1 00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:09,440 Speaker 1: What is the insanity defense? Are some people's brains so 2 00:00:09,640 --> 00:00:13,399 Speaker 1: different from yours that it makes sense to categorize them 3 00:00:14,040 --> 00:00:18,680 Speaker 1: differently under the legal system? How could a mother kill 4 00:00:18,720 --> 00:00:22,840 Speaker 1: her children? Can you commit a crime without meaning to? 5 00:00:23,520 --> 00:00:27,159 Speaker 1: How does a legal system decide how to rule on 6 00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:33,120 Speaker 1: these issues? And how are science and law strange? Bedfellows? 7 00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:39,199 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Inner Cosmos with me, David Eagleman. I'm 8 00:00:39,240 --> 00:00:43,360 Speaker 1: a neuroscientist and author at Stanford and in these episodes 9 00:00:43,440 --> 00:00:47,640 Speaker 1: we sail deeply into our three pound universe to understand 10 00:00:48,040 --> 00:01:00,320 Speaker 1: why and how our lives look the way we do. Now, 11 00:01:00,560 --> 00:01:04,600 Speaker 1: we all hear the word insane, somebody is acting insane, 12 00:01:04,680 --> 00:01:06,760 Speaker 1: something like that. But the first thing to note is 13 00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:10,760 Speaker 1: that insanity is not a medical term. It's not used 14 00:01:10,760 --> 00:01:15,160 Speaker 1: in psychiatry or neuroscience. It's instead a term used by 15 00:01:15,280 --> 00:01:18,560 Speaker 1: the legal system. And I'm going to do a two 16 00:01:18,720 --> 00:01:24,080 Speaker 1: part episode about the insanity defense, where it comes from, 17 00:01:24,600 --> 00:01:27,920 Speaker 1: and why it is so difficult as a society to 18 00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:32,000 Speaker 1: decide where we want to draw our lines in the sand. 19 00:01:32,600 --> 00:01:35,160 Speaker 1: What I mean is, sometimes a person commits a crime 20 00:01:35,800 --> 00:01:39,280 Speaker 1: and we say they're clearly different from us, but we're 21 00:01:39,280 --> 00:01:41,880 Speaker 1: not sure quite how and we're not sure if that 22 00:01:42,080 --> 00:01:46,240 Speaker 1: should release them from culpability. As we're going to see, 23 00:01:46,440 --> 00:01:50,280 Speaker 1: there is no hard and fast line where we as 24 00:01:50,280 --> 00:01:52,480 Speaker 1: a society can say, oh, that person is on this 25 00:01:52,560 --> 00:01:55,520 Speaker 1: side of the line and this person isn't. Now, this 26 00:01:55,640 --> 00:01:58,520 Speaker 1: is a theme I've expressed in various ways in all 27 00:01:58,560 --> 00:02:02,120 Speaker 1: of these episodes, which is, but brains are very different 28 00:02:02,160 --> 00:02:05,760 Speaker 1: from one another, and most everything that we are interested 29 00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:09,320 Speaker 1: in lives on a spectrum, and more than a spectrum, 30 00:02:09,520 --> 00:02:14,160 Speaker 1: on a very complicated landscape. People are very different on 31 00:02:14,200 --> 00:02:17,280 Speaker 1: the inside, and the question is how do we build 32 00:02:17,440 --> 00:02:22,400 Speaker 1: rules as a society to make things run well. So 33 00:02:22,480 --> 00:02:25,320 Speaker 1: let's get started. What I want to tell you about 34 00:02:25,400 --> 00:02:28,639 Speaker 1: is a young woman named Andrea So. By the time 35 00:02:28,840 --> 00:02:32,760 Speaker 1: Andrea was a teenager, she held the world by the tail. 36 00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:35,520 Speaker 1: She was the valedictorian of her high school. She was 37 00:02:35,560 --> 00:02:38,160 Speaker 1: the captain of her swim team. She was a member 38 00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:41,800 Speaker 1: of the National Honor Society. By twenty two years old, 39 00:02:41,880 --> 00:02:44,680 Speaker 1: she became a registered nurse and she worked at M. D. 40 00:02:44,800 --> 00:02:49,000 Speaker 1: Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. And her life got 41 00:02:49,120 --> 00:02:51,520 Speaker 1: even better when she met the man of her dreams, 42 00:02:51,560 --> 00:02:54,960 Speaker 1: a guy named Rusty, at their apartment complex and Four 43 00:02:55,040 --> 00:02:58,400 Speaker 1: years later, they got married, and they announced to friends 44 00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:02,280 Speaker 1: and family that they were going to have as many babies. 45 00:03:01,919 --> 00:03:03,080 Speaker 2: As nature allowed. 46 00:03:03,720 --> 00:03:06,560 Speaker 1: So their first child was born ten months later, and 47 00:03:06,639 --> 00:03:10,000 Speaker 1: over the next six years they had four more handsome 48 00:03:10,040 --> 00:03:14,560 Speaker 1: and healthy children. One June morning in two thousand and one, 49 00:03:15,160 --> 00:03:18,480 Speaker 1: Rusty left the house for his work at NASA, and 50 00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:22,559 Speaker 1: as soon as he left, Andrea turned on the bathtub, 51 00:03:23,200 --> 00:03:26,600 Speaker 1: and one by one she held her beloved children down 52 00:03:26,800 --> 00:03:31,240 Speaker 1: under the water until they drowned. Her oldest child, who 53 00:03:31,280 --> 00:03:34,200 Speaker 1: was seven years old, saw his six month old sister 54 00:03:34,320 --> 00:03:36,880 Speaker 1: face down in the bathtub, and he tried to flee, 55 00:03:37,320 --> 00:03:40,800 Speaker 1: but Andrea chased him and caught him and drowned him 56 00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:44,800 Speaker 1: next to his sister's floating body. She laid the bodies 57 00:03:44,920 --> 00:03:47,960 Speaker 1: of the youngest four on the bed, and she left 58 00:03:47,960 --> 00:03:51,520 Speaker 1: the eldest in the bathtub. And Andrea later told a 59 00:03:51,560 --> 00:03:54,880 Speaker 1: homicide sergeant that she had considered killing her. 60 00:03:54,840 --> 00:03:58,720 Speaker 2: Children for two years now. 61 00:03:59,040 --> 00:04:04,280 Speaker 1: People often grabbedavitate towards stories of crime, saft's, assaults, murders, 62 00:04:04,280 --> 00:04:07,920 Speaker 1: and so on. Because these acts are so distant from 63 00:04:08,240 --> 00:04:12,400 Speaker 1: what they could contemplate themselves. We are tantalized that someone 64 00:04:12,440 --> 00:04:16,040 Speaker 1: could behave in a particular way, and we are always 65 00:04:16,080 --> 00:04:22,479 Speaker 1: confronted with a question how should society respond? So our 66 00:04:22,480 --> 00:04:26,640 Speaker 1: intuition seems to provide ready answers to these questions. But 67 00:04:27,040 --> 00:04:29,760 Speaker 1: new light on a lot of these questions comes from 68 00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:33,440 Speaker 1: a field that at first blush seems far away from 69 00:04:33,440 --> 00:04:37,960 Speaker 1: the prison system, and that is neuroscience. The past century 70 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:41,200 Speaker 1: has made it really clear that a person's behavior and 71 00:04:41,279 --> 00:04:46,200 Speaker 1: a person's brain are inextricably linked. When someone goes on 72 00:04:46,279 --> 00:04:49,839 Speaker 1: a new medication, their behavior can change. When they get 73 00:04:49,880 --> 00:04:54,400 Speaker 1: a degenerative brain disorder, their behavior can change when they 74 00:04:54,400 --> 00:04:58,320 Speaker 1: develop a brain tumor, or they get a traumatic brain injury. 75 00:04:58,760 --> 00:05:04,040 Speaker 1: Their behavior can change in the presence of drugs or alcohol, 76 00:05:04,360 --> 00:05:10,240 Speaker 1: or stress, or strokes or schizophrenia. There are alterations in 77 00:05:10,640 --> 00:05:15,000 Speaker 1: decision making and the appetite for risk, and this is 78 00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:20,120 Speaker 1: why questions about crime inevitably lead to the doorstep of 79 00:05:20,240 --> 00:05:25,160 Speaker 1: brain science. Now, when we're children, we try to understand 80 00:05:25,200 --> 00:05:29,400 Speaker 1: how a criminal must feel. From our own point of view, 81 00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:33,359 Speaker 1: we often conclude that a criminal must feel bad for 82 00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:36,599 Speaker 1: what he or she has done. But as we mature, 83 00:05:36,680 --> 00:05:40,000 Speaker 1: it becomes clearer that people can be really different on 84 00:05:40,040 --> 00:05:44,320 Speaker 1: the inside. Although we all look similar, we each live 85 00:05:44,400 --> 00:05:49,360 Speaker 1: in a somewhat different cosmos inside our skulls, and this 86 00:05:49,440 --> 00:05:54,279 Speaker 1: understanding has led legal systems to try to contend with 87 00:05:54,480 --> 00:05:58,560 Speaker 1: this variety. Now, the simple approach is to assume that 88 00:05:58,640 --> 00:06:01,560 Speaker 1: each perpetrator sees the world the same way. The reason 89 00:06:01,600 --> 00:06:04,479 Speaker 1: this is a simple and straightforward approach is because it 90 00:06:04,520 --> 00:06:07,960 Speaker 1: allows everyone to get equal punishment for the same crime. 