NAMEUNIVERSITY
Abstract
The aim of this essay is to work on a case of the mentally ill person, Mr. Fryer who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was living on the streets. Mr. Fryer committed a violent murder while being mentally unstable. In this essay I will highlight the consequences of the case and work on it as the defense for the Mr. Fryer. I will choose my way of actions and explain the logic behind them as well as providing clarification of aggravating and mitigating circumstances of the crime, addressing the issue as a forensic psychology professional and explaining my actions and course of defendant’s examination in the court. I will support arguable points with the evidences and try to make my position as clear as possible. In the end of the essay it should be seen what course was taken in order for the defendant to be judged according to my plan of actions to avoid capital punishment.
Keywords: forensic, psychology, capital punishment, schizophrenia
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First of all it is important to answer the question: how to proceed further? As a defense, I would like to help defendant to keep his life. However, taking into the account the severity of the case, it is difficult to predict what will the court decide. However, regardless of that, I would work in a way, which will ask for Mr. Fryer to be placed in the asylum designated for people of his condition. I will support my choice with this logic: if Mr. Fryer gets the “not guilty” verdict and he is left to leave on the street, once again there is a possibility that he could commit a crime again because of his paranoid schizophrenia. Also, because of his illness it is unlikely to sentence him into the prison custody. The stress from the prison conviction would clearly make Mr. Fryer more dangerous for himself and the surroundings. While in the asylum, he could serve his sentence as well as getting medications and remaining harmless towards his surroundings. The downside of this decision is the fact that according to description he has a stage III schizophrenia, which is described by Insel (2010) as “psychosis manifested by hallucinations, delusions, disorganization of thought and behavior, and psychomotor abnormalities.” (p. 190), and on that stage it is unlikely that Mr. Fryer has chances for a complete recovery.
Usually, aggravating and mitigating circumstances are studied equally and the convicted is likely to be sentenced to death if their case have aggravating factors, while mitigating factors might play lesser role, because the fact of the committed crime is still undeniable. In that case it is crucial to look on the mitigating and aggravating factors. Starting with the last: aggravating circumstances of the murder committed by Mr. Fryer include cruelty of the murder, it’s wanton, atrocious manner and possibility that he will commit a crime again. Looking into it, there are some factors that could be added into the list. First of all: the victim was a twelve years old child. Secondly, Mr. Fryer was assaulting victim even after the death of the victim. According to the
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Garvey (1998) jurors are 45.7% more likely to vote for death when victim is a child (p. 1556) and 57.6% more likely to vote for death when victim was “maimed or mutilated” after death (p. 1555). Considering the firstly listed aggravating circumstances, it can be also said that since Mr. Fryer could be a danger to society in future, jurors are 37.9% more likely to vote for death in that case (Garvey, 1998, p. 1559). It is necessary to point out that those values are taking from what jurors say, not what they might do, but taking into consideration that jurors are expected to act in the lawful way, this numbers should not be taken lightly.
Next, the mitigating circumstances: extreme emotional and mental distress, impossibility of the defendant to “appreciate the wrongfulness of his act or conform his actions to the requirements of the law”. Since Mr. Fryer is mentally ill and is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia of the stage III (Insel, 2010, p. 190), it could be taken as the “proximate evidence”. According to Garvey (1998), evidence, which proves proximate reduced culpability is describes as “evidence that suggests any impairment of a defendant's capacity to control his or her criminal behavior, or to appreciate its wrongfulness or likely consequences” (p. 1562). At the time of the murder, Mr. Fryer was sure that his victim is an enemy spy who plans to kill him thus his actions could fall under this category. This is the main mitigating factor, which, however plays a decisive role. In usual case aggravated circumstances of the Mr. Fryer’s murder would force juror to vote for the capital sentence. However, defendant has all the chances to be voted not guilty because the murder was forced by the circumstances such as extreme stress and mental illness.
As a forensic psychology professional I would look into the accused’s competency to stand trial, I would choose carefully how to examine and access the individual. If Mr. Fryer would be unable to stand trial due to his mental condition, I shall choose whether it is required to provide
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psychiatric treatment before the trial or perform another attempt to restore his sanity. I would evaluate the defendant’s state of mind at the time of the murder, trying to be as unbiased as possible.
I will support my opinion in court by following the idea of Thomas Barnard and James Ewing in their article “Pretrial Advice for Representing Mentally Ill Criminal Defendants in the Military Justice System”. Despite the fact that this case is unlikely to be judged by Military Justice System, I still find the ideas of the article significant to build my case around it.
First of all I will ask defendant neutral questions, starting with asking his name, facts about his life, occupation, history of illness and so on. Depending on how the defendant answers it could be possible to indicate the strength of defendant’s long-term memory or observe speech impairments or strange behavior which could display to the court mental state of the defendant. After the background questions I will follow up with the questions about the case. According to Barnard & Ewing (2010) it is crucial whether there are differences between how defendant explains the events and compare the level of detail between his testimony and known information (p. 44). From that point on, I will present the medical records that proof the mental condition of the defendant and let me build case around the fact that defendant was unable to categorize his actions as criminal at the time of the murder. My goal is to prove that mental condition of the defendant is severe enough to be counted as a mitigating circumstance. However, for this case I will use information from Insel (2010) to prove that defendant is expected to experience delusions due to stage III schizophrenia (p. 190).
While preparing for the direct examination and cross-examination of the defendant I should be aware that his mental condition could make defendant lie to the court. The reason to that is his
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paranoid, which could possibly make him believe he is talking to the not existing enemy. To eliminate that possibility I will make sure that defendant is feeling well enough to stand trial. During examination it would be necessary for me not to aggravate defendant and make him answer my questions in calm manner. During the cross-examination I will make sure to show to the court that defendant’s memories of the crime are distorted by his paranoid delusions, which will display the mental illness of the defendant to the court. Thus during the examination phase I’ll try to prove to the court that condition of the defendant should be regarded as mitigating circumstance. Together with how I’m going to support my opinion, which I mentioned in the previous paragraph I will work towards exculpatory verdict and decision to sentence defendant to the psychiatric treatment in the asylum.
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Reference list:
Barnard, T., & Ewing, J. (2010). Pretrial Advice for Representing Mentally Ill Criminal Defendants in the Military Justice System. The Army Lawyer, (444), 43.
Garvey, S. (1998). Aggravation and Mitigation in Capital Cases: What Do Jurors Think? Columbia Law Review, 98(6), 1538-1576. doi:1. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1123305 doi:1
Insel, T. (2010). Rethinking schizophrenia. Nature, 468(7321), 187-193. doi:10.1038/nature09552
