The reason you do not know what to make of this case is deceptively simple: You do not fully understand the biology of mental illness nor the legality of insanity, incompetence nor mitigation. That's okay - these are highly technical areas of expertise, and very few people understand them fully. At least you are trying.

Most criminal behavior is caused by brain dysfunction. It's obvious, but the problem then becomes a dialog over the concept of 'blame.'

When people are guilty, we can spend (in Florida, where I practice criminal defense law), we can spend $52.90 per DAY to warehouse them, or we can require treatment as a component of community supervision: Take your meds, go to counseling, you avoid jail. Don't take your meds, don't keep your counseling appointments, you go to jail for X days the first time, Y days the second, and so forth.

Unfortunately, this would actually solve the social problem of recidivism and save the taxpayers billions of dollars . . . which is why it is suppressed.

Bipolar disorder as a defense? Rarely works. Mitigation and treatment? Hell yes - makes dollars and sense.

It doesn't matter what dx a person has, there is a personal responsibilty for actions at some point.

So let me make sure that I understand this right - he gives credit to having the bipolar when it helps and uses it as an excuse when that is what is needed. Very convenient.

Jaysus. I spent 11 hours today covering a House Committee Hearing charged with "assessing the relationship between mental illness and criminal behavior and... reforms needed to address the proliferation of mental illness in the criminal justice system."

It's not a weak defense, and it is indeed complicated, but I deny the brain disease speculation delivered as factual (!) in the first comment. The human race includes a segment that does the things the rest of us wish we could, in a complete disinhibition of something known as "id", which is to say i HaZ A THEERY, just not quite as fashionable as yours, Counselor.

Well, I can't confess to stealing, because I haven't, but does excessive shopping count? 2004- bought a house in the mountains, a used Prius, a $1000 antique corner cabinet, and about 400 books for my school from the Salvation Army. Eventually, I got talked into taking lithium and the behavior went away. I have never taken "blame" for doing these things; rather now I make jokes about it. I've heard many other stories like this from people who had undiagnosed/untreated manic depression.

Flawedplan, then I have only one question about your 11 hours of House Committee coverage:

Did any nuclear physicians present neuroimages from SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) or fMRI scans and compare normally functioning individuals to recidivist criminals?

This is why there is so much confusion - the images are different. The brains of healthy normal people are different from those of repeat offenders.

There are thousands of neuroimaging studies of the obvious link between brain dysfunction and behavior. Yet we are held hostage to moral arguments which ignore science in favor of ignorant, opinion based beliefs.

Finally, my "theories" about behavior are unimportant and irrelevant: The only thing I really care about is that those of my clients who are guilty of breaking the law STOP breaking the law. Needless to say, most of my colleagues and every practice advisor I have fired thinks this is a terrible approach from the perspective of law office economics.

SPECT and fMRI "prove" nothing.

SPECT and functional MRI measure blood flow in the brain, indicating metabolism and energy use. To my knowledge, this information still needs to