91 00:06:08,880 --> 00:06:12,400 Speaker 1: But it has become clear to societies over a long 92 00:06:12,480 --> 00:06:17,160 Speaker 1: time that this viewpoint falls short. Now in many episodes 93 00:06:17,160 --> 00:06:20,280 Speaker 1: in this podcast, we've seen that different people can have 94 00:06:20,800 --> 00:06:24,200 Speaker 1: very different realities on the inside. And in today's episode 95 00:06:24,240 --> 00:06:27,680 Speaker 1: and next week's will come to understand what this teaches 96 00:06:27,800 --> 00:06:32,080 Speaker 1: us about crime, and what crime teaches us about the brain. 97 00:06:33,279 --> 00:06:36,840 Speaker 1: Dozens of new questions and new issues spring from the 98 00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:40,040 Speaker 1: intersection of neuroscience and the law, and this is what 99 00:06:40,080 --> 00:06:42,960 Speaker 1: these next couple episodes are about. And I want to 100 00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:46,200 Speaker 1: make one critical note first, which is that a deeper 101 00:06:46,400 --> 00:06:50,280 Speaker 1: understanding of the brain and its related behavior doesn't let 102 00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:56,960 Speaker 1: anyone off the hook. Explanation is not exculpation. Our society 103 00:06:57,040 --> 00:07:00,400 Speaker 1: still needs to keep violent aggressors and bad acts durs 104 00:07:00,680 --> 00:07:04,960 Speaker 1: off the streets. Instead, a meaningful understanding of the brain 105 00:07:05,720 --> 00:07:09,600 Speaker 1: can provide a rational basis for sentencing, and it can 106 00:07:09,640 --> 00:07:16,360 Speaker 1: provide customized rehabilitation. When crimes arise from biological problems, there 107 00:07:16,400 --> 00:07:22,040 Speaker 1: are often meaningful rehabilitative strategies available. Sometimes we have better 108 00:07:22,160 --> 00:07:27,560 Speaker 1: options than assuming that incarceration is the single available solution. 109 00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:32,720 Speaker 1: So let's return to Andrea. Although she was a top 110 00:07:32,760 --> 00:07:38,200 Speaker 1: student and a popular athlete, her success is masked deeper problems. 111 00:07:38,240 --> 00:07:40,000 Speaker 2: She suffered from bolimia. 112 00:07:40,480 --> 00:07:44,480 Speaker 1: She was routinely caught in the cogwheels of depression, and 113 00:07:44,600 --> 00:07:47,400 Speaker 1: at least once in her teenage years, she admitted to 114 00:07:47,440 --> 00:07:51,680 Speaker 1: a friend that she was considering suicide. And what developed 115 00:07:51,680 --> 00:07:54,800 Speaker 1: over time is that after the birth of her fourth child, 116 00:07:55,400 --> 00:08:00,000 Speaker 1: Andrea fell under the grip of postpartum depression. Postpartum means 117 00:08:00,200 --> 00:08:05,120 Speaker 1: after birth. So one day, in tears, she called her husband, 118 00:08:05,200 --> 00:08:09,440 Speaker 1: Rusty at work. He came rushing home to find Andrea distraught. 119 00:08:09,520 --> 00:08:10,960 Speaker 2: She was shaking. 120 00:08:10,800 --> 00:08:14,480 Speaker 1: Uncontrollably, she was chewing on her fingers, and the next 121 00:08:14,520 --> 00:08:19,120 Speaker 1: day she attempted suicide by overdosing on pills. So Rusty 122 00:08:19,160 --> 00:08:23,400 Speaker 1: looked around desperately for psychiatric care. And Andrea was admitted 123 00:08:23,400 --> 00:08:27,840 Speaker 1: to Houston's Methodist Hospital psychiatric unit, but then she was 124 00:08:27,880 --> 00:08:32,000 Speaker 1: discharged six days later because of insurance restrictions, and so 125 00:08:32,040 --> 00:08:36,960 Speaker 1: things continued to get worse for Andrea. She was prescribed 126 00:08:37,000 --> 00:08:40,880 Speaker 1: an antidepressant, but the medicine only slightly improved her condition, 127 00:08:41,520 --> 00:08:45,319 Speaker 1: and her doctor gave her samples of an antipsychotic drug 128 00:08:45,360 --> 00:08:48,640 Speaker 1: and she flushed those pills down the toilet. So four 129 00:08:48,679 --> 00:08:53,360 Speaker 1: weeks after being discharged from the hospital, Andrea attempted suicide again. 130 00:08:53,640 --> 00:08:56,280 Speaker 1: This time she held a knife to her throat before 131 00:08:56,320 --> 00:09:00,880 Speaker 1: her husband intervened. So she returned to psychiatric care and 132 00:09:00,920 --> 00:09:05,280 Speaker 1: she was diagnosed with a major depressive disorder, and eventually 133 00:09:05,600 --> 00:09:11,040 Speaker 1: it was determined that Andrea suffered from postpartum psychosis. Postpartum 134 00:09:11,080 --> 00:09:15,480 Speaker 1: meaning after birth, and psychosis is a condition in which 135 00:09:16,080 --> 00:09:20,720 Speaker 1: thought and emotions are so affected that one loses contact 136 00:09:20,800 --> 00:09:25,680 Speaker 1: with reality. So as you can imagine, postpartum psychosis is 137 00:09:25,760 --> 00:09:29,160 Speaker 1: a mental health emergency in which a mother has a 138 00:09:29,280 --> 00:09:32,959 Speaker 1: distorted sense of reality after giving birth. She can have 139 00:09:33,400 --> 00:09:38,440 Speaker 1: delusions and hallucinations and paranoia, and in the worst cases, 140 00:09:38,559 --> 00:09:43,880 Speaker 1: mothers work to harm themselves or their babies. Now, thankfully, 141 00:09:43,960 --> 00:09:46,920 Speaker 1: this is rare. It's something like one in a thousand births, 142 00:09:47,160 --> 00:09:50,600 Speaker 1: but this is what Andrea suffered from. So she was 143 00:09:50,600 --> 00:09:55,200 Speaker 1: put on antipsychotic medications and her mental state improved, and 144 00:09:55,240 --> 00:09:58,840 Speaker 1: that allowed her to return to a normal life. And 145 00:09:58,880 --> 00:10:04,000 Speaker 1: she eventually gave to her fifth child and everything seemed okay. 146 00:10:04,040 --> 00:10:08,840 Speaker 1: But shortly after that birth, her father died and that 147 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:11,880 Speaker 1: was very hard on her, and it took her hard 148 00:10:11,920 --> 00:10:15,719 Speaker 1: won composure and it smashed it. She stopped taking her 149 00:10:15,720 --> 00:10:21,400 Speaker 1: antipsychotic medications. So one morning in June, Rusty left the 150 00:10:21,440 --> 00:10:25,720 Speaker 1: house for work, which left Andrea alone with the children. 151 00:10:26,120 --> 00:10:29,120 Speaker 1: Now this was directly against the advice of their psychiatrist, 152 00:10:29,200 --> 00:10:33,440 Speaker 1: who advised him to never leave Andrea alone, but Rusty 153 00:10:33,480 --> 00:10:35,960 Speaker 1: assumed he could do it just this once because his 154 00:10:36,080 --> 00:10:38,400 Speaker 1: mother was driving over to the house to take over 155 00:10:39,040 --> 00:10:41,880 Speaker 1: and she would be there in an hour. But it 156 00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:45,520 Speaker 1: was in that hour that Andrea filled the tub and 157 00:10:45,720 --> 00:10:49,520 Speaker 1: murdered all their children. After she laid the children on 158 00:10:49,559 --> 00:10:53,120 Speaker 1: the bed, she called the police, saying she needed an officer. 159 00:10:53,880 --> 00:10:57,160 Speaker 1: She then called Rusty and said to him, it's time. 160 00:10:58,640 --> 00:10:58,960 Speaker 2: Now. 161 00:10:59,679 --> 00:11:02,360 Speaker 1: What happens when a case like this goes to a 162 00:11:02,400 --> 00:11:06,000 Speaker 1: court of law. In the case of Andrea, both the 163 00:11:06,040 --> 00:11:09,800 Speaker 1: prosecution and the defense agreed that she was mentally ill. 164 00:11:10,120 --> 00:11:13,800 Speaker 1: Why was that straightforward for them to agree because thousands 165 00:11:13,840 --> 00:11:19,439 Speaker 1: of pages documented her successive psychiatric hospitalizations, So neither party 166 00:11:19,440 --> 00:11:22,840 Speaker 1: in the trial raised any question about that her postpartum 167 00:11:22,880 --> 00:11:26,640 Speaker 1: depression had blossomed into a full psychosis, and she had 168 00:11:26,679 --> 00:11:30,320 Speaker 1: been suffering under this for years, and the media attention 169 00:11:30,600 --> 00:11:34,880 Speaker 1: surrounding Andrea's story led the whole nation to consider difficult 170 00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:40,880 Speaker 1: questions about mental illness and criminal responsibility. Was Andrea culpable 171 00:11:41,280 --> 00:11:44,800 Speaker 1: in the normal sense that we think about culpability? What 172 00:11:45,040 --> 00:11:48,040 Speaker 1: is the right thing to do with a person like Andrea? 