Fictional confession proves man's undoing

Sensational case mesmerizes Poland

"The perfect crime" is how the Polish media dubbed the unsolved case.

The hog-tied body was found floating in a remote inlet of the Oder River in 2000. Before death, Dariusz Janiszewski was tortured and starved, suggesting he was killed by someone who bore him enmity.

But who would have killed the happily married, good looking, and well liked young advertising executive, an amateur guitarist who enjoyed Led Zeppelin and wore his blond hair long and flowing? Police were unable to locate any suspects, and the case went cold.

Perhaps, as in Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, the killer could still hear the beating of the dead man's heart. Or maybe his overconfidence did him in. Maybe it was neither guilt nor overconfidence, but simply the temerity of Jacek Wroblewski (dubbed "Jack Sparrow" by his colleagues), the new detective assigned to the cold case.

Sifting through the case file three years later, the detective decided to trace the whereabouts of the dead man's cell phone. He found that a few days after Janiszewski’s death, "ChrisB[7]" had sold the phone on an Internet auction site. ChrisB[7], as it turned out, was Krystian Bala, a postmodernist intellectual featured in the documentary "Young Money" about Poland's nouveau capitalist class.

That link would not have been enough to convict. But Bala had written a creepy novel called "Amok" that contained startling similarities to the killing. The novel’s protagonist, a postmodernist intellectual named Chris, kills his lover and then sells the murder weapon on the Internet.

Detective Wroblewski pored over Bala's sleazy tract for clues until he had it practically memorized, even hiring a psychologist to analyze the author's personality. Further digging unearthed a direct but hidden connection between Bala and his victim: Janiszewski and Bala's wife had a brief extramarital affair some months before the murder.

Was it guilt, revelry, or a desire for attention that drove Bala to write about his crime?

Gisli Gudjonsson, the internationally known confessions expert and forensic psychologist whom I've previously blogged about, says it is rare for people to be able to keep a horrendous crime totally secret. People, even the most depraved, are social animals.

And Bala, by all accounts, was overconfident. Two psychologists who evaluated him after his arrest reported that he had a high IQ, extreme narcissism, and sadistic tendencies. A lethal combination for his victim and a dangerous one for him, too, in that his constant need to demonstrate his superiority led to anonymous boasts to police and the Polish media of his "perfect crime."

Bala's reported psychological makeup is similar to what psychologist Del Paulhus likes to call the "Dark Triad," a combination of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. Using rather circular reasoning, author Marilee Strong argues in her new book Erased (which I review here) that the triad explains a specific type of cold-blooded, premeditated wife killer, Scott Peterson being the exemplar. (Hans Reiser, currently on trial in Oakland, is potentially another example; I plan to say more about him after the jury verdict.) I say circular, because applying the labels of narcissist, psychopath, and Machiavellian provides little in the way of explanation, nor are these theoretical constructs independent of each other.

Another way to look at these types of killings is to see them as a blending of instrumental and expressive motivations. Instrumental violence is theorized to underlie more rational, goal-oriented killings, such as the murder of a rape or a robbery victim in order to eliminate a witness, or killings that occur during warfare or organized crime disputes. Expressive violence is driven by emotion and is typically impulsive and unplanned.

Bala's motive was jealous rage, but his cunning and intelligence enabled him to harness his rage in order to plot and execute a more chilling murder. (Check out the recent San Francisco killing of Leonard Hoskins for what could turn out to be a similar blending of instrumental and expressive violence.)

But even more essential to these types of killings than cold-blooded cunning is a chilling level of entitlement. These types of killers, mainly relatively privileged white men, seem to believe that they have the unalienable right to permanently dispose of others who become inconvenient to them. One of the few nonwhite wife killers in Strong's book, for example, is a star football player; as catalogued in recent books on sexual violence in competitive sports, these cultural icons take entitlement to a whole higher plane.

What proved Bala's undoing was his arrogant horn tooting. Amok, described as "a pulp-fiction orgy of bestiality, pornographic Oedipal complexes and indiscriminate sexual violence," went on to become a star witness against him at his trial last year. Simultaneously, the book surged from obscurity to bestseller status as the Polish public lapped up every detail in the most sensational trial in the nation's history.

