2 discussion questions (see attachment)

LAW & JUSTICE

66 USATODAY * MARCH 2010

V

Away with the lii of One tal Solution

BY RICHARD E . VATZ

"Psychiatrists engage in many phony practices but none phonier than the insanity defense. "

O F ALL O F n IE fatuous ai^^uments supporting insanity pleas, the most eflective is that "only one-lourtli of one percent of those tried in crimi-

nal cases successfully plead insane." The sig- nilicant word here is "only." because it implies

thai such an outcome, however fraudu- lent, should not be upsetting to the av- erage citizen. As one "consulling p s y c h o l o g i s t . " L a u r e n c e M i l l e r , wrote prototypical I y in " T h e Doe Report" published by Medical l^gal

An. "This is hardly an epidemii:." Rrst of all. the statistic understates the

role of excirlpattiry psychiatry and ¡isychol- ogy in the courtrtwm. as purporLcd psy-

chological problems of felons affect criminal justice outcomes hey.Mid just

accomplishing a not-guilty-hy-reasonnif- insanity plea. There is invalid psychological

mitigation of erinie and punishment thr,)ugÍH>ut the criminal justiee system—irom untrii^J cases to plea bargains to other psychiatrically aflected ptmishmenls—in addition to felons' avoiding pimi.shment via tlic insanity plea

lrx)niailly. the specious depicting of 'he mla- tively smaller percent of insanity plea t^utn^es, in conjunction with tlic avoidance of personaliz- ing tfie victims' ;uid their R;lative,s" stoHiis. in.su- lattö the irse of the insanity plea from close ex- irmination. As Soviet leader Joseph Stalin infa- mously stated. " O n e death is a trage dy. but

1.000,000 deatiis are a statislic." wiüi its generally accurate implication that no

one cares about evil's victims as long as its supporters can deper-

sonalize them.

Lei us look at ;ust one

ciqiilal aisc in which an in.s;uiity-type ple;L aided and iüx;tted by credulous mental heijth pnules- sionals, protected a wholly evil perpetrator from seven: puniiJimeriL In November 2008. a beau- titiil and u-ondcriul citizen by all accounts (in- cluding personid aimmunicatioas to this writer fn)m her friends and cow<ir1iers), Aysha Dawn Ring, viciously was murdered by a stranger to her. David Briggs. She was s u i b e d to dealh while standing in line at a Baltimon; liquor store. Briggs savagely—and without provocation— slit her thawt while she was waiting to pay for purchases, anil then purposefully ran away, dis- posed of his weapon, and, according to accounts in the Baltimore Sun. was "found naked . . . in the empty chapel of a homeless sheller in the Pittsburgh aiua." He also was speaking apix;a- typtically and incomprebeasibly. A perfect com- hination of events tt) infei- that a killer is mit to be held responsible for ending a completely inno- cent perïwn's life.

The press reports detailed his unusual behav- ior in the chapel in PitLsbur^ subsequent to the killing, information which is scintillating to those wlio want to believe that the killer was out of his mind, yet utterly irrelevant to those wbo believe that wanton munJen;rs should pay for their crimes and be incapacitated pemia- iK'ntly to protect the public. Briggs plead "not criminally responsible." Maryland's version of the insanity plea. In Maryland, a lawbreaker can he found Not Criminally Responsible (NCR) if the examining psychiatrists and psychologists come to the conclusion that said lawhn^aker sutïered from a iT)ental disorder and therefore did not know what was done was wn)ng or if the otherwi.se criminal actions wen; beyond his or her contiul. None of these criteria—mental

USA TODAY * MARCH 2010 67

LAW & JUSTICE

disorder or lack of understanding or control— was demonstrated validly in this case.

Did the killer appreciate the criminality of what he did? Indisputably. He immediately tied the crime scene and got rid of bis weapon and elotbes. Did he have control over what he did? Again, it would seem hard to dispute. He sin- gled out the only white woman in the store and, in conversations with investigators, indicated thiU he may have been motivated by that fact.

The assessment of evidence for Briggs was ü>nducted as a drunk uses a lamppost: for sup- port, not illumination. Inlormation was cherry- picked by state psychiatrists to establish the fic- tion that Briggs was not crimir̂ ally responsible or, as Mike Ring, Aysha's father, wrote in his statement to the auirt, "The assessment appears to have drawn on only those select pieces of in- formation from the investigation which reflected credence to their collected iînding." Specitically regarding the factor of raœ. Ring wrote in that stiitement, "HÍKI the ethnic roles been reversed the publie and political uutcry woirld have been overwhelming, assuring a vastly different judg- ment for the killer."