173 00:11:48,840 --> 00:11:51,760 Speaker 1: On the one hand, her psychology just wasn't like other peoples. 174 00:11:51,840 --> 00:11:53,120 Speaker 2: She was delusional. 175 00:11:53,760 --> 00:11:56,160 Speaker 1: On the other hand, a lot of women faced difficult 176 00:11:56,200 --> 00:11:59,040 Speaker 1: emotions and thoughts after the birth of their children, but 177 00:11:59,080 --> 00:12:02,840 Speaker 1: most of them would come close to imagining an active murder. 178 00:12:03,840 --> 00:12:06,640 Speaker 1: What happened in the trial is that digging into Andrea's 179 00:12:06,720 --> 00:12:10,400 Speaker 1: history revealed even more. She confessed that she had not 180 00:12:10,640 --> 00:12:13,840 Speaker 1: been a good mother to her children, and she worried 181 00:12:14,240 --> 00:12:17,280 Speaker 1: that they weren't developing correctly. Now, she didn't mean this 182 00:12:17,320 --> 00:12:19,600 Speaker 1: in a general way. She meant this in a very 183 00:12:19,600 --> 00:12:24,600 Speaker 1: specific way. In her view, she had been marked by Satan, 184 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:27,480 Speaker 1: and the only way to save her children from the 185 00:12:27,640 --> 00:12:32,240 Speaker 1: fires of hell was to kill them. If she didn't 186 00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:35,640 Speaker 1: drown them in the tub, she believed they would be 187 00:12:35,800 --> 00:12:42,160 Speaker 1: doomed to eternal punishment. For Andrea, murdering her children was 188 00:12:42,200 --> 00:12:48,040 Speaker 1: the only path to their salvation. So Andrea's lawyers pled 189 00:12:48,679 --> 00:13:09,200 Speaker 1: not guilty by reason of insanity. Now, the idea of 190 00:13:09,240 --> 00:13:13,240 Speaker 1: that plea is that because of her mental illness, she 191 00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:18,320 Speaker 1: is absolved of culpability. That means she's not blameworthy. In 192 00:13:18,360 --> 00:13:22,280 Speaker 1: other words, the plea of not guilty by reason of 193 00:13:22,280 --> 00:13:27,280 Speaker 1: insanity translates to, yes, I committed the crime, but I 194 00:13:27,360 --> 00:13:31,960 Speaker 1: have the mitigating circumstance that I was legally insane. 195 00:13:32,040 --> 00:13:32,640 Speaker 2: This type of. 196 00:13:32,640 --> 00:13:35,679 Speaker 1: Argument is known in the law as an excuse. It's 197 00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:40,240 Speaker 1: a type of defense that reduces the defendant's culpability or blameworthiness. 198 00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:44,960 Speaker 1: So let's dig into this notion of culpability. How do 199 00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:48,800 Speaker 1: we assess culpability? Why do we ever consider anybody culpable? 200 00:13:49,640 --> 00:13:53,520 Speaker 1: To understand this, we need the concept of mensreea, which 201 00:13:53,559 --> 00:13:58,480 Speaker 1: is Latin for guilty mind. So the standard test for 202 00:13:58,640 --> 00:14:02,960 Speaker 1: criminal liability is often summarized in the phrase the act 203 00:14:03,120 --> 00:14:06,640 Speaker 1: does not make the person guilty unless the mind is 204 00:14:06,800 --> 00:14:11,199 Speaker 1: also guilty. In other words, let's say my arm knocks 205 00:14:11,320 --> 00:14:14,559 Speaker 1: somebody off of a cliff. Well, I'm liable for that, 206 00:14:15,400 --> 00:14:19,000 Speaker 1: but I'm not if I have a neurological disorder that 207 00:14:19,160 --> 00:14:23,240 Speaker 1: causes my arm to spasm and sporadically swing around outside 208 00:14:23,280 --> 00:14:27,160 Speaker 1: my control. The act has clearly happened, which is I 209 00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:29,960 Speaker 1: knocked a person off the cliff, but as there was 210 00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:34,880 Speaker 1: no guilty intent behind it, I wouldn't be criminally liable. 211 00:14:35,440 --> 00:14:39,320 Speaker 1: The concept of mens rea allows us to not punish 212 00:14:39,400 --> 00:14:43,080 Speaker 1: people for acts that are committed reflexively. For example, things 213 00:14:43,120 --> 00:14:46,040 Speaker 1: that have come up in courts are a military veteran 214 00:14:46,080 --> 00:14:50,720 Speaker 1: who reflexively shoots an intruder or a man who stabs 215 00:14:50,760 --> 00:14:53,120 Speaker 1: somebody while he is sleepwalking. 216 00:14:53,160 --> 00:14:55,280 Speaker 2: I'm going to do an episode on that legal case soon. 217 00:14:56,200 --> 00:14:59,520 Speaker 1: The idea of doing an act but not having mens 218 00:14:59,600 --> 00:15:03,040 Speaker 1: rea a guilty mind. This also applies if I commit 219 00:15:03,120 --> 00:15:07,400 Speaker 1: a criminal act under duress. For example, if someone holds 220 00:15:07,400 --> 00:15:10,720 Speaker 1: a gun to my head and says, shoplift that laptop, 221 00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:14,280 Speaker 1: or I'm going to kill you. If I shoplift the laptop. 222 00:15:14,320 --> 00:15:18,200 Speaker 1: In that situation, I'm not considered criminally liable because I 223 00:15:18,240 --> 00:15:21,360 Speaker 1: don't have a guilty mind, my life is under threat. 224 00:15:22,320 --> 00:15:25,480 Speaker 1: So with any criminal case, the first question is whether 225 00:15:25,960 --> 00:15:29,040 Speaker 1: the mind is guilty. In other words, is there mensrea. 226 00:15:29,560 --> 00:15:33,600 Speaker 1: If not, the defendant is not criminally liable. Now, as 227 00:15:33,640 --> 00:15:36,600 Speaker 1: it turns out, there are levels of complexity to the 228 00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:40,720 Speaker 1: concept of mensrea. There are levels of having a guilty mind, 229 00:15:41,160 --> 00:15:45,400 Speaker 1: and the legal system concludes that there are different degrees 230 00:15:45,480 --> 00:15:48,560 Speaker 1: to which a person can be liable. So let's dig 231 00:15:48,600 --> 00:15:51,000 Speaker 1: into this for a moment. Let's say that you walk 232 00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:54,640 Speaker 1: into a dark room and you end up destroying a 233 00:15:54,680 --> 00:15:59,200 Speaker 1: bunch of porcelain statues. Now, let's say you knew that 234 00:15:59,320 --> 00:16:02,800 Speaker 1: the room can contained the statues, and your aim was 235 00:16:02,840 --> 00:16:05,800 Speaker 1: to cause as much damage as possible. In this case, 236 00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:08,840 Speaker 1: the intuition of the legal system is that you are 237 00:16:08,960 --> 00:16:14,280 Speaker 1: clearly liable for the damage. But now imagine a second scenario. 238 00:16:14,640 --> 00:16:18,040 Speaker 1: You entered the dark room and you were aware that 239 00:16:18,120 --> 00:16:21,240 Speaker 1: it was full of valuable statuary, but you didn't mean 240 00:16:21,280 --> 00:16:24,520 Speaker 1: to break the statues. You understood that it was almost 241 00:16:24,520 --> 00:16:26,560 Speaker 1: certain that you would break some of them as you 242 00:16:26,720 --> 00:16:30,720 Speaker 1: fumbled around for the switch. In this scenario, we're inclined 243 00:16:30,720 --> 00:16:32,520 Speaker 1: to think that you are guilty, but that you're not 244 00:16:32,920 --> 00:16:36,760 Speaker 1: as culpable as the first scenario, in which you purposely 245 00:16:36,840 --> 00:16:41,160 Speaker 1: sought to cause damage. Now, let's consider a third scenario. 246 00:16:41,840 --> 00:16:46,480 Speaker 1: You skateboard into the dark room knowing that their statuary inside, 247 00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:49,560 Speaker 1: but this time your intention was to ride to the 248 00:16:49,640 --> 00:16:53,280 Speaker 1: light switch without damaging anything. But things went wrong and 249 00:16:53,320 --> 00:16:56,400 Speaker 1: you ended up breaking some statues, despite the fact that 250 00:16:56,480 --> 00:16:59,920 Speaker 1: you had good intentions to only turn on the light switch. 