The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience (34 page)

I asked, “Did the two men sue DuPage County?”

“Yes,” he said. “They were awarded a $3.4-million settlement from DuPage County.”

I ruminated on the figure. It wasn’t enough. Three trials, two death sentences, ten years on death row—all because mistakes were made by the police and the prosecutors. My mind was swirling.

“Now, back to Mr. Dugan. Even though he was not a suspect in the crime, he had tried to plead guilty to the ten-year-old girl’s murder in 1984 when he pleaded guilty to the other two murders. But at this point the DuPage County prosecutors had already convicted the other two guys. So they claimed they did not believe Dugan’s confession.”

Right
, I thought.
The prosecutors were already invested in their convictions
.

“However, during the second retrial, the prosecution changed their theory of the crime and said that the two men committed the crime with Dugan. But Dugan was not charged. And Dugan refused to testify because the prosecution would not take the death penalty off the table. It’s a very convoluted story.

“Finally, DNA analyses in 1995 proved that Dugan was responsible for the ten-year-old girl’s murder.

“There is no statute of limitations on murder, of course, and a DuPage prosecutor recently charged Dugan with the killing of the ten-year-old girl.

“By all accounts Dugan is a psychopath. The prosecution is arguing that this makes him a danger to society and they are seeking the death penalty.

“Dugan has pleaded guilty to the crime and the only thing left to decide is the sentence. The decision of whether Dugan gets a third life sentence or a lethal injection will be up to a DuPage County jury. The prosecution has to demonstrate aggravating factors, such as the fact that he is a future danger to society, which is why they are raising the fact that Dugan is a psychopath. The defense has to put on a case for mitigation.”

And then Jim made his pitch. “I’d like to know if you would be willing to come to Chicago to interview him and confirm that Dugan meets criteria for psychopathy and teach the defense team about the latest science on psychopaths. We may also want to get an MRI scan of Dugan if it is relevant to the defense mitigation strategy.”

I downed the rest of my quad espresso.

Jim continued, “In 1982, I worked for the prosecution in the case of John Hinckley Jr., the man who tried to assassinate President Reagan. The defense used CAT scans of Hinckley’s brain to support their diagnosis that he was psychotic and insane. The jury agreed with the defense and found him not guilty by reason of insanity. Hinckley was sent to a mental hospital.”

I was familiar with the Hinckley trial, but this was the first time I had met someone who had actually worked on the case. I reviewed the Hinckley case in my educational lectures to judges and lawyers because it was the first time in the United States that brain scans were used in court to support a psychiatric diagnosis.

Hinckley’s delusion was that by killing President Reagan he would gain the attention of actress Jodie Foster (which he did) and eventually win her affection (which he did not).

The fluid-filled spaces of Hinckley’s brain, known as the
sulci
and
ventricles
, were larger than normal. At the time, research showed that having enlarged sulci and ventricles was linked to schizophrenia.
The defense argued Hinckley’s enlarged sulci and ventricles were consistent with the diagnosis of schizophrenia.

But enlarged sulci and ventricles were not
diagnostic
of schizophrenia. That is, not everyone with schizophrenia had enlarged sulci and ventricles, and not everyone with enlarged sulci and ventricles had schizophrenia. The science at the time indicated that enlarged sulci and ventricles were
risk factors
for schizophrenia.

As Jim recounted his experience in the Hinckley trial, he said, “The dueling psychiatrists for the defense and prosecution were arguing about whether Hinckley was psychotic or not. In my opinion, the brain scans tipped the scales in the favor of the defense.”

In the twenty-five years following the Reagan assassination attempt, it became clear Hinckley did indeed suffer from schizophrenia. His insanity verdict placed him in a mental hospital, where he got good mental health care. But at the time, using brain scan evidence to support a psychiatric diagnosis was controversial.

