Jodi Arias Trial: The Importance of Forensic Psychology Guidelines

By MICHAEL J. PERROTTI, PHD
World of Psychology Blogs

I have served as a clinical and forensic neuropsychologist expert witness for over twenty years. It is of utmost importance that an even playing field be created in adversarial proceedings.

What is conducive to this is use of forensic guidelines as standards by all experts involved in a case.

The Jodi Arias trial depicts apparent omissions of important standards that could influence outcome of assessment. There was a lack of collateral interviews, which the Reference Manual for Scientific Evidence (RMSE) addresses.

In addition, there were other omissions that I believe are important to the outcome of the Jodi Arias trial.

The entire blog post can be found here.

Jodi Arias Trial: Teachable Moments in Forensic Psychology can be found on the Video Resources page of this blog

APA's Forensic Guidelines can be found on the Guides and Guidelines page of this site

Suspect in Colorado Killings Enters Insanity Plea

By Jack Healy
The New York Times
Originally posted on June 4, 2013

James E. Holmes, the former neuroscience student charged with killing 12 people inside a Colorado movie theater last July, changed his plea on Tuesday to not guilty by reason of insanity.

It was an expected shift in Mr. Holmes’s defense, formalized during a court hearing in this Denver suburb. As the judge read a lengthy document describing the legal consequences and psychiatric examinations that would follow the plea, Mr. Holmes, shackled and dressed in a red jail uniform, appeared to follow along on a copy, gazing down as one of his lawyers flipped the pages.

The entire story is here.

Mental Evaluations Endorse Insanity Plea in Colorado Shootings, Defense Says

By Jack Healy
The New York Times
Published May 13, 2013

Mental health experts who evaluated the man accused of killing 12 people in a Colorado movie theater last year have offered a diagnosis that bolsters an insanity plea in the case, his lawyers said at a hearing here on Monday.

“We now have a diagnosis that’s complete,” Daniel King, a defense lawyer for the suspect, James E. Holmes, said in court. “We now have an opinion by qualified professionals.”

Mr. Holmes, 25, a former graduate student in neuroscience, faces 166 counts of murder, attempted murder and weapons charges in the July 20 shooting during a midnight premiere of the Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises” at an Aurora movie theater. Officials say he slipped out of an emergency exit shortly after the movie began, sheathed himself in commando-style gear and then returned through the same door to spray the sold-out crowd with gunfire.

Mr. Holmes’s lawyers made a long-expected move on Monday to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity. At an arraignment in March, a judge entered a straightforward not guilty plea on Mr. Holmes’s behalf after his lawyers said they were not ready to enter a plea.

The entire story is here.

Jodi Arias Trial - Teachable Moments

Dr. Samuels's Testimony on his evaluation of Jodi Arias. Witness for the Defense


Dr. DeMarte's Testimony on her evaluation of Jodi Arias.  Witness for the Prosecution.



The YouTube video can be found here.

There are quite a few teachable moments in both of these videos.

Thanks to Gary Schoener for these links.

Mental Illness Is No Guarantee Insanity Defense Will Succeed

By RUSS BUETTNER
The New York Times
Published: April 3, 2013

Here are some excerpts:

Throughout his adult life, Mr. Tarloff, 45, has been prescribed antipsychotic medication to alleviate delusions and hallucinations. He has received a diagnosis of schizophrenia and been hospitalized against his will numerous times. And three months after one such commitment, Mr. Tarloff entered an Upper East Side medical office on Feb. 12, 2008, and killed Kathryn Faughey, a psychologist, with a mallet and a knife.

Yet a lifetime of being crazy hardly makes an insanity defense a sure thing. Mr. Tarloff’s lawyers must convince jurors, who will begin deliberations Wednesday, that he was so sick that day that he did not understand the consequences of his actions: that pounding and stabbing Dr. Faughey could kill her, or that the attack was wrong.

The standard is so difficult to meet that few defendants using the insanity defense in New York win at trial. Of 5,910 murder cases completed in the last decade statewide, only seven defendants have been found at trial to be not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect, according to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.

The state does not track how often the defense is raised. But failed attempts at the insanity defense regularly receive public attention, including Andrew Goldstein, a schizophrenic who in 1999 pushed Kendra Webdale to her death in front of a subway train, and Renato Seabra, a Portuguese fashion model who in 2011 murdered and mutilated his lover in a Times Square hotel. Both were found criminally responsible for murder.