251 00:17:00,600 --> 00:17:03,640 Speaker 1: The act is there, the statues are broken, but the 252 00:17:03,800 --> 00:17:07,399 Speaker 1: mind seems to have had a different level of guilt. 253 00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:11,080 Speaker 1: And let's consider a fourth scenario in which you walked 254 00:17:11,080 --> 00:17:14,240 Speaker 1: into the dark room with no idea that statuary was 255 00:17:14,240 --> 00:17:16,720 Speaker 1: in there. You walked in there with the intention to 256 00:17:16,880 --> 00:17:19,720 Speaker 1: just seek some alone time to meditate because you just 257 00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:22,720 Speaker 1: had an argument with someone and you needed some quiet, 258 00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:26,639 Speaker 1: and you ended up accidentally breaking somebody's statuary. You didn't 259 00:17:26,640 --> 00:17:28,800 Speaker 1: know there was a light switch. You were simply looking 260 00:17:28,880 --> 00:17:32,840 Speaker 1: for somewhere quiet to sit. Now, all these scenarios have 261 00:17:32,960 --> 00:17:37,920 Speaker 1: led to the same outcome. Somebody's beautiful porcelain statues are shattered, 262 00:17:38,440 --> 00:17:42,080 Speaker 1: but the men's rea is not the same. The first 263 00:17:42,119 --> 00:17:46,960 Speaker 1: case exemplifies the legal term of intentional or purposeful. You 264 00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:49,439 Speaker 1: had every objective of going in there and busting up 265 00:17:49,480 --> 00:17:53,200 Speaker 1: those statues. That's the highest level of mensrea. In the 266 00:17:53,280 --> 00:17:56,800 Speaker 1: second case, there was knowledge. You didn't go in there 267 00:17:56,840 --> 00:17:58,960 Speaker 1: intending to break stuff, but you went in knowing this 268 00:17:59,119 --> 00:18:03,399 Speaker 1: was a near certain outcome of your actions. The third 269 00:18:03,440 --> 00:18:08,200 Speaker 1: scenario is classified as recklessness. There was a large risk 270 00:18:08,320 --> 00:18:11,040 Speaker 1: that skateboarding to the light switch was going to break 271 00:18:11,080 --> 00:18:14,760 Speaker 1: some valuable statues, and choosing this action was a real 272 00:18:14,880 --> 00:18:18,960 Speaker 1: difference from how the average person would act. The fourth 273 00:18:18,960 --> 00:18:23,480 Speaker 1: scenario is called negligence, which assumes that a reasonable person 274 00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:26,920 Speaker 1: would have taken more care when entering a dark room 275 00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:30,800 Speaker 1: with which he wasn't familiar. So having a guilty mind 276 00:18:30,840 --> 00:18:35,280 Speaker 1: isn't one thing, but there are different levels. Take homicide 277 00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:38,639 Speaker 1: as an example. The guilty act is something that results 278 00:18:38,720 --> 00:18:41,960 Speaker 1: in the death of another person. But if you intended 279 00:18:42,440 --> 00:18:45,240 Speaker 1: that your conduct would result in the loss of life 280 00:18:45,320 --> 00:18:49,800 Speaker 1: you shoot somebody, that's murder. But if that wasn't your intention, 281 00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:53,679 Speaker 1: if something you did accidentally led to the death of 282 00:18:53,680 --> 00:18:58,320 Speaker 1: somebody else, then it is classified as manslaughter. In a 283 00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:03,639 Speaker 1: typical criminal case, there is a readily identifiable level of mensrea. 284 00:19:03,720 --> 00:19:06,080 Speaker 1: Either someone meant to do it, or they should have 285 00:19:06,160 --> 00:19:08,520 Speaker 1: known better, or they were just being reckless, or they 286 00:19:08,560 --> 00:19:13,040 Speaker 1: were being negligent. That seems to cover most situations, but 287 00:19:13,600 --> 00:19:16,360 Speaker 1: there are a few defenses in which one can argue 288 00:19:16,520 --> 00:19:20,280 Speaker 1: that mensrea is completely absent. One of those is the 289 00:19:20,600 --> 00:19:23,760 Speaker 1: infancy defense. If you are a child, it is assumed 290 00:19:23,800 --> 00:19:28,440 Speaker 1: that you cannot reasonably be held responsible for your actions. 291 00:19:28,760 --> 00:19:33,280 Speaker 1: So many countries have a policy called Doley incapax, which 292 00:19:33,359 --> 00:19:35,960 Speaker 1: just means that if a child is under ten years old, 293 00:19:36,119 --> 00:19:39,720 Speaker 1: he cannot be held legally responsible for his actions because 294 00:19:39,760 --> 00:19:45,360 Speaker 1: he doesn't understand their nature and consequences. So what does 295 00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:51,960 Speaker 1: it mean for Andrea or anyone to plead insanity. It means, yes, 296 00:19:52,040 --> 00:19:56,000 Speaker 1: I committed the act, but the mensrea was not there. 297 00:19:56,119 --> 00:20:01,280 Speaker 1: Because I couldn't understand the nature or consequence of my actions, 298 00:20:01,640 --> 00:20:05,439 Speaker 1: I can't be said to have had a guilty mind. 299 00:20:06,680 --> 00:20:09,760 Speaker 1: Why do we need an insanity defense? Well, in the 300 00:20:09,800 --> 00:20:12,600 Speaker 1: case of Durham versus the United States nineteen fifty four, 301 00:20:13,119 --> 00:20:17,840 Speaker 1: the circuit judges summarized the need this way, quote, the 302 00:20:17,960 --> 00:20:21,720 Speaker 1: legal and moral traditions of the Western world require that 303 00:20:21,800 --> 00:20:24,399 Speaker 1: those who of their own free will and with evil 304 00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:28,840 Speaker 1: intent commit acts which violate the law, shall be criminally 305 00:20:28,920 --> 00:20:30,359 Speaker 1: responsible for those acts. 306 00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:35,280 Speaker 2: Our traditions also require that where such. 307 00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:38,400 Speaker 1: Acts stem from and are the product of a mental 308 00:20:38,440 --> 00:20:44,000 Speaker 1: disease or defect, moral blame shall not attach, and hence 309 00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:49,600 Speaker 1: there will not be criminal responsibility end quote. In other words, 310 00:20:50,200 --> 00:20:54,480 Speaker 1: we need an insanity defense because some people are incapable 311 00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:58,480 Speaker 1: of normal decision making and should not be held morally 312 00:20:58,600 --> 00:21:03,280 Speaker 1: or criminally responsible for their decisions in a mature system 313 00:21:03,320 --> 00:21:08,120 Speaker 1: of criminal law. Everybody agrees on this. Now, in different episodes, 314 00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:11,639 Speaker 1: we'll see what kind of different mental illnesses look like 315 00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:16,200 Speaker 1: that makes somebody incapable of normal decision making. But from 316 00:21:16,200 --> 00:21:19,720 Speaker 1: the legal point of view, this all immediately raises a question, 317 00:21:20,359 --> 00:21:23,000 Speaker 1: how do you know if somebody is just faking it? 318 00:21:23,480 --> 00:21:26,479 Speaker 1: Or a related question, how do you know if someone 319 00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:29,919 Speaker 1: has a mental illness but that's not actually why he 320 00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:34,360 Speaker 1: committed the crime. So these are the tough questions right 321 00:21:34,400 --> 00:21:38,840 Speaker 1: at the intersection of brain science and the legal system. Now, 322 00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:41,800 Speaker 1: as I said at the beginning, insanity is not a 323 00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:44,320 Speaker 1: medical term. There's no way that you can take a 324 00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:48,359 Speaker 1: person into a clinic or laboratory and perform a brain 325 00:21:48,440 --> 00:21:52,720 Speaker 1: scan and confirm ah, yes, that person is insane. It's 326 00:21:52,760 --> 00:21:56,320 Speaker 1: purely a legal term, so how to really think about 327 00:21:56,359 --> 00:21:59,480 Speaker 1: it in a courtroom? This blossomed in the case of 328 00:21:59,520 --> 00:22:05,199 Speaker 1: a young Scottish woodcutter named Daniel McNaughton in January of 329 00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:10,880 Speaker 1: eighteen forty three. McNaughton was suffering from paranoid delusions. He 330 00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:14,680 