Murder in Chicago: Insanity and Tragedy. (from the chapter) This chapter examines the perpetrator of a tragic beating in Chicago of 4 individuals that resulted in the death of one. Given the fact that the defendant had attacked a family in broad daylight with many witnesses present, the attorney knew from the start that he would be using an insanity defense. The author eventually completed a neuropsychological evaluation of the defendant approximately 20 months after the crime. The defendant presented as a young African American male with unresponsive and flat affect, who seemed frightened and paranoid. Although sluggish, he was alert and oriented to person, place, time, and reason for the evaluation. During the interview, he reported that he was experiencing auditory hallucinations on the day of the attack. The voices reportedly told him to pick up a table leg that he saw lying under a viaduct. As he continued to walk, carrying the table leg, he saw some people walking down the sidewalk toward him. He stated that he believed they were going to kill him. He reported that he swung the table leg at two individuals, recalling that he struck them. He stated that he did not recall if he struck the other people in the group or not. His next memory was the arrival of the police. Several neuropsychological tests were administered and test results revealed multiple neurocognitive deficits involving attentional disturbance, anterograde memory dysfunction that was significantly compounded by his attentional disturbance, and executive dysfunction. Based on his performance on the Test of Memory Malingering, the author interpreted his test performance as valid and concluded that he had put forth sufficient test-taking effort. However, his MMPI-2 profile was invalid, due to response inconsistency secondary to thought disorganization and active psychotic symptoms. Four years after the crime and 1 year after the trial had started, the judge found the defendant guilty but mentally ill. He was subsequently given two consecutive sentences of 25 years for murder and 12 years for attempted murder. The author learned an important lesson with this case: it is necessary to complete an objective assessment of psychiatric symptom exaggeration, such as the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS). It was obvious to that the defendant was psychotic at the time of my evaluation, and based on the nature of the crime and his well-documented psychiatric status following the crime, the author believed that he was psychotic at the time of the crime. However, objective assessment of psychiatric malingering is imperative in cases in which an insanity defense is pursued. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved) https://www.upress.umn.edu/test-division/bibliography/2000-2009/2005/hanlon_murder_2005 https://www.upress.umn.edu/logo.png

Robert E Hanlon and Michael W Mayfield (2005)

Murder in Chicago: Insanity and Tragedy.

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Adults
Affect
APA
Attorney
Auditory hallucinations
Death
Defense
Disorganization
Disturbance
effort
Families
Family
Hallucinations
IF
Insanity
Insanity Defense
Interview
Lying
Malingering
Memory
MMPI 2
MMPI-2
MMPI-2 profile
Neuropsychological tests
Neuropsychology
Objective assessment
Performance
Police
Profile
Psychotic
Recall
Response inconsistency
School
Symptoms
Task
Test
Test performance
Test taking
Thought
Time
University
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Murder in Chicago: Insanity and Tragedy.