Still, the perpetrator was found not criminal- ly responsible and was committed to the Cliftfin T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup, Md. He will scr '̂e no jail time and will be re-evaluated within the next year for possible release, al- though prosecutor S. Ann Brobst told this writer that her office will ensure that does not occur.

In their examination of the killer, mental health speciali.sLs ordervxl the available evidence to fit their preconceived conclusion. How did they justify their findings publicly? With si- lence. TTicy did not even have the decency to talk to the victim's family As one lawyer put it to me. 'The law doesn't require them to do so." As Ring explained, "I have neither heard from nor seen anyone associated with the mental health assessment. I was made aware of the finding by the state iatomey's office the day that office received wonl, and it was reiterated to me at that time that we had no rucourse."

Could doctors or even Ri.D. psycholo^sts be so heartlessly insouciant so as not to even inter- act with the father of a victim whose killer now would spend not a day in jail for this heinous crime? I wanted to ask the examining mental health team about this, so I called Anne Hanson, who signed the NCR finding, and she told me it was a "team aj^jach decision." When I asked who the other members of the team were, she said she could not divulge their names, but if 1 would call tbe CEO of Clifton T Perkins Hospi- tal. Sheila Davenport, I aiuld ask her. Davenport apparently had the director of Fomnsic Services for the Department of Health and Mental Hy- giene call, who, on my voice mail, said that no one at the htispital legally could release any in- formation reganiing who was on the team or the basis of the decision, but actually suggested that, if 1 contacted the killer's attorney, he legally would be permitted—if he wished—to af^rise me of the inibrmalion 1 soughL

Through other means, I determined that ad- ditional participants in the finding of NCR in-

cluded a Lawrence Donner and Neil Blum- berg, whose testimony in the Nicbolas Brown- ing case (Browning killed his parents and brothers) was that the killer had "diss(x:iative disorder" (escaping reality in ways that are in- voluntary) and was abased by his parents. The basis for Blumberg's allegations was as firm as the evidence he presented: Browning's claims. That psychobabbling effort failed.

There initially was not a whole lot of local coverage of the outcome of this atrocity, save, to my knowledge, mmc discussion on conserv- ative talk radio in Baltimore, a mention by the Sun. and a segment on WJZ Television in Bal* timore put together by its reporter, Jessica Kar- talija. The lack of public outrage lett people like the Rev. John Swope, a coworker of Ring's, incredulous. It was, Swope observed, "not the type of justice we expected."

Brobst said that the state stalT of psychia- trists' determination of "not criminally responsi- ble" was legally unehallengeable: "The statute." she points ouL "does not provide a meehiinism to disagree with the finding."

A father's heartbreak The Baltimore Sun's op-ed page, generally

unsympathetic to critiques of psychiatry, print- ed a critique of the outcome of the Ring mur- der, but would not print a letter from her father, reprinted here with only slight editing;

"My daughter, Aysha Ring, was killed in the most violent and personal manner known by a criminal who was on probation at the time of the murder. The killer. David Briggs, ascd the same methtxJ to kill her which is employed by terror- ists throughout the worid to instill fear and eon- vey messages of hate and intimidation. He re- ceived NO pristin time due to the existing judi- cial kxjphole in Maryland of the "Not Criminal- ly Responsible" deten.se. The opinions reached by the psychiatrists and suggestöl to the œurt in this case could not be challenged, even though the killer was found competent to stand trial by those same psychiatrists and he admitted to the murder. This finding had no merit and was crim- inal in its own right. Take a hard lotîk at this vii)- lent event and explain to a Roving family why Aysha was not atlorded the respect due her as a pRxluctive citi/.en ot the most poweriul country in the world and why the criminal justice system tailed her so miserably.

•"Our family greatly appreciiUes the continued show of support for Aysha faim the local as well as national and intemational communities. It's our intent to shed light níH only on the mtirder of our daughter, but lo raise the public's awarene.ss regarding the Maryland statutes which govem this type of defense in criminal eases. A residual effect of this exposure is the inerease in visibility of Aysha's Memorial Scholarship Endowment in awpenition wiüi the Cristo Rey Jesuit High School and the promotion of the Aysha Ring Memorial Foundation. The foundation was es- tablished to provide assistance to loeal, state. Federal, and intemational law enforcement agencies in an etîort to bridge investigative tecb-

nology gaps and will also assist with the en- hancement of public safety issues."