Although Bala was convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison, his conviction has been overturned and a retrial is expected to get underway soon.

For a lengthy essay on the Bala case, see David Grann's "Letter from Poland" in the New Yorker. News coverage is here and here; literary commentary is here. BBC has an interesting article here on cases of voluntary confession. Photo credit: valobstruction's "SUV parked in a loading zone" (Creative Commons license).

Sex offender sues over firing

A convicted rapist fired from his job at a McDonald's after a woman told management he was a registered sex offender is suing the restaurant's owner and the woman, claiming information about him on the state's Sex Offender Registry Board was misused.

"He's a shining example of someone doing everything he's supposed to do and still getting a raw deal at the end of the day," said the attorney for 50-year-old Scott Gagnon, who spent almost his entire adult life in prison for a series of rapes.

That's the lead in yesterday's Boston Globe; the full story is here. Pertinent commentary can be found at the Sex Crimes and Sex Offender Research blogs.

Does CSI Effect really lead to more acquittals?

Crime dramas saturate network television. Most focus on science and technology, blending reality and fiction to give viewers unrealistic beliefs about evidence in real-life cases. For the past few years, prosecutors have been lamenting this so-called CSI Effect, stating that jurors are making impossible demands for scientific evidence in order to convict.

But does the expectation of scientific evidence really translate into increased acquittals? And, if so, are viewers of TV crime shows more susceptible to this effect?

Those were the questions that a Michigan judge and two other researchers set out to answer, through a survey of more than 1,000 randomly selected jurors.

Judge Donald Shelton and colleagues found that almost half of the prospective jurors surveyed expected to see scientific evidence in every case, with 22 percent expecting DNA evidence – a highly unrealistic expectation. Not surprisingly, this expectation was stronger for regular viewers of CSI, who were also more likely to believe that their favorite TV crime dramas were realistic.

However, the jurors' expectations did not necessarily translate into an automatic tendency to acquit. Rather, jurors said they would only demand scientific evidence if the prosecutor did not call the victims or others as witnesses. In rape cases, however, CSI viewers were less likely than other jurors to say they would convict a suspect in the absence of DNA evidence (which often is not available in real-life sexual assault cases).

Increased expectations of law enforcement are not necessarily a bad thing, Judge Shelton argued in an essay published in this month’s National Institute of Justice journal (available online here). Perhaps, he wrote, police should make more of an effort to get the scientific evidence that the public seeks. And, when such evidence is not available, attorneys and judges need to learn how to explain this reality to the jury.

"Most importantly," wrote Shelton, who has written extensively on the impact of technology on the law, "prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges should understand, anticipate, and address the fact that jurors enter the courtroom with a lot of information about the criminal justice system and the availability of scientific evidence."

Two major competency cases in court

Self-representation and execution at issue

• Should a higher level of competency be required for being one's own lawyer than for standing trial with a real lawyer?

• How competent must someone be in order for the state to kill him?

Those two issues were in court yesterday in separate but somewhat related cases, one before the U.S. Supreme Court and the other in a widely awaited Texas appellate court ruling.

Competency to represent oneself

Although it was eclipsed by the OJ trial happening at the same time in Los Angeles, some readers may recall the farcical spectacle of Colin Ferguson's trial. Ferguson was the delusional man who opened fire on the Long Island Railroad, killing six people and wounding 19 more. After firing his prominent attorneys, he represented himself and presented a bizarre, delusionally based defense. He was found guilty, naturally, and received six consecutive life terms.

The Ferguson spectacle was enabled by the high court's 1993 opinion in Godinez v. Moran. Tom Moran was a severely depressed, suicidal defendant who waived the right to an attorney in a double murder case, pled guilty without presenting any evidence, and was promptly sentenced to die. The Supreme Court held that the same low standard of competency exists for all criminal proceedings.

Proponents of allowing mentally ill defendants to represent themselves despite questionable understanding and judgment cite the Sixth Amendment's right to self-representation. Legal scholar Michael Perlin, who just published an excellent book on competency, calls this argument a "pretextual" rationalization.