Speaker 1: publicly griped that he was being followed by spies from 331 00:22:14,680 --> 00:22:18,240 Speaker 1: the Tory political party, and privately he was hearing a 332 00:22:18,359 --> 00:22:20,840 Speaker 1: voice in his head, which he assumed to be the 333 00:22:20,920 --> 00:22:23,840 Speaker 1: voice of God. The voice told him that to end 334 00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:28,919 Speaker 1: this persecution by the Tories, McNaughton should assassinate the British 335 00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:33,720 Speaker 1: Prime Minister, Robert Peel. So McNaughton stalked him for two days, 336 00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:36,600 Speaker 1: and on the third day he waited for Peel to 337 00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:41,000 Speaker 1: emerge from the Prime Minister's office, and then McNaughton followed him, 338 00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:43,840 Speaker 1: and he pulled his gun out from his pocket and 339 00:22:44,080 --> 00:22:48,080 Speaker 1: shot him fatally in the back. McNaught was captured right 340 00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:51,640 Speaker 1: away and charged with murder. It turns out McNaughton had 341 00:22:51,680 --> 00:22:54,400 Speaker 1: made a mistake. It wasn't Robert Peel he had murdered, 342 00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:58,280 Speaker 1: but instead a British civil servant named Edward Drummond. This 343 00:22:58,480 --> 00:23:00,440 Speaker 1: was the first sign to the police that's something was 344 00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:04,480 Speaker 1: a little strange about what was happening here now. At 345 00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:08,600 Speaker 1: McNaughton's trial, the prosecution called two people to the stand, 346 00:23:08,640 --> 00:23:10,919 Speaker 1: his landlady and someone who had known him at school, 347 00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:15,000 Speaker 1: and both testified that he generally seemed of sound mind. 348 00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:18,920 Speaker 1: But then the defense came up. He had a well 349 00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:24,400 Speaker 1: known and eloquent lawyer who argued that McNaughton was clearly deranged. 350 00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:28,400 Speaker 1: He suffered from paranoia, He had delusions of persecution from 351 00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:33,000 Speaker 1: the government. He had command hallucinations, which is where you 352 00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:34,919 Speaker 1: hear a voice in your head that tells you to 353 00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:39,040 Speaker 1: do things. The lawyer brought nine medical experts to the stand, 354 00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:41,959 Speaker 1: all of whom testified that McNaughton. 355 00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:44,320 Speaker 2: Was clearly out of touch with reality. 356 00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:48,840 Speaker 1: The prosecution was unable to muster a single medical experts 357 00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:52,040 Speaker 1: say otherwise, so the jury didn't even need to retire. 358 00:23:52,359 --> 00:23:57,800 Speaker 1: They concluded that Daniel McNaughton was clearly insane, and given 359 00:23:57,840 --> 00:24:01,840 Speaker 1: this conclusion, he was sentenced to commitment for life at 360 00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:07,440 Speaker 1: the State Criminal Lunatic Asylum at Bethlehem Hospital. But many 361 00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:11,520 Speaker 1: British people were displeased with this outcome. Among them was 362 00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:15,040 Speaker 1: a woman whose voice carried the weight of a monarch, 363 00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:20,160 Speaker 1: Queen Victoria. She had previously been the target of assassination attempts, 364 00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:24,440 Speaker 1: and she represented the anger of the public. How can 365 00:24:24,480 --> 00:24:28,240 Speaker 1: one commit murder and just say he's not responsible. He 366 00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:31,520 Speaker 1: ended the life of an innocent man. Shouldn't something be 367 00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:34,960 Speaker 1: done beyond a sentencing to a hospital? And how do 368 00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:39,080 Speaker 1: we know he's not simply faking insanity? So Queen Victoria 369 00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:42,879 Speaker 1: drew upon an ancient right to call the judges to 370 00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:46,359 Speaker 1: explain their reasoning. She put a list of questions to 371 00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:49,200 Speaker 1: the panel of judges, who sat down over the course 372 00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:53,240 Speaker 1: of days and shaped their response to the Queen, and 373 00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:56,160 Speaker 1: in eighteen forty eight this charted the future of the 374 00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:59,840 Speaker 1: insanity defense, leading to the codification of what is known 375 00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:01,480 Speaker 1: as the McNaughton rule. 376 00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:03,720 Speaker 2: What they wrote is this quote. 377 00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:07,760 Speaker 1: To establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it 378 00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:10,840 Speaker 1: must be clearly proved that at the time of committing 379 00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:15,200 Speaker 1: the act, the party accused was laboring under such a 380 00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:19,399 Speaker 1: defective reason from disease of the mind as not to 381 00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:22,639 Speaker 1: know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, 382 00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:25,240 Speaker 1: or if he did know it, that he did not 383 00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:28,000 Speaker 1: know what he was doing was wrong. 384 00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:35,639 Speaker 2: End quote. 385 00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:48,600 Speaker 1: So let zoom in on the important words here. First, 386 00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:52,840 Speaker 1: because of a disease of the mind, a person may 387 00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:56,840 Speaker 1: not understand the nature and quality of his act. For example, 388 00:25:56,960 --> 00:25:59,520 Speaker 1: if I have a mental illness and I pull the 389 00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,240 Speaker 1: trigger of a gun, but I have no understanding that 390 00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:04,280 Speaker 1: a bullet is going to come out of the barrel, 391 00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:07,040 Speaker 1: then I don't understand the nature and quality of the 392 00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,440 Speaker 1: act I'm committing. And the second issue they point to 393 00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:12,840 Speaker 1: is the inability to distinguish. 394 00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:13,119 Speaker 2: Right from wrong. 