Slate's Bizbox
medical examiner: Health and medicine explained.

Crazed and ConfusedA murder defendant is forced to choose between the death penalty and permanent madness.

By Sally Satel
Posted Thursday, Aug. 30, 2001, at 3:00 AM ET
Russell Weston Jr.

Russell Weston Jr. gunned his way into the U.S. Capitol in the summer of 1998, allegedly killing two guards. Later he told psychiatrists that his intended destination was the "Ruby Satellite System," a time-reversal machine housed on the Capitol's first floor, which he hoped activate in order to save the world from cannibals and the coming "black heva" plague. Today, the 44-year-old Weston is confined to a cell in a North Carolina federal prison, sunk in madness, awaiting trial.

Weston has refused, however, to voluntarily take the psychotropic medications that could lift his delusions and render him legally competent to stand trial—that is, put him in a frame of mind to understand the charges against him and cooperate with his lawyers. So prosecutors obtained a court order to force him to take those drugs against his will, an order that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld last month.

Citing their client's limited constitutional right to refuse medication, Weston's lawyers have threatened to appeal again to the Supreme Court. It could be that Weston's lawyers believe that forced medication under any circumstances is wrong, but it's equally likely that their appeal is strategic. If Weston can't be judged competent to stand trial, there is no chance that their client will face the death penalty, a real possibility in this case. But by putting their client's legal best interest ahead of his optimal medical interest, the lawyers are effectively sacrificing Weston's sanity to save his life.

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt with a defendant's right refuse medication in 1992 in Riggins v. Nevada. David Riggins, charged with murder, complained of hearing voices, so his jailers gave him high-dose Mellaril (thioridazine, an anti-psychotic similar to Thorazine). After being found competent to stand trial, Riggins wanted off the drug, arguing that he had a right to demonstrate to jurors his "true mental state" at the time of the crime. He also claimed that the drug's sedating and dulling effect would impair his functioning on the stand. Riggins prevailed, though the court indicated that the right to refuse medication could be overridden under certain circumstances.

But what separates Weston's case from Riggins' was that Riggins was neither incoherent nor delusional and could weigh the consequences of not taking medication. Weston does not acknowledge he is ill. He cannot even assess the trade-off inherent in deciding to reject treatment.

Because today's anti-psychotic drugs have fewer bad side effects, dosed defendants need to worry much less about their courtroom demeanors. But the point about a defendant wanting jurors to see him as he was at the time of the alleged crime has merit. What juror wouldn't be more sympathetic to Weston if they heard him expound on his theory of "time washing"? About how the ripening of corn causes time to flow backward? And about how he needed to come to the Capitol that July day in 1998 to save the world from cannibals and black heva?

Would Weston respond to medication? Two years before the shootings, he was hospitalized in Montana and treated with anti-psychotics, at first against his will. After a while, the nurses noted he was "pleasant and cooperative ... takes meds willingly ... voices no threats toward anyone." There is a good chance medications could work once again to soothe his agitation and dispel his fears. But because Weston has been so ill for so long, his case might defy our best pharmacology, and a judge may decide that he could never be restored to competency. At that point, Weston's criminal case could become a civil matter resulting in Weston's commitment to a psychiatric facility for an indefinite period.

If the medications worked well, Weston could stand trial. Diagnosed as a schizophrenic, he'd be a good candidate for an insanity defense that could send him to an institution for decades. But insanity defenses have become increasingly difficult to mount since John Hinckley's successful plea in the Ronald Reagan shooting. Many states changed their insanity defense laws to shift the burden of proof: In the old regime, the prosecution had to prove the defendant was sane beyond a reasonable doubt. Now in many states and in the District of Columbia, the defense must establish the defendant's insanity with a standard of clear and convincing evidence. Another change was narrowing the definition of insanity to refer only to whether the defendant knew the difference between right and wrong; prior to Hinckley, many state laws said that a person was legally insane if he couldn't conform his behavior to do what was right even when he did in fact know that what he was doing (e.g., shooting Reagan) was wrong. An insanity plea is used in less than 1 percent of all felony cases and succeeds in only about one quarter of contested cases. In high-profile cases, such as Weston's, the success rate is even lower.

Weston faces a classic Catch-22: If he takes the drugs and gets better, he could be tried and executed. If he wins his legal appeal and avoids medication, he escapes a deadly prosecution but is sentenced to years of psychic torment—perhaps a lifetime of torment. The humane thing to do is to force Weston to take medication—and to convince Attorney General John Ashcroft to instruct his prosecutors not to seek the death penalty. Perhaps then Weston's lawyers would drop their appeal and their client could get the drugs he so obviously needs, even if that means a life sentence in prison.

Given the enormity of his act, Weston doesn't deserve freedom. But he does deserve his sanity.

Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Sally Satel, a psychiatrist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is editor of the forthcoming book When Altruism Isn't Enough: The Case for Compensating Kidney Donors.
Photograph of Russell Weston Jr. by Ho/Reuters.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Reader Comments From The Fray:


[Notes from the Fray Editor: Chicago Lawyer's post here makes the distinction between mental competence to stand trial and the mental state of the defendant at the time of the offense. And there was a good clear look at the issues from Locdog here.]


Do prosecutors who encounter the likes of Russell Weston Jr. truly believe their quarry to have been responsible for their acts?

I'll respect the argument that, sane or insane, the Westons of the world are too dangerous to roam about their own recognizance. Though I don't agree with it, I'll accept the argument that to execute a violent killer, sane or insane, is a surefire way to ensure that he or she does not kill again.

What I find hard to accept is all of the game playing that goes into our criminal justice system. The prosecution knows Weston was nuts when he went on his rampage. But if they manage to induce "temporary sanity" for the trial, they'll go ahead and paint Weston as a sober, premeditated murderer. Must our system operate that way?

--Patient Observer

(To reply, click here.)


 I propose a utilitarian (and behaviorist) view of the punishment meted out by the court. If someone in a similar situation stands to be discouraged from an act because of the punishments that have gone before, then it's a good punishment: i.e.if someone is about to rob a liquor store, they are less likely to go through with it if they are aware that people (including themselves) have gone to jail for robbing liquor stores. They may still do it, but the previous punishments weighed in.

Therefore, if someone is "depressed", they are still in a position to be punished, as they have the capacity to take into account the idea of punishment. On the other hand, if they are as broken from reality as Weston, then punishment has no point. Other people in Weston's state of mind and circumstances aren't weighing consequences...they have their own world which doesn't seem to intersect in any meaningful way with our court system.

--Mangar

(To reply, click here.)

(8/31)

Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
Assessing Sarah Palin
| Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist, John Podesta and others weigh in.
Colbert King: She's No HillaryEditorial: Is She Ready for This?
PLUS » PostPartisan: Quick Takes from Opinions