Yesterday the jury found Tommy Rollins guilty on all counts, for shooting a state trooper (my previous posts about this trial are here and here ). I could find no mention of the verdict in today's Kansas City Star newspaper (and I find that fairly odd), but local TV stations covered the trial, and here's a link to one small story from a TV station; it includes a short video of one of Tommy's family members who collapsed in grief when the verdict was announced; a deputy is seen on the video, literally dragging her on the floor, across the hallway, away from the courtroom. I couldn't see her face in the video, but I believe that woman was Tommy's mother. I've spent some time with her; she is a lovely woman. She spent most of the five days of the trial reading her Bible, and praying. The whole thing is very sad.
Part of the sadness is that our criminal justice system is built in such a way that crime victims, like Trooper Brashear, are encouraged to see the whole process of "justice" as being about vengeance and retribution. The way that most crime victims see it, the more punishment, the better; and prosecutors usually play that game right along with the crime victims, all too well. For the trial lawyers, it's a lot like a competitive sport, actually. [I once was a prosecutor, myself, and I participated in the system vigorously... until I began to have a change of heart. But that's another story, for another time.]
Another part of the sadness is that Tommy suffers from serious and chronic mental illnesses, and his symptoms played a major role in creating the mental state in which he felt that his only option was to strike back at the people who, he believed, had maliciously destroyed his life. He had even been found by the Court to be incompetent to proceed to trial, at one point, because of his mental illnesses. After that finding, Tommy spent more than a year at Fulton State Hospital, getting treatment for his depression and his psychotic symptoms. His doctors at that hospital were in agreement, of course, that Tommy was experiencing depression and delusional beliefs, and they provided him with appropriate treatment. Gradually, he improved. And so his case was returned to the trial docket. Ultimately, after hearing a lot of evidence, and a lot of argument, and after deliberating for four hours, the jury reached the conclusion that I was fairly sure they would decide on. "Guilty," they said (never mind the mental illness). This is what typically happens in a criminal case in which the insanity defense is offered.
There's an article about the insanity defense, here. The statistic usually cited is that the insanity defense is used in less than 1% of felony cases, and is "seldom successful." Lawyers agree that juries are generally unimpressed by arguments that a person's criminal actions were caused or influenced by the existence of a serious mental illness; essentially, I think, they tend to take a common-sense and conservative attitude. They generally seem to be thinking something along these lines: "Well, if he has the kind of craziness that makes him commit crimes, then I'd rather have him in prison being crazy, than out on the street, being crazy." So, inevitably, Tommy will go to prison, and probably for a very long time.
We need a better system for dealing with mental illness! Community mental health facilities are overcrowded, understaffed, and overwhelmed. And, within the criminal justice system, in particular, our treatment of persons with mental illness is woefully, shamefully inadequate. There is simply no money for it; and state legislators have zero interest in taking on the thankless job of trying to create and fund a system in which people like Tommy Rollins can get decent treatment while they are imprisoned for crimes they committed while mentally ill. Nobody wants to be seen as a coddler of criminals... Nobody wants to look into they eyes of Tommy Rollins' mother and say: "I care about what happens to your son."
The Four Seasons Hotel and L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon will not renew their
operating agreement. The restaurant will close June 30.
1 hour ago
Clearly you have an educated opinion and progressive stance on the many issues of mental health that plague this country, especially with regard to those afflicted individuals who find themselves under the scrutiny of the law. As a current student of forensic psychology, the concept of "not guilty by reason of insanity" is only now coming into focus, obscured by media portrayals of the NGRI plea as "getting off easy". In contrast to this myth, you present a woeful tale in which the condemned guilty - Tommy Rollins will only decompensate into psychological ruin in prison instead of being rehabilitated and rescued from the grips of his illness with the proper mental health facilities and resources if he were acquitted. I entirely agree with your statement that the current state of justice is "about vengeance and retribution," a more constructive and rational society would focus its resources and effort on rehabilitation of those who commit crime and prevention of those who might. Yet while the mentally ill are prime candidates for this strategy; being highly treatable, our society provides no leniency towards those failed to conform to our rules of conduct. This is not to say that all who are mentally ill and commit crime should allowed to roam free, but when one can demonstrate a nexus between a mental condition and a specific crime, the criminal responsibility is at question first and foremost, and not the degree of punishment.
ReplyDeleteAll too often it seems people forget that an NGRI acquittal is only pardoning a defendant's criminal guilt and not the consequences of their actions. NGRI acquittees serve an indefinite period of time in psychiatric hospitals until they are no longer considered a danger to society or themselves. I think that the whole "getting off easy" myth continues to prevail because most people don't know that this hospital stay by NGRI's is often a longer period than they would have served in prison had they been found guilty. Thus, the issue that you are most centrally concerned about in this post, the one the public should be concerned about, is the mental health treatment that one should receive regardless of the judge or jury's decision of guilt. Any individual who's mental condition is severe enough to explicitly cause them to commit a crime is in need of much more help than prison's mental health facilities can offer. It is up to us then, should justice be blind to the cause of a crime?