Ring subsequently wRite me a letter reflecting his profound love tor his daughter and his lurther thoughts on the implications of the outcome ot the criminal case for the criminal justice system in Maryland and the U.S.: "TTiroughout the year we've continued to receive a)nrcsp(mdentr Ihmi around the world voicing support for Aysha and the family and expressing continued disgust for the lack of iiccountability the Maryland crimi- nal jastice system has bect)me infamous tor.

"As you krww, i nstumed to Baltimore in No- vember to speak at what was the first of an an- nual remanbrance for Aysba at the Cristo Rey Jesuit High Schotil. At that time 1 was advised the national level CRJ Board of Directors had named ihe tiret, and to date, the only, CRJ Aw;ird tor Public Service in honor of Aysha. It will be given to a graduating senior each year for out- standing supptJrt to the community. What an honor and [itl just goes to show what a positive impact she had and continues to have on the aimmunity.

"Her memorial .scholarship endowment at Cristo Rey œntinues to grow, as does the foun- dation I began in her honor. In fact part of the foundation's charter is to assist law enforcement agencies worldwide with support in areas of public security. This is a vehicle that allows us UÏ share information which hopefully will aid in a decrease in crimes such as the one that took Aysha's life. These heinoas crimes are not limit- ed to our border, however it's important to note that in the vast majority of societies around the globe, penalties tor crimes such as Aysha's mtir- der iue harsh and are carried out with expedien- ey. Unfortuniüely. the United States criminad jus- tice system is perceived throughout the world as one that eaters to peipetrators rallier than victims and is a system which is generally thought of lo be porous and weak. It should be of no surprise to Amerioui citizens that we will continue lo be a society which is exploited by rogue and crimi- nal elements that specifically choose to oper:ate within our amfirKS due to the lack of pn>secu- tion, the legal ambiguity, and those misguided values of bureaucrats which directly affect our jusUec system.

" . . . I will always be grateful tor your ef- forts to ensure Aysha is not forgotten...,

Regards, Mike" Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz has written, "Psy-

chiatrists engage in many ¡^ony practices but none phonier than the insanity detense." This indubitably is true and, consequently, there is nothing more unethical than the act of minimiz- ing psycbiatric exculpation in the criminal jus- tice system by statistical legerdemain. The indi- vidual stories of victims of evil murderers and the victims' relatives give poignant testimony to these points. *

Richard E. Vaiz, Asso<:iate Psychology Editor of USA Today, is professor ofiiietoric at Tow- son (Md.) University and (m editor w/Current Psychology.

68 USA TODAY • MARCH 2010

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Respond to the following: Answer the

2

discussion

question. Include at

least

1

reference.

A good response to a written question should combine your personal experiences with theory to

support your work

.

Be

thoughtful

and

insightful

and

it

must

demonstrate

critical

thinking

and

analysis.

A good response to the question should be about 3

-

4 paragraphs, and address all of the

issues that are raised.

(Introduction, body and conclusion.

) Thank you.

When

answe

ring

discussion questions use an example in your answer. These examples can be from your own

experience or from something you've read in the news, on the internet, or from any other credible

source

M2

D1:

How Successful is the Insanity Defense in Criminal T

rials

Although the public may think that many defendants are able to successfully use the insanity

defense to avoid a verdict of guilty, is this necessarily true? Before we can understand the

public’s misconception we need to better understand some of the

most commonly used criminal

defenses used by defendants regarding who may be considered legally insane, as opposed to

angry or mentally ill. The defendant’s state of mind at the time of the crime adds to the legal

difficulty in determining criminal compete

nce.

·

To better understand the dynamics and true facts surrounding this issue though, first read

this article:

1.

Why is the public's notion of a successful use of the insanity defense misunderstood? Do the

media assume any responsibility for these misconceptions? Explain and give at least one

example

M2

D2:

American

Policing Today: Career Choice?

American policing today may not be recognizable by law enforcement officers and agents of the

past. The responsibilities, roles, and issues have changed. Future law enforcement must be more

technologically savvy and prepared

to confront modern

-

day issues. Choosing a career in law

enforcement, therefore, will require a whole array of new skills, as well as skills of the past, such

as good judgment.

Doing Away with the

only one-fourth of one percent solution.pdf