Tag Archives: murder

“Caffeine, how far does murder defense go?”

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Can the intake of caffeinated substances really cause temporary insanity? If so, was that the case for Woody Will Smith from Newport, Kentucky? Woody’s defense team plans to argue that he had ingested excessive amounts of caffeine (over 400 mg) from five or six energy and soft drinks daily in addition to diet pills, which rendered him temporarily insane and they argue that given that fact he could not have consciously strangled his wife to death. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders from the American Psychiatric Association defines a caffeine overdose as more than 300 mg. During the day of the incident, Woody claims to remember little about the events that occurred and that he was unable to understand his actions. Known effects of high caffeine intake range from irregular heartbeat and nervousness to temporary insanity and skeletal muscle breakdown when taken in large amounts.

The defense also plans to use the testimony of the expert witness Dr. Robert Noelker, a psychologist from Williamstown, who determined Woody was suffering from “brief psychosis” brought on by sleep deprivation caused by the ingestion of caffeine and diet pills. This case plans to build on the precedent set by the case of Daniel Noble, who drank two coffee’s from Starbucks and during his drive home, lost control of his car hitting pedestrians and driving away. However, this case was different in that Noble was diagnosed with a rare form of bipolar disorder that could have been aggravated by heavy caffeine consumption. Also there was no one killed in the case, and as a result the judge let Noble off, but with the understanding he would not be allowed to consume caffeine again.

Given all of the information from this case, I believe that Woody Smith should still face conviction for murder by the jury for three reasons. The first is that unlike the Noble case Woody actively murdered someone, he did not just loose control of a car. Also unlike the Noble case, Woody does not have any other psychiatric diseases that could have affected his judgment. The final reason is that voluntarily subjecting oneself to caffeine intoxication should not be treated very differently from subjecting oneself to another potentially toxic substance such as alcohol. Overall, though the intake of caffeine may have had some effect on Woody’s judgment, it is not conclusive enough to show that it alone caused his actions. If this were the case we would see a lot more aggressive behavior coming from the many college students and working professionals who use caffeine to get through their daily routines. Rather, his actions must be in coordination with a specific criminal decision he made or influenced by some unknown mental illness he was suffering from. Another thing for the judge to consider in this case is the precedent it may set.

Barrouquere, Brett. “Kentucky Man Kills Wife, Blames Caffeine.” Salon.com. Associated Press, 20 Sept. 2010. Web. 04 Oct. 2010. <http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/09/20/us_caffeine_defense>.

Black, Rosemary. “Buzz Killer: Could Caffeine Overload Cause Temporary Insanity?” NY Daily News. NY Daily News, 21 Sept. 2010. Web. 04 Oct. 2010. <http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2010/09/21/2010-09-21_buzz_killer_could_caffeine_overload_cause_temporary_insanity.html>.

Drummond, Katie. “Any Truth to the Caffeine Intoxication Insanity Defense?” Aolnews.com. Aol News, 20 Sept. 2010. Web. 04 Oct. 2010. <http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/caffeine-intoxication-insanity-as-legal-defense-strategy/19640561>.

Simon, Mallory. “Murder Defense: Too Much Caffeine.” This Just In – CNN.com Blogs. CNN.com, 20 Sept. 2010. Web. 04 Oct. 2010. <http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/20/murder-defense-too-much-caffeine/>.

Schizophrenic, but not insane

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Back in June of 2000, Eric Clark was only 17 years old. Until about a year and a half prior, he had been a normal, well-adjusted individual. However, in that year and a half, he began to have mood swings and episodes in which he would either whisper gibberish or simply scream. He also eventually came to believe that someone was trying to poison him, and also that the earth was being invaded by aliens. He was a paranoid schizophrenic, and his parents had been actively seeking treatment for him at the time. One day, the police received a call about Clark driving around his neighborhood, playing music too loud from his car stereo. When a policeman pulled Clark over and approached his car, there was gunfire exchanged, and the policeman was mortally wounded. However, the courts of Arizona deemed him still not insane, and eventually the US Supreme Court sided with the Arizona courts in 2006.

Eric Clark clearly picked the wrong state in which to have paranoid schizophrenia and to shoot a cop. In 1994, the Arizona legislature narrowed even the M’Naughten standard further, changing their law to read “guilty except insane if at the time of the commission of the criminal act the person was afflicted with a mental disease or defect of such severity that the person did not know the criminal act was wrong.” In that same year, they had also altered the crime of first degree murder to include “intentionally or knowingly killing a law enforcement officer who is in the line of duty.” It seemed to be the perfect storm for Clark. If the prosecution could prove he was not insane (which was now easier thanks to the law change) he would serve 25 to life, the sentencing for first degree murder. He didn’t stand a chance.

