed their throats leaving little Seth dead and seriously injuring Sean. She then proceeded to the edge of the pond and attempted suicide by slashing her own throat. When she did not succeed with her suicide attempt, Kehoe went to a nearby house and claimed that a man kidnapped them and killed her children. Unbeknown to Kehoe, her son Sean had survived the attack and was able to tell authorities in the hospital later that day what truly happened.
 In November 2009, Kehoe stood trial for the murder of her son Seth and plead insanity. She was later found guilty of 1st Degree Murder, Attempted Murder, and Child Endangerment. In December 2009, she was sentence to life without the possibility of parole for the murder, 25 years for attempted murder, and 10 years for the child endangerment charged.
 
 Click here for the article about the trial. This also has short video clips of the trial including testimony from both psychologists, the recorded statement from Kehoe's surviving son, and the Kwik Star surveillance video of the family shortly before the horrific crime.
 Click here for the article about the sentencing hearing and how Kehoe's husband asked for leniency but the judge denied it. (Please note that the dates written in the article are wrong. Kehoe committed the crime in 2008 and the trial was held in 2009)

 For me, this case hit extremely close to home, in more ways than one. First off, there is the physical aspects of the crime. Kehoe stopped with her boys at the Kwik Star in Jesup, Iowa (which is where I live) and the store clerk who testified is a person that I know.
 After leaving Kwik Star, Kehoe drove down the road and stopped to let her boys play at the playground in front of St. Athanasius School. This playground is located directly behind my house (all that separates my yard from the playground is a single row of trees) and my oldest son plays there often. At this point in the time line, Kehoe purposely left her cell phone so that nobody could call for help.
 From the park, Kehoe drove a few miles further to Hook-n-Liner Pond. This happens to be my husband's and my fishing spot (since this happened though, we have decided to find a new spot). It is located in an extremely secluded location so a person would have to be familiar with the area to find it. Kehoe was originally from this area. In fact, the house down the road from it used to be owned by one of her relatives.

Have you ever seen the Oscar winning film, Milk? This article is about the man (Dan White) who murdered the San Francisco mayor, George Moscone, and the board supervisor, Harvey Milk. This case gained notoriety not only because the first openly gay official was murdered but also because many media agencies reported that White beat the murder conviction by using an insanity plea (stating that he ate too much junk food which made him insane). The media nicknamed this defense tactic as  the Twinkie Defense. 
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/psychology/insanity/7.html
 

http://www.texasobserver.org/features/gone-baby-gone

 This article depicts the story of Otty Sanchez, who murdered her baby while she was suffering from postpartum psychosis. The article investigates how Sanchez actually sought help prior to the murder but had slipped through the cracks of an under-budgeted mental health system in Texas. Despite clear evidence supporting a legal insanity defense, prosecutors are planning to seek the death penalty. It is truly a tragic but eye-opening article for anybody who is interested in the problems that the mental health systems face and what happens when there is a break down in communication between professionals seeking mental health help for their clients. It is true that hindsight is 20-20. However, as it pertains to the Sanchez case, so many clear warning signs were left ignored by so many people and the two people who did recognize the pending break-down went unheard.
 Just to warn those who may read this article, some of the facts listed in it tend to be graphic in nature.