Today, using brain scans to bolster a diagnosis of schizophrenia is relatively simple. My laboratory team, in collaboration with my colleague Dr. Vince Calhoun, have published many studies showing that we can differentiate patients with schizophrenia from healthy people, based on brain scans, with very high degrees of sensitivity and specificity. In 2012, we published a study showing we are 98 percent accurate at differentiating schizophrenia from healthy individuals based on brain scans.
¹
We can even use brain images to differentiate different types of mental illnesses, like schizophrenia from psychotic bipolar disorder.
²

Our work is designed to aid in early diagnosis of mental illness, so that we can help improve treatment for these patients. The legal system has recently become very interested in this work.

“We might want to do the MRI scans to illustrate to the jury what a psychopath’s brain looks like to support the mitigation argument,” Jim stated.

Many scholars on the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience felt that neuroscience was going to change everything about the legal system; others were not so sure. But one thing was clear: The project did not have any death penalty practicing lawyers, and it certainly did not have any practicing lawyers
who were working on psychopathic serial killer cases. I figured that I might be able to learn what lawyers in the trenches needed and report back to the project members. I thought it might stimulate a lot of discussion.

“Yes,” I told Jim. “I would be happy to meet with the legal team to teach them about psychopathy.”

I also told Jim, “We might not need to get an MRI of Dugan’s brain to help bolster the diagnosis of psychopathy, since the prosecution has already acknowledged that he met criteria for the disorder. But there might be other reasons to get an MRI, like a history of head injury. I would have to review the case file before making any recommendations.”

I’d spent the last several years reviewing hundreds of cases in which brain imaging evidence had been introduced in criminal proceedings. From bolstering psychiatric testimony to illustrating gross pathology like tumors or lesions, there were many reasons why a defense attorney might want to have an MRI done of a client.

“Great,” Jim replied. “I just have a few questions for you.

“This case is only about mitigation, not criminal responsibility. Dugan is responsible for the crime; he has already pleaded guilty. The only issue is sentencing. At sentencing the jury has to weigh the mitigating and aggravating evidence. Then the jury votes for life sentence or death sentence. A unanimous verdict must be reached for a death sentence.

“First, do you think that psychopathy constitutes an emotional disorder?” he asked.

“Yes. Psychopathy is associated with emotional deficits that are linked to impairment in nearly all domains of life; all my colleagues in the field would agree with that statement.” I hesitated. “Well, all of them would agree that psychopaths have problems with emotion, but we may not all agree on the exact cause.”

“Is there peer-reviewed literature that supports these emotional deficits?”

“Yes, an extensive one,” I replied.

“Do you think that psychopaths have abnormal brains?”

“Yes,” I answered honestly. “The science clearly indicates that psychopaths have
abnormal
brains.” As I answered, I wondered
whether the legal system had a different definition of
abnormal
than the definition I used in my undergraduate courses.

“Do you think that psychopaths’ brains are abnormal from birth?”

“Most of the evidence seems to point that way,” I said. I could already feel myself starting to hedge my answers. Jim’s questions felt like a cross-examination. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t overstate anything or say something that could be misinterpreted.

“In Illinois, if the defendant suffered from an extreme mental or emotional disorder at the time of the crime, it is considered a mitigating factor the jury must consider at sentencing,” Jim stated.

“Do you think that psychopathy is an emotional disorder?” he repeated.

“Yes. It is a lifelong emotional disorder,” I answered honestly again.

And then I told Jim about our work on emotional intelligence in psychopaths.

I explained, “Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups. There are a variety of ways to assess emotional intelligence, including self-report tests, abilities-based tests, and interviews.

“While I was at Yale University, I worked with Dr. Peter Salovey, who had spent his career developing the MSCEIT (pronounced “mis-keet”), an abilities-based test for emotional intelligence. With Salovey’s help, we implemented the MSCEIT in a large sample of prisoners, many of whom were psychopaths.
³
Psychopaths showed profound deficits in emotional intelligence compared to nonpsychopathic criminals. However, psychopaths had normal general intelligence (IQ) scores.”

Jim sat back and contemplated our findings. I could see that his mind had raced ahead to do a comparison of IQ with emotional intelligence.