395 00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:16,240 Speaker 1: So even if I know how a gun works, it's 396 00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:20,119 Speaker 1: possible that my deficit leaves me unable to distinguish what 397 00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:22,560 Speaker 1: I should do from what I shouldn't. And let me 398 00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:25,480 Speaker 1: just fill this out with another example. Someone could fail 399 00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:29,200 Speaker 1: the first part of the mcnonton test, the cognitive component, 400 00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:32,000 Speaker 1: if they think that they're shooting at a target but 401 00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:35,200 Speaker 1: really it's a person. Or they could fail the second part, 402 00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:38,399 Speaker 1: the moral component, if they knew they were killing a person, 403 00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:42,280 Speaker 1: but they thought that a divine force was commanding them 404 00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:46,760 Speaker 1: to do it. Now, this codification of the insanity defense 405 00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:50,680 Speaker 1: impressed the United States, so within ten years they'd adopted 406 00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:53,480 Speaker 1: it for themselves and This soon formed the foundation of 407 00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:55,080 Speaker 1: the insanity defense. 408 00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:55,399 Speaker 2: Around the world. 409 00:26:56,160 --> 00:26:59,560 Speaker 1: As a result, in a trial in which the insanity 410 00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:03,080 Speaker 1: defense is raised, the job of the court is to 411 00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:06,960 Speaker 1: first assess whether the accused person was suffering from a 412 00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:10,120 Speaker 1: mental disease when the crime was committed. If not, then 413 00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:13,960 Speaker 1: they are criminally responsible. But if the person was subject 414 00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:17,680 Speaker 1: to a mental disease, then two questions are posed. Did 415 00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:20,320 Speaker 1: this person understand the nature and quality of the act 416 00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:24,359 Speaker 1: and could he distinguish right from wrong? So let's zoom 417 00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:27,240 Speaker 1: in on the first step, which is the sanity evaluation. 418 00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:30,240 Speaker 1: Did the person have a mental disease at the time 419 00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:33,880 Speaker 1: of the crime? For the purposes of an insanity defense, 420 00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:37,960 Speaker 1: courts will generally accept a major mental illness, such as 421 00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:41,520 Speaker 1: a psychosis, which is a mental state in which there 422 00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:44,800 Speaker 1: is a loss of contact with reality. Courts are less 423 00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:49,359 Speaker 1: likely to accept, for example, the diagnosis of a personality disorder, 424 00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:53,280 Speaker 1: meaning something about your personality that might inhibit your social progress, 425 00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:59,000 Speaker 1: like obsessive compulsive disorder or narcissistic personality disorder or borderline 426 00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:03,199 Speaker 1: personality disorder. Now, while we're talking about the sanity evaluation, 427 00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:07,720 Speaker 1: you've surely heard the term psycho But what exactly does 428 00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:10,920 Speaker 1: that mean? Does it describe someone who is separated from 429 00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:14,600 Speaker 1: reality or does it instead describe an aggressive person who 430 00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:18,199 Speaker 1: has no regard for other people's feelings. Okay, so this 431 00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:22,520 Speaker 1: is a trick question. Psycho is a meaningless term invented 432 00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:26,200 Speaker 1: by Hollywood. In the movie Psycho, they were referring to 433 00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:29,960 Speaker 1: a psychopath, also known as a sociopath. And I'll be 434 00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:33,800 Speaker 1: doing an episode soon on psychopathy people like Ted Bundy, 435 00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,760 Speaker 1: But somebody with a psychosis, which is what we're talking 436 00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:42,080 Speaker 1: about today, has an abnormal condition of the mind that 437 00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:46,520 Speaker 1: separates them from reality. And it's a generic psychiatric term 438 00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:48,480 Speaker 1: in the same way that we talk in medicine about 439 00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:51,480 Speaker 1: somebody having a fever, which can be caused by many 440 00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:57,560 Speaker 1: underlying conditions. So psychopathy like Ted Bundy and psychosis like 441 00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:02,200 Speaker 1: Andrea Yates, these are both men descriptors, but their world's apart. 442 00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:06,000 Speaker 1: Will meet psychopaths in future episodes, but for now, we're 443 00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:10,280 Speaker 1: going to move into the world of psychosis. People suffering 444 00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:13,560 Speaker 1: with a psychosis have this lack of contact with reality, 445 00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:19,080 Speaker 1: and this typically translates into wildly incorrect ideas about events 446 00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:22,160 Speaker 1: going on around them or about their self identity. They 447 00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:27,520 Speaker 1: might have delusions like I'm President Biden's special advisor or 448 00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:32,800 Speaker 1: Eyeshot Tupac. A person with a psychosis often perceives things 449 00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:36,520 Speaker 1: that aren't there. They report things like, when I'm not looking, 450 00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:39,000 Speaker 1: everybody sticks their tongues out at me, and when I 451 00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:42,120 Speaker 1: whirl around to look, they all stop. A lot of 452 00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:46,840 Speaker 1: features tend to go along with the psychosis, like confusion, depression, 453 00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:52,520 Speaker 1: abnormal displays of emotion, disorganized thoughts and speech, and sometimes 454 00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:57,600 Speaker 1: suicidal thoughts. A psychosis can come with mania or false 455 00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:01,520 Speaker 1: beliefs or mistaken perceptions, and often paranoia. 456 00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:05,000 Speaker 2: And pretty commonly a person hears. 457 00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:08,720 Speaker 1: Hallucinatory voices and sometimes those voices will seem to tell 458 00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:13,680 Speaker 1: him to do something. That's the command hallucination. So why 459 00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:17,640 Speaker 1: does psychosis matter for the legal system. Well, if you're 460 00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:21,720 Speaker 1: disconnected from reality when you commit a crime, you were 461 00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:28,520 Speaker 1: not operating with a guilty mind, a conniving, planning guilty mind. So, 462 00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:33,520 Speaker 1: for example, given Daniel McNaughton's deep psychosis, the British judges 463 00:30:33,520 --> 00:30:37,040 Speaker 1: found it difficult to insist that he had a guilty 464 00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:40,000 Speaker 1: mind in the way that they normally see with other people. 