Insanity defense hard for jury
 |
Frank Roque |
Conflicting expert testimony clouds Sikh murder trial
Jim Walsh
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 29, 2003 12:00 AM
Pity the jurors who must wade through reams of conflicting psychiatric testimony when they decide this week if Frank Roque lives or dies.
As the terrorism backlash murder trial heads to closing arguments today jurors are faced with among the most daunting tasks in the criminal justice system: deciding which expert witnesses to believe.
Prosecutors argue Roque was consumed with hate for Arabs, or anyone appearing Arab, when he gunned down Sikh gasoline station owner Balbir Singh Sodhi, 49, in Mesa four days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Defense attorneys argue that Roque, 44, is mentally ill and heard voices from God commanding him to "kill the devils" moments before he murdered Sodhi, an immigrant from India who wore a turban in deference to his faith.
Singh Sodhi became the first victim nationwide of a backlash murder stemming from the Sept. 11 tragedies. Six hours later on Sept. 15, 2001, a Pakistani convenience store clerk in Dallas was gunned down by a White supremacist now awaiting execution in Texas.
"The insanity defense is ultimately a credibility test by the jury," said Christopher Slobogin, a University of Florida criminal law professor who has studied insanity defenses. "It's the experts that are most credible."
Jurors can make the right decision if they apply common sense and stick with the facts, but conflicting testimony doesn't make their deliberations easy, said Gina Lang, a Valley psychologist who has testified in guilty except insane trials.
"I definitely do think it's a hard job. Even if they were a group of professionals, it's hard," she said. "The jurors are able to use common sense. That helps them weigh information and allows them to decide who they believe and who they do not believe."
Risky defense
Mike Vaughn, a veteran Valley defense attorney, said the guilty except insane defense is extremely risky because jurors are historically skeptical of psychiatric evidence.
A defense attorney starts by admitting the client committed an abhorrent crime, then has to prove with "clear and convincing evidence," a standard only one step below guilty beyond reasonable doubt, that the defendant is legally insane.
"It's one of the riskiest defenses you can have," Vaughn said. "You better have a ton of evidence supporting that proposition."
While some doctors can show X-rays demonstrating a broken arm or another disease, it's not that simple for psychiatric experts, he said.
"Psychiatry is so subjective and is a person's interpretation of another person's actions," Vaughn said. "It's a risky defense unless you have mental health experts unanimously saying the same thing."
Nothing could be further from the truth in Roque's case.
Two defense experts say Roque could not have known right from wrong, Arizona's definition of legal insanity, because of his mental illness. A prosecution expert testified he was faking mental illness, never heard voices and knew right from wrong. A court-appointed expert concluded Roque probably is mentally ill but still knew right from wrong.
Their disagreements only fuel even more juror skepticism, experts agree.
Jurors often think "you can find an expert to say just about anything. I think it's a reasonably correct perception," said Jack Chin, a University of Arizona law professor. "You can find somebody if the price is right."
Slobogin said research on insanity defenses shows they are successful in about 25 percent of cases that go to trial.
But Chin believes insanity defenses are far less successful.
"This battery of experts, it's very confusing to jurors," he said. "How are they supposed to make a judgment? If the experts disagree, a lay jury will have a hard time grappling with that."
Because of an insanity defendant's high burden of proof, "if (jurors) are confused, you reject the defense," Chin said. "If you're confused, they haven't proven their case."
Defense attorneys Dan Patterson and Bob Stein have said from the start that their goal is save Roque's life because of his mental illness. Roque was animated and sometimes profane as he repeatedly denied the murder and two related drive-by shootings at Middle Eastern targets on Mesa police videotapes recorded hours after his arrest.
At one point, a hidden video camera captured Roque, described by a family member as a fallen Roman Catholic, praying for forgiveness of his sins and asking God to help his family.
But two years later, Roque sits motionless daily in Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Mark Aceto's Mesa courtroom and has taken Zyprexa, a powerful anti-psychotic medication, since a few weeks after his arrest.
Jurors will have three possible verdicts: guilty, not guilty or guilty except insane. If found guilty except insane, Roque would be sent to the state hospital, not prison, and released whenever a panel of psychiatrists determines he is no longer a threat to himself or others.
'Laying groundwork'
The experts said that even if jurors reject the guilty except insane defense, Patterson and Stein can still score a victory if the psychiatric evidence leads to a life sentence in prison, with or without the possibility of parole.
"It certainly is laying the groundwork for a sentence other than death, and that's good lawyering," Vaughn said.
But Slobogin said research in insanity defenses shows that psychiatric evidence can backfire.
"The jury thinks these people are abnormally dangerous and are more apt to sentence them to death," he said. |
Add SikhNet news to your website
Recent News