The entire story is here.

James Holmes' Attorneys: Colorado Insanity Pleas Are Unconstitutional

By Dan Elliott
The Associated Press
Originally published March 6, 2013

Prosecutors in the deadly Colorado movie theater shooting are disputing defense arguments that the state law on insanity pleas is unconstitutional.

In court documents made public Wednesday, prosecutors said the statute has been upheld in other cases, and that judges have ways to protect defendants' rights.

Lawyers for suspect James Holmes filed motions last week asking the judge in the case to declare the law unconstitutional because it would require Holmes' attorneys to give prosecutors potentially incriminating information, such as mental health records, if he pleads not guilty by reason of insanity.

The defense said that violates Holmes' rights, including Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination. They said defendants who simply plead not guilty are not required to turn over such information.

The entire story is here.

Suspect in Killings Is Deemed Not Fit

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 7, 2013

A judge ruled on Monday that a man accused of killing seven people at a small Christian college in Oakland is not mentally fit for trial.

Judge Carrie Panetta of Alameda County Superior Court temporarily suspended the case against One L. Goh after two psychiatric evaluations concluded that he had paranoid schizophrenia.

David Klaus, an Alameda County assistant public defender, said after Monday’s hearing that Mr. Goh’s condition causes him to have hallucinations and delusions and to distrust people, including those trying to help him. Mr. Goh’s lawyers have trouble talking to him, Mr. Klaus said.

The rest of the story is here.

The Role of Health Professionals in Detainee Interrogation

A teenager tortured at Guantanamo, and the stalled legislation to ensure clinicians "first, do no harm"

By Santiago Wills
The Atlantic
Originally published November 11, 2012

Here is one excerpt:

In the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ever since leaked reports and testimonies -- including that of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, currently on trial in Guantanamo -- were published in 2004, the issue has attracted the attention of the media, health organizations, and political activists. Psychologists and doctors have clashed with their peers and with the Department of Defense over the role that health professionals should play in interrogations, given their oath to "do no harm." The Senate Judiciary Committee and numerous military investigations have confirmed that physicians and clinicians played a significant role during so-called enhanced interrogations, either through reverse engineering of the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) program, or through monitoring and assisting in CIA black sites and prisons like Bagram and Guantanamo.

Recently, that conflict reached politicians in Albany, New York. This year, State Senator Thomas Duane and Assembly Member Richard Gottfried sponsored a unique piece of legislation that establishes sanctions (including license removal) for state-licensed health professionals who participate in torture or improper treatment of prisoners.

"The bill presents an opportunity to fill a gap in state law on the regulation of health professionals that desperately needs to be filled," Leonard Rubenstein, the former president of Physicians for Human Rights -- an independent organization that fights human rights violations all around the world -- said in a public forum. "Almost everyone agrees that the idea that health professionals can participate in abuse of detainees and prisoners is indefensible. If that is the case, it is also indefensible to exclude such acts from state law on licensing and regulation of health professionals."

The entire story is here.

Files Offer Glimpse Into Shooting Suspect

By JACK HEALY
The New York Times
Originally published September 28, 2012

Here is an excerpt:


The defendant, James E. Holmes, had been a graduate student in the neuroscience program at the University of Colorado, Denver, but he had struggled and was in the process of dropping out of the program by mid-June, about six weeks before the July 20 shootings.

The legal case against Mr. Holmes has proceeded with a high degree of secrecy, with the bulk of the case file hidden by court order from public view.

The judge in the case, William B. Sylvester, opened the file over the objections of prosecutors and defense lawyers, but he agreed to leave documents like affidavits and warrants under wraps. He allowed heavy redactions of motions and documents, meaning that entire pages of the case file are blacked out, obscuring their content and meaning.

After the killings, family members of victims and people who knew Mr. Holmes, 24, asked what warning signs he might have offered as he became more isolated and, according to the police, began to amass an arsenal of guns, bullets and explosives.

The entire article is here.

“Hired guns,” “charlatans,” and their “voodoo psychobabble”: Case law references to various forms of perceived bias among mental health expert witnesses.