465 00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:45,960 Speaker 1: So let's return to Andrea Yates. How should a juror 466 00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:50,160 Speaker 1: analyze her plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. 467 00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:54,200 Speaker 1: In her trial, a picture of mental illness came into 468 00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:59,200 Speaker 1: sharp focus. Her illness had been documented in thousands of pages. 469 00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:03,360 Speaker 1: She had been hospitalized four times, and she'd been diagnosed 470 00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:08,560 Speaker 1: by independent psychiatrists with postpartum depression and psychosist She had 471 00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:11,680 Speaker 1: been helped by medication for the psychosis, but when she 472 00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:15,360 Speaker 1: stopped taking the pills, her mental situation got worse, and 473 00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:20,280 Speaker 1: things got even worse after the death of her father. Moreover, 474 00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:24,880 Speaker 1: the jury learns that she had a spiritual mentor, a 475 00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:28,760 Speaker 1: guy named Michael Warniki, who was a fire and brimstone 476 00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:33,360 Speaker 1: minister who insisted to his congregants that any fault of 477 00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:37,000 Speaker 1: the children is the fault of the mother. And of 478 00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:41,280 Speaker 1: special note, he insisted that children will burn in hell 479 00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:46,280 Speaker 1: if they're not raised correctly by the mother. Now, Andrea's 480 00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:49,360 Speaker 1: family was worried about her connection with this preacher. She 481 00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:52,280 Speaker 1: seemed to hang on his every word. This guy was 482 00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:58,440 Speaker 1: really charismatic, and Yates later told the jail psychiatrist quote, 483 00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:02,640 Speaker 1: it was the seventh deadly in My children weren't righteous, 484 00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:06,400 Speaker 1: They stumbled because I was evil the way I was 485 00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:10,000 Speaker 1: raising them. They could never be saved. They were doomed 486 00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:14,920 Speaker 1: to perish in the fires of hell end quote. So 487 00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:19,600 Speaker 1: what happened at the trial, Well, the prosecution enlisted a 488 00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:23,920 Speaker 1: famous psychiatrist, again named Park Deets. He had previously served 489 00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:27,240 Speaker 1: as a psychiatrist in a whole bunch of famous trials 490 00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:31,440 Speaker 1: like those of the unibomber and John Hinckley and Susan Smith, 491 00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:34,600 Speaker 1: so his presence was very weighty there. And Deets argued 492 00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:38,720 Speaker 1: that Andrea Yates was not insane under Texas law. So 493 00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:42,320 Speaker 1: he said, essentially, yes, she has a history of mental illness, 494 00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:45,920 Speaker 1: but the important question is whether she was able to 495 00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:50,160 Speaker 1: distinguish right from wrong, good from evil when she committed 496 00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:53,360 Speaker 1: her crimes. So in court, this is how the dialogue went. 497 00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:56,960 Speaker 1: Deets said, before you did it, did you think it 498 00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,880 Speaker 1: was wrong? And Yeates said no. And he said why 499 00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:03,400 Speaker 1: did you not think it wrong? And Yates said, if 500 00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:06,040 Speaker 1: I didn't do it, they would be tormented by Satan. 501 00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:08,280 Speaker 1: It was a bad choice. I shouldn't have done it. 502 00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:11,240 Speaker 1: There was distress, but I still felt that I had 503 00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:14,760 Speaker 1: to do it. Indeeds said, as you drowned each one, 504 00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:17,760 Speaker 1: did you think it was the right thing? To be doing, 505 00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:22,200 Speaker 1: and Yets nodded her head in affirmation. So Deets was 506 00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,240 Speaker 1: working with this line of questioning to establish that this 507 00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,360 Speaker 1: was not a psychotic state but instead part of a 508 00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:32,960 Speaker 1: criminal plan. He said later quote, if it's true that 509 00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:36,440 Speaker 1: she believed that killing the children would save them, then 510 00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:39,280 Speaker 1: why would she not want it to happen. She would 511 00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:41,160 Speaker 1: want to talk about it so it came true and 512 00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:44,000 Speaker 1: the children would be saved. So I concluded at that 513 00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:46,720 Speaker 1: point that she's keeping it secret. She knows that other 514 00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:49,320 Speaker 1: people are going to stop her, that it's wrong, that 515 00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:50,280 Speaker 1: it's a bad idea. 516 00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:55,440 Speaker 2: She admits that she knows people will stop her. End quote. 517 00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:59,440 Speaker 1: In other words, he prodded her over this issue. Why 518 00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:01,840 Speaker 1: did she suffer the angst over doing it? If she 519 00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:05,440 Speaker 1: had really believed that drowning her children was the right 520 00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:10,160 Speaker 1: thing to do, then she should proceed without delay. Instead, 521 00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:13,279 Speaker 1: she waited until her husband left for work, and then 522 00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:17,160 Speaker 1: she started the bathtub. Afterwards, she felt remorse about the crime, 523 00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:20,560 Speaker 1: but if she had felt she successfully saved her children 524 00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:24,120 Speaker 1: from eternal damnation, she might feel gratified. 