Tagged: Elizabeth Smart

sane enough to be convicted/too insane to stand trial

Brian David Mitchell’s kidnapping trial dragged on for years because Utah found him incompetent to stand trial. The feds stepped in and succeeded where Utah failed. They found him competent to stand trial and won a conviction. 

That leaves us with a strange paradox: a man who, on one hand, is mentally incompetent to stand trial, and on the other hand, is sane enough to be branded a sex offender and locked up in prison. 

How can someone be mentally incompetent and “sane” at the same time?

Simple.

Competency = ability to communicate with attorney and understand the charges, both factually and rationally.

Insanity = not knowing or understanding the consequences of one’s actions at the time a crime was committed.

Oversimplified, but the basic gist.

And: 

Competency = the time of the trial.

Insanity = the time of the crime.

They are separate legal standards and mean different things. 

So why did the feds find Mitchell competent, while Utah did not? 

This article from the Deseret News explains how the feds learned from the state’s mistakes. Essentially, they had the power and privilege of hindsight. 

Or does it go back to the Catch-22 in which many Utahans felt trapped? 

religion on trial?

Earlier, I wondered about the cultural bases — and potential biases — underpinning conflicting psychiatric evaluations of Brian David Mitchell. The clashing diagnoses seemed to trap Mormons between a rock and a hard place. After all, a large part of whether Mitchell was “insane” rested on whether his religious beliefs were “bizarre”—beliefst based in the LDS faith. 

I am not the only one who asked these questions. Salt Lake City Weekly published an interesting piece about the Catch-22 Mormons faced with this Mitchell: 

Let’s say the jury of his peers finds him sane. Because we have had an eminent theologian from BYU testify that Immanuel/Mitchell’s religious writings are coherent and well-reasoned, it follows that his crime was a consequence of his beliefs, and therefore not a crime. His beliefs, after all, called for him to take a virgin as a plural wife, the first of seven times seven to enjoy what he called a “quargasm.” He is therefore not guilty by reason of sanity.

If, on the other hand, the jurors, persuaded by the psychiatrist’s testimony that Immanuel/Mitchell’s religious beliefs are bogus and bizarre, find him insane, it follows that Mormon beliefs are insane, since they are one and the same with Immanuel/Mitchell’s beliefs. Believe me, either way this turns out is not good for us down at headquarters.

What place do religious questions have in a criminal trials? In Mitchell’s case, there was probably no way to evaluate his mental health without confronting serious questions about his religious beliefs. However, if “reasonableness” is part of the test, whose religion could possibly earn a passing score? Religion is not about reason. It is about faith. 

After the jury found Mitchell guilty yesterday, several jurors spoke in front of the courthouse. One juror noted how Mitchell never spouted off about religion while kidnapping Elizabeth Smart. Instead, he used a knife to her back.

The trial transcript reveals how Mitchell manipulated others without bizarre outbursts or religious justifications:

Viti: And during the times that you observed him engage in such behavior, did you believe that he was being sincere at those times?

Smart: No.

Viti: At any of these times that he engaged with others besides you or Ms. Barzee, did he ever proclaim that he was the Davidic king?

Smart: No.

Viti: Did he ever proclaim he was the one mighty and strong?

Smart: No.

Viti: A prophet?

Smart: No.

Viti: Did he discuss polygamy with anyone?

Smart: No. Viti: Would he tell them to repent?

Smart: No.

Viti: Would you ever observe him with other people shutting his eyes, folding his hands and singing religious hymns?

Smart: Not that I can recall.

In other words, there was method to Mitchell’s madness. He used religion when it suited him.

That, more than his particular beliefs, holds the most evidentiary value—at least to me. It requires no value judgment, no faith, and no cultural bias to see it.  

implausible plausibility

The Brian David Mitchell case gets curiouser and curiouser.

Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Noel Gardner testified on Tuesday that Mitchell is not mentally ill, since his ideas “are similar to those held by many fundamentalist Mormons, and in some cases mirror mainstream LDS beliefs, thereby making them non-bizarre.”

Earlier testimony from forensic psychiatrist Dr. Paul Whitehead characterized Mitchell’s beliefs as non-bizarre or “plausible but highly unlikely.” 

However, a psychologist in Missouri diagnosed Mitchell with paranoid schizophrenia, labeling his ideas “bizarre” and “not plausible at all.”

Under cross-examination, Gardner blamed some of the difference on culture. To non-Mormons outside Utah, certain beliefs might seem bizarre. However, locals might find them more “familiar,” he said, according to the Desert News article. Hence, the different diagnoses.

I wonder what local Mormons think of this characterization. Really? Locals do not see anything bizarre in Mitchell’s beliefs? I doubt that.

From my point of view (non-Mormon, living in Utah), the “cultural relativism” explanation makes little sense. While I confess that many Mormon beliefs confuse and confound me, I have not encountered anyone like Mitchell. Then again, Gardner was talking about belief—not behavior. 

If different diagnoses sometimes come down to cultural relativism, I wonder what that says about forensic psychiatry or psychiatric diagnosis in general. How much does a forensic psychiatrist’s cultural or religious background play into determining the “plausibility” of a defendant’s beliefs? How many defendants receive tougher or weaker sentences than they deserve because of cultural relativism in diagnoses? 

Of course, none of this means I believe Mitchell or feel qualified to make determinations about his mental health. The trial has just raised important questions.