By Edens, John F.; Smith, Shannon Toney; Magyar, Melissa S.; Mullen, Kacy; Pitta, Amy; and Petrila, John

Psychological Services, Vol 9(3), Aug 2012, 259-271.

Abstract

Although in principle the legal system expects and professional ethics demand that expert witnesses be unbiased and objective in their forensic evaluations, anecdotal evidence suggests that accusations of financial bias, partisanship, and other forms of nonobjectivity are common. This descriptive survey of published legal cases expands on an earlier case law review (Mossman, 1999) attempting to encapsulate and summarize key issues concerning perceptions or allegations of bias in mental health expert witness testimony. Using a series of search terms reflecting various potential forms of accusatory bias, a total of 160 published civil and criminal court cases were identified in which 185 individuals (e.g., attorneys, trial and appellate judges, other witnesses) made one or more references to clinicians' alleged lack of neutrality. Allegations most typically involved describing the expert as having an opinion that was “for sale,” or as a partisan or advocate for one side, although aspersions also were made concerning “junk science” testimony and comparing mental health experts to mystics and sorcerers. Our results indicate that diverse forms of bias that go beyond financial motives are alleged against mental health experts by various players in the legal system. Means are discussed by which experts can attempt to reduce the impact of such allegations.

Here are two excerpts:

It should not be surprising that wholesale acceptance of mental health expertise as accurate and neutral is hardly the norm.

Clearly, some judges, attorneys, academics, and jurors view at least some mental health experts-if not the entire field-with a considerable degree of suspicion (Fradella, Fogarty, & O'Neill, 2003), if not overt distain and/or hostility.

and

In terms of putative sources of examiner bias, several forms have been suggested as potentially undermining examiner objectivity (e.g., Saks, 1990).

Perhaps the most pernicious is that opinions are for sale. It is commonly alleged that monetary incentives primarily (or completely) motivate the testimony offered by witnesses characterized as "'hired guns,' 'whores,' and 'prostitutes'" (Mossman, 1999, p. 414).

Although being for sale is frequently lodged as a criticism of expert testimony, allegations of other forms of bias may spring from perceptions that the expert has a particular personal, political, or scientific "ax to grind" in relation to a specific legal issue.

Evidence of advocacy for one's pet cause(s)--whether it is championing a particular examinee's case, the rights of fathers in child custody disputes, or a novel or controversial psychological syndrome (to name but a few possibilities)--may be justifiable grounds for questioning an examiner's objectivity and fairness as well.

For reprint requests, comments, or questions: John F. Edens, Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, 4235 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843; Contact johnedens@tamu.edu

Thanks to Ken Pope for this information.

Psychologist testifies on behalf of Catholic Diocese of Green Bay in fraud case

by Jim Collar
Gannett Wisconsin Media
http://www.greenbaypressgazzette.com/
Originally published May 18, 2012

A psychologist hired by the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay said two brothers who were sexually assaulted by a priest in 1978 suffered only minor trauma as a result.

Attorneys for the church began calling their witnesses Thursday in the Outagamie County civil lawsuit alleging fraud against the diocese. Brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield say the diocese knew former priest John Feeney sexually assaulted others before 1978 and fraudulently misrepresented his safety when assigning him to Freedom’s St. Nicholas Church.

In their 2008 civil lawsuit, the Merryfields cite “profound psychological damage” as a result of the assaults.

The entire story is here.

Thanks to Ken Pope for this lead.

Psychologist ordered to turn over evaluation of Dunwoody murder suspect

By Andrew Cauthen
The Champion
Originally published 1/12/12

Hemy Neuman

The doctor who evaluated the mental state of Hemy Neuman, accused of the November 2010 killing of a Dunwoody man, has been ordered to turn over the records of the evaluation.

Superior Court Judge Gregory Adams on Jan. 11 ordered Dr. Peter Thomas to “transmit all records in his possession concerning his evaluation of [Neuman].”

The order states that “any records received by the Court…which do not contain privileged attorney-client communications will thereafter be turned over to the state and the defendant.”

Neuman has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to charges that he killed Russell Sneiderman, an entrepreneur who had just dropped his child at a daycare.

The rest of the story, and some interesting comments, are here.

More details of the crime and the defense are found here.

One Ethical Decision-Making Model

Ethical Decision Making Model

This article can be found in the public domain here.