The competing positions were at the forefront of oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday in the case of Indiana v. Edwards. The case involves Ahmad Edwards, a schizophrenic man whom a trial judge ruled was competent to stand trial for a robbery-shooting but incompetent to represent himself.

The state of Indiana argued before the high court yesterday that allowing states to set their own, higher standards for self-representation ensures both fairness for accused individuals and the dignity of the courts.

Edwards' attorney countered that "the expressed premise of the Sixth Amendment and of our adversarial system generally is that the defense belongs to the accused and not to the state."

The high court justices were divided along predictable lines. Justice Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy seemed concerned about people ending up in prison because they were too disturbed to represent their best interests at trial. But Justice Antonin Scalia said that's just too bad for them – if a defendant makes a poor choice, it is "his own fault."

A ruling is expected within the next few months.

Competency to be executed

The legal standard is much lower for competency to be executed. If you've got a basic understanding that you committed a crime and the state is going to kill you for it, you're good to go (to the Pearly Gates, that is).

That's the "Ford standard" set in the 1986 case of Ford vs. Wainwright, in which the Supreme Court ruled that executing a person who is severely mentally ill constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Last year, the highly polarized Supreme Court declined to clarify the somewhat vague Ford standard, issuing a 5-4 opinion on narrow procedural grounds in the closely watched Panetti v. Quarterman case (see my previous blog posts here and here; the opinion is here).

Yesterday, a Texas court responded by affirming convicted killer Scott Panetti's competence to die. Indeed, said the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, "if any mentally ill person is competent to be executed for his crimes, this record establishes it is Scott Panetti."

Panetti, who killed his estranged wife's parents, was found competent to stand trial after two jury trials on that issue. Unlike Ahmad Ewards, he was allowed to represent himself at his 1995 murder trial despite being floridly psychotic and delusional - and he's been regretting it ever since. During his trial, he rambled insanely and tried to subpoena Jesus Christ, John F. Kennedy, and other dead people.

"The record of Panetti's competency hearings and trial is not pretty," the appellate court conceded. "For better or worse, however, the issues of Panetti's competence to stand trial and his insanity defense have been tried, appealed, reviewed in state and federal habeas proceedings, and conclusively put to rest. Panetti is not permitted to relitigate these arguments in his proceedings under Ford."

The court’s 62-page opinion is interesting reading. It reviews the facts of the case, the exhaustive history of appeals, and the expert witness testimony of numerous well-regarded forensic experts called by both sides. The case even involved expert testimony by a forensic psychiatrist and neurologist, Dr. Priscilla Ray, on the science behind competency opinions, that is, "the extent to which psychiatric science can assist the Court in assessing competence to be executed, particularly with regard to the concept of rational understanding."

In discussing Panetti's "rational understanding" of his situation, the court also contemplated evidence suggesting that Panetti was exaggerating his schizophrenic disorder to avoid the needle. Yesterday's opinion cited the results of widely used tests of malingering, including the Structured Inventory of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) and Green's Word Memory Test (WMT).

At the end of the day, after reviewing all of the evidence, the Court held:

"Panetti is seriously mentally ill…. While the extent to which Panetti has been manipulating or exaggerating his symptoms is unclear, it is not seriously disputable that Panetti suffers from paranoid delusions of some type… However, it is equally apparent … that [his] delusions do not prevent him from having both a factual and rational understanding that he committed [the] murders, was tried and convicted, and is sentenced to die for them…. Panetti was mentally ill when he committed his crime and continues to be mentally ill today. However, he has both a factual and rational understanding of his crime, his impending death, and the causal retributive connection between the two."

The ruling can be found HERE. National Public Radio has coverage and commentary here. A 28-minute video, "Executing the Insane: The Case of Scott Panetti," is available here. An essay by Yale scholar Steven Erickson entitled "Minding Moral Responsibility," which discusses the Panetti case, is available here. The Indianapolis Star has more coverage of Indiana v. Edwards.