The case that the state tried to make was that Clark drove around trying to lure in the police, which they supported with his prior statements above his negative feelings toward the police, claiming that these statements proved his mens rea. This does not seem like a sufficient prosecution to deem someone guilty and not insane. However, a previous ruling in State v. Mott held that “Arizona does not allow evidence of a defendant’s mental disorder short of insanity to negate the mens rea elements of a crime.” So, while the state could argue that Clark had a guilty mind, the defense couldn’t use any elements of his psychosis as defense against the guilty mind, because the law enacted in 1994 said he was not insane. Thus, he could not negate mens rea, because his whole argument was based on his insanity, which the state did not recognize.

I honestly cannot believe that, as few as 4 years ago, a person with paranoid schizophrenia could still be sentenced 25 to life. He thought his town was being invaded by aliens!! If that isn’t insane, then I don’t know what is. This is a glaring example that neuroscience must be brought to and distributed among the masses. Lawmakers, juries, judges; all of them should at least learn some basic facts of neuroscience. Our brain can show us why we act the way we do, or at least show us why we may be behaving in strange manners. To ignore it halts the progress of society; if we have the knowledge, then we have a duty to apply it to the best of our ability. I hope that cases such as these can bring greater attention to the gaps that still exist between the legal and medical fields.

Execution of the Mentally Disabled

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As reported in a CNN story last week, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has granted Gayland Bradford, a prisoner on Texas’ death row, a stay of execution. Bradford was sentenced to death after being found guilty of the murder of a security guard working in a Dallas convenience store in 1988. The stay of execution was granted based on the fact that Bradford’s lawyers are claiming that he is mentally deficient, citing an IQ of 68. The Supreme Court has ruled that people who are mentally deficient cannot be executed, but there is no clear definition what classifies someone to be considered deficient. Justice Scalia is intending to give Bradford’s lawyers a chance to try to convince a court that he falls into the mentally deficient category and that he, therefore, cannot be subjected to the death penalty.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, in 1989, in the case Penry v. Lynaugh, the Supreme Court declared executing the mentally retarded was constitutional as a national consensus against the matter had not developed, although they said that mental retardation should be a mitigating factor in sentencing. However in 2002, in Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court declared that executing the mentally retarded was unconstitutional as it violated the Eighth Amendment that prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, a ruling which then matched statutes prohibiting such executions in 18 states and in the federal death penalty statute (this constitutes a national consensus). The Center gives the definition for intellectual disability created by The American Association for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities which is that: intellectual disability involves “significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior, which covers many everyday social and practical skills.” Notice that this definition does not provide a clear cutoff line, based on IQ or any other factor, that allows a court to say definitively that a person qualifies as mentally retarded or not. So, while the Supreme Court made it unconstitutional to execute someone who is “mentally retarded”, it was left up to the state judicial systems to determine the criteria that classify people into this group.

The Death Penalty Information Center gives a listing of the criteria for mental retardation of the 16 states that had statutes before Atkins v. Virginia and another of 6 states that have since passed statutes. Texas, which is the state of question in the above case, is absent from both of these lists, so it is difficult to know how mental retardation is determined in Texas. However, looking over the other states’ definitions, those that do name IQ cutoffs most commonly cite 70, with a range of 65-75, and most require that intellectual disability must be determined by a licensed psychologist (for whom the DSM-IV-TR gives a criterion of an IQ approximately 70 or below). I think the case above reminds people why strict cutoff lines such as age and IQ seem to be a requirement of the legal system, even though we might want to consider each person as an individual with a unique set of circumstances. If the law said that under 70 is mentally retarded and above is not, this case could be determined by a couple of hours with a psychologist, but when the criteria start to be less strict, an IQ of 68 can be argued either way, making decisions much more complicated. This is why there is always some struggle between the sciences and law; the former allows for and makes use of continuums while the latter essentially requires clear-cut lines to operate.

What does insanity look like?

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Stephen Stanko was a reformed man. After spending 8.5 years in prison for kidnapping, it seemed that he had truly changed. Here was an example of reformation of a human being. He had learned from his wrongs in the past; he had time to think about what he had done. While in prison, he helped write a book with two professors about life in the prison systems, and wrote two more of his own. He was even starting up a program to help youth offenders get back on the right track. Surely, Stanko is actually going to have a normal life again for himself.

Not quite.