525 00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:25,720 Speaker 2: Now. 526 00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:30,520 Speaker 1: Dietz's arguments were compelling, but did they hold water well. 527 00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:34,640 Speaker 1: One difficulty is that people can be internally conflicted, and 528 00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:37,400 Speaker 1: I've done a different episode about the team of rivals 529 00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:41,439 Speaker 1: inside your head. So imagine that your horse breaks its 530 00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:44,440 Speaker 1: leg and you have to shoot it. You may love 531 00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:47,160 Speaker 1: the horse and feel anguish over having to shoot it, 532 00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:50,000 Speaker 1: while still believing that the act has to be done. 533 00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:53,560 Speaker 1: The fact that you are conflicted doesn't mean that you're 534 00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:56,160 Speaker 1: lying when you say that it's the right thing to do. 535 00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:59,439 Speaker 1: But more on that later. For now, what I want 536 00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:03,120 Speaker 1: to note is that Dietz's line of questioning came down 537 00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:06,839 Speaker 1: to what's sometimes known as the cop at the elbow test. 538 00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:08,440 Speaker 2: Would she have done. 539 00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:11,680 Speaker 1: This if a police officer were standing there at her side? 540 00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:14,760 Speaker 1: If she wouldn't have done it, then the jury should 541 00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:19,160 Speaker 1: conclude that Andrea knew what society considered right and wrong, 542 00:35:19,360 --> 00:35:22,840 Speaker 1: irrespective of her internal sense of it. And Deets argued 543 00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:27,520 Speaker 1: that Andrea indeed knew right from wrong. She contemplated murdering 544 00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:31,360 Speaker 1: the children for two years, but stopped herself after the 545 00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:35,239 Speaker 1: horrific act. Guilt caused her to cover the bodies on 546 00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:38,480 Speaker 1: the bed. She herself called the police to be arrested. 547 00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:42,920 Speaker 1: She felt that the death penalty was a punishment she deserved. 548 00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:46,680 Speaker 1: And in fact she requested it. Her religious position told 549 00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:49,520 Speaker 1: her that she needed to burn and suffer about this. 550 00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:54,600 Speaker 1: She believed that God would judge her actions badly. So 551 00:35:54,719 --> 00:35:57,960 Speaker 1: Deets raised all these points to argue that she clearly 552 00:35:58,040 --> 00:36:01,759 Speaker 1: knew right from wrong and therefore was not legally insane. 553 00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:06,759 Speaker 1: And Dietz's potent arguments also had an unexpected twist. He 554 00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:10,600 Speaker 1: pointed out that Yates got the idea of drowning her 555 00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:14,279 Speaker 1: children in the bathtub from an episode of the television 556 00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:17,920 Speaker 1: show Law and Order, a show on which Deets happened 557 00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:20,960 Speaker 1: to be a consultant. In the episode, he told the 558 00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:24,799 Speaker 1: jury a woman drowns her children in the bathtub and 559 00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:28,520 Speaker 1: was found not guilty by reason of insanity. And Rusty 560 00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:32,240 Speaker 1: Yates indeed testified on her questioning that Andrea Yates watched 561 00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:35,880 Speaker 1: Law and Order often. So this point landed on the jury, 562 00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:42,680 Speaker 1: making them question whether the insanity defense really applied to Andrea. 563 00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:47,320 Speaker 1: But something wasn't normal about Andrea's thinking. I mean, after all, 564 00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:54,080 Speaker 1: despite the common challenges of motherhood and concerns about spiritual waywardness, 565 00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:56,839 Speaker 1: it's astoundingly rare for a. 566 00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:58,280 Speaker 2: Mother to murder her children. 567 00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:02,360 Speaker 1: So the legal question and then shifts. What if Yates 568 00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:06,480 Speaker 1: actually did know right from wrong but was unable to 569 00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:11,400 Speaker 1: stop herself, would discount for the insanity defense. Now this 570 00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:13,239 Speaker 1: is a cliffhanger because I'm not going to tell you 571 00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:16,479 Speaker 1: what happened until next week, and at that point we'll 572 00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:19,880 Speaker 1: tie this into what the insanity defense has to do 573 00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:24,839 Speaker 1: with a United States congressman who committed murder, what it 574 00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:28,440 Speaker 1: has to do with Loraina Bobbitt, who emasculated her husband, 575 00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,279 Speaker 1: and what it has to do with John Hinckley who 576 00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:33,360 Speaker 1: tried to assassinate President Reagan. 577 00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:37,040 Speaker 2: All of this points to the complex question. 578 00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:41,040 Speaker 1: Of how we as a society need to think about 579 00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:44,799 Speaker 1: drawing a bright line in the sand between insane and 580 00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:48,000 Speaker 1: not insane, which might seem like a simple determination, but 581 00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:52,040 Speaker 1: it's actually incredibly complexified by the fact that there is 582 00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:57,640 Speaker 1: no natural line in biology. The fact is that science 583 00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:02,279 Speaker 1: and the law are strange bedfellows. The legal system is 584 00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:06,600 Speaker 1: forced to be categorical. The judge and jury are tasked 585 00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:10,600 Speaker 1: with deciding whether a defendant is or is not insane. 586 00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:13,440 Speaker 1: But neuroscience sees that brains can be very different from 587 00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:16,919 Speaker 1: one another, and it's usually on a smooth spectrum, such 588 00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:20,440 Speaker 1: that someone might be more or less separated from reality, 589 00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:24,040 Speaker 1: and it's often not such an easy call to determine 590 00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:26,840 Speaker 1: what to do. So what is the right thing to 591 00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:29,799 Speaker 1: do here? And what were the surprises that came out 592 00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:32,320 Speaker 1: next in the trial of Andrea Yates? 593 00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:34,160 Speaker 2: Tune in next week to find out. 594 00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:43,920 Speaker 1: Go to Eagleman dot com slash podcast for more information 595 00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:47,719 Speaker 1: and to find further reading. Send me an email at 596 00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:51,279 Speaker 1: podcasts at eagleman dot com with questions or discussions, and 597 00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:54,040 Speaker 1: I'll make sporadic episodes in which I address these. 598 00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:02,319 Speaker 2: Until next time. I'm David Eagleman, and this is Inner Cosmos.