Hat tip: Steven Erickson

Prison pipeline for transgender youth

Poor and minority especially at risk

At a prison reception center, dozens of orange-clad men sit in a long row, waiting for an initial mental health screening. Imagine my surprise, one morning, to see an orange-clad woman sitting in one of the chairs.

I did a double-take the first time I saw this while working at the prison. After a while, though, I got used to it. Quite a few transgender prisoners live in mainline men's prisons.

It was always interesting to talk to these women in men's bodies. I remember being especially impressed by the poise and self-assurance of one in particular. I saw Kalani Key during her 14th stint in prison; she now works as an advocate for transgender prisoners and has written an essay entitled "How I Survived Men's Prison as a Woman."

Key's survival story is remarkable in light of the pervasive victimization of transgender prisoners. Since the landmark case of Farmer v. Brennan in 1994, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that prison rape is unconstitutional, transgender prisoners have made some modest progress. But rates of sexual violence against them remain astonishingly high. A recent study by UC Irvine criminologist Valerie Jenness found that 59% of transgender prisoners in California reported sexual victimization, compared to 4% of the general prison population.

Last fall, Dr. Jenness testified as an expert in the civil trial of transgender prisoner Alexis Giraldo, who sued Folsom Prison officials over an alleged prison rape. Giraldo lost.

Why such high rates of incarceration and abuse?

As I found out while researching the motivations of hate crime offenders back in the mid-1900s, probably no one is more despised and vilified than the man or woman who violates traditional norms for male and female behavior. Rejection and abuse by family, schools, peers and the community at large lead to high rates of depression, substance abuse, school dropout, and running away. These problems may lead to homelessness and prostitution which, in turn, lead to arrest.

As explored in an article published this month, transgender youth who get caught up in the juvenile justice system face extreme hostility and abuse at the hands of judges, counselors, correctional staff, and even their own court-appointed attorneys. They are more likely than other youths to be given harsh punishment in maximum-security institutions. This, of course, is part of the channeling toward adult prison.

The timely article, by attorney Jody Marksamer, chronicles the case of 15-year-old Destiny, who was sent to a maximum-security facility where she was sexually assaulted, harassed, and mistreated by both youths and staff. Subjected to forced gender conformity in the guise of "treatment," she was punished for dancing like a girl and was told by staff not to report her ongoing experiences of sexual victimization.

Like Destiny, many of the transgender prisoners I saw were poor and nonwhite. Indeed, a large proportion of the young transgender women and men who are murdered every year are minority. This fact is conveniently neglected by the mainstream transgender rights movement, according to a provocative article in the same special issue of Sexuality Research and Social Policy highlighting the murder of 16-year-old Fred "FC" Martinez, a Navajo Indian.

Shutting down the prison pipeline for poor and minority transgender youth is a tall order. The schools need to be safe so transgender youth are not forced to drop out. Professionals in the criminal justice system, and most especially in the juvenile justice system, need education and training. Individualized diversion programs need to be created as alternatives to detention for juvenile status offenders.

Last but not least, the conditions of confinement need to be improved. Labeling transgender youths as sexual deviants and then housing them with aggressive sex offenders is a recipe for further victimization and trauma.

The articles referenced above are in the current issue of Sexuality Research & Social Policy, a special issue dedicated to transgender issues. Jody Marksamer's article is entitled "And by the Way, Do You Know He Thinks He's a Girl? The Failures of Law, Policy, and Legal Representation for Transgender Youth in Juvenile Delinquency Courts." The other article I mention is "Retelling racialized violence, remaking white innocence: The politics of interlocking oppressions in Transgender Day of Remembrance" by Sarah Lamble. A 2005 ACLU report on violence against transgender prisoners, "Still in Danger," is also available online.

Photo credit: Andrew Ciscel (Creative Commons license)

Presidential hopefuls' criminal justice stances

Despite growing public awareness of the drastic costs of current policies, criminal justice issues have received little attention in the U.S. presidential debates. To rectify this, the nonpartisan Sentencing Project has prepared a handy 11-page pdf guide that provides the positions of frontrunners McCain, Obama and Clinton on nine key criminal justice issues, including sentencing policy, prisoner reentry, the death penalty, and felony disenfranchisement. The guide is available here.