A few months after being released from prison, Stanko started up a relationship with Laura Ling, who had a daughter from a previous. The two seemed perfectly happy, and all was great just north of Charleston, SC. Then, approximately one year later, Stanko choked Ling to death, and raped and beat her daughter in what he claimed was the result of a late night altercation between he and Ling. He then went on to empty her bank account and take her car, which he drove to the house of an acquaintance, 74 year old Henry Turner. He there told Turner that his father had just died, and Turner took him in. Later that morning, Stanko shot Turner twice with a shotgun, killing him, and took off in Turner’s truck. Stanko then drove down to Augusta, GA, where he began to court a young woman named Dana Putnam. A few days later, one of Putnam’s friends alerted her that she had seen Stanko’s picture in the newspaper related to the killings, and after she notified the authorities, Stanko was apprehended.

At trial, there was no question that Stanko had committed the crimes. The defense’s only argument was that Stanko was innocent by reason of insanity. He didn’t have any control over his actions. He was a psychopath. This was supported by Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans taken from Stanko’s brain. PET scans show brain activity levels temporally, so brain activity from criminals can be compared to everyday “healthy” brain activity. The defense claimed that Stanko showed decreased activity in the medial orbital frontal cortex- the area of the brain just behind the eyes- and can lead to problems with aggression, empathy, and impulsivity, among others. It was suggested that this damage could have come from complications at birth that Stanko suffered.

While there may have been a fair amount of medical evidence claiming that Stanko was not of a mental capacity to truly control his actions, the prosecution quickly dismissed the scans as “junk science.” Along with the testimony of Ling’s daughter and the autopsy of Ling, the jury found the state’s case more credible, and wasn’t going to be “dazzled by brilliance and baffled with b.s.” Stanko was found guilty of both murders, and in both cases was sentenced to death.

Sadly, this is another case where the average person, along with the law, just does not understand what neuroscience can actually do for us. Even if Stanko’s brain damage may have not been sufficient to justify his actions, the jury simply dismissed it just because it seemed like fancy science, and that there was no way a few images could show evidence for altered behavior in a person. The simple matter of the fact is that brain scans can give significant information about the mental capacities of a person, especially one whose damage is extensive. Until the public- those who sit on the juries and make the decisions in these legal cases- are more educated about the significance of neuroscience in the legal system, there is no hope for it to get on a significant footing. These are the people who are ultimately making the decisions. Inform them, and then hopefully neuroscience will begin to be more readily accepted in the courtrooms.

Sentencing of the Mentally Ill

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“I saw visions of hell, and visions of demons rising… I heard voices in my head. It kept getting louder and louder.”

On April 11, 2008, a 32 years old woman by the name of Angela Modispaw plead guilty to the murder of her 59 years old mother and was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison. She stated in court that she was urged by demonic hallucinations and voices to commit the murder. Angela Modispaw does not remember the gruesome event, but neither does she deny her responsibility in her mother’s death.

Her claim of hallucinations seems alleged as she possesses an extensive history of mental illnesses including depression and anxiety since she was 20, childhood head trauma as well as sporadic hallucinations about demons. A month prior to the murder, Modispaw was diagnosed with schizophrenia when she checked herself into the mental health unit of a nearby hospital. The hospital discharged her with medication that Modispaw did not take due to a previous history of medication overdose. Just a few hours prior to the stabbing, she was in a catatonic state in which she could not control her motor skills and was admitted into the town hospital. On top of her 12 years history of mental illness, she also stated in court that she has brain tumor. As a result of a evidential mental illness history, Angela Modispaw thus pleaded guilty and mentally ill.

Although given the extensive background, it seems almost indisputable that Angela Modispaw is guilty in the sense that she had committed the murder and that she has mental disorders, but her sentence slightly took me aback. Since she was legally found by the court to be mentally ill, why was her sentence still to go to prison?

The neuroscience aspect of the Angela Modispaw’s case seems well established; however, the law seems to lack the appropriate response to her established case. The prison could serve as a way to isolate criminals from civilians as a protective measure and as a punishment for the criminal. However, should Angela Modispaw be punished if she was not able to consciously control her actions? Especially since Angela Modispaw could not even recollect the incident, I feel like she most likely did not commit the murder out of “free will”. I believe an more appropriate sentence would have been for her to enter a mental institution instead of prison, which would still serve as a protective measure as well as a rehabilitative one. There are many cases where the person who pleads mentally ill ends up entering a mental institution, therefore the law system isn’t completely lacking in providing appropriate sentences. Nonetheless, I think the law currently does lack in a unified verdict appropriate for each measure of the mentally ill.

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“Fayette woman pleads guilty to killing mom, says ‘voices’ told her to do it”

“Smock woman says visions of ‘demons rising’ made her kill”