“Jim, most of us know someone who has low IQ, and most people feel that if an individual with low IQ commits a crime, the legal system should consider them less responsible for their crime than someone who has normal IQ.

“As you probably know, in a landmark decision in 2002,
Atkins
v. Virginia
, the United States Supreme Court ruled that individuals with low IQ were ineligible for the death penalty. The case before the Supreme Court was argued by University of New Mexico law professor Jim Ellis.

“When I moved to New Mexico, I met with Professor Ellis and showed him our work in emotional intelligence in psychopaths. Professor Ellis said that the same logic might apply to individuals with low emotional intelligence as it applies to individuals with low IQ with respect to death penalty decisions.”

As I finished my story, Jim raised his eyebrows and said, “Wow. I’m glad that I came down to see you. Emotional intelligence research is a very important issue that we need to consider when evaluating the mitigation plan for Dugan’s case, because if any case is going to be appealed all the way up to the United States Supreme Court and set a precedent, it’s this one.”

“Jim, Isaac Ray believed that the emotional and intellectual sides of the psyche were equally important for the legal definition of
insanity
. Ray’s thinking played a huge part in the trial of Charles Guiteau,” I added.

Jim’s face blushed. “Who was Charles Guiteau?” he asked. The forensic center Jim directed was named after the prominent psychiatrist Isaac Ray, and he was embarrassed that he did not know all the cases Ray had influenced.

“Guiteau assassinated President Garfield in 1881. Ray’s theories on
moral insanity
, the term used to define psychopathy at the time, were center stage at his trial,” I noted.

Jim contemplated the historical similarities between the Guiteau and Dugan cases. The historical tension between the legal system and the definition of
moral insanity
in the 1800s was being echoed by the new psychology and neuroscience of psychopathy in the 2000s.

It was just as many of the scholars working on the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience had predicted.

Dr. Jim Cavanaugh sent me binders of historical data about Dugan. There was so much detail in the files from Dugan’s life that I felt like I didn’t even need to interview him in order to complete the Psychopathy Checklist. The death penalty mitigation team had pretty much interviewed everyone he had ever come in contact with, including his family, childhood friends, neighbors, teachers, and employers.

But I was not going to let the opportunity to interview Dugan pass. I’d entered the field of abnormal psychology because I wanted to know how to stop serial killers like Ted Bundy before they ever got started, and now I was being given complete access to a serial killer not that dissimilar from Bundy. I wanted to learn everything about him; I wanted to know why he killed. I booked a flight to Chicago.

Lead counsel for the Dugan sentencing trial was defense attorney Steve Greenberg. Greenberg wanted to meet for dinner. He said he would bring the latest mitigation research with him so I could review it before interviewing Dugan. We arranged to have dinner in downtown Chicago the night before my interview with Dugan.

One of my best friends, Ezra Friedman, an economist and lawyer, had just moved to Chicago and taken a job as a law professor at Northwestern University. I e-mailed Ezra and invited him to join us for steaks.

Ezra and I met with Greenberg at Gibson’s Bar and Steakhouse on a busy Saturday night. The place was packed. As we approached the bar searching for Greenberg, I realized I had forgotten to make a dinner reservation.

Greenberg was easy to spot. He was the only one in the bar with both hands full. In his right hand he was carrying a large accordion-style binder with the latest mitigation details; in his left hand was a martini the size of a softball.

After completing our introductions, Greenberg handed me the
binder and suggested we grab a table so we could talk in private about the case.

“What’s the name on the reservation?” he asked.

“I forgot to make one,” I confessed.

Greenberg winked at me and walked up to the hostess desk.

As he approached the hostess, she smiled and gave Greenberg an embrace. She sat us at a corner table on the porch right along Rush Street. It was the best seat in the house.

The hostess returned a few seconds later with a fresh martini for Greenberg. “On the house,” she said. Then she whispered something in his ear and he replied, “Not a problem. Just let me know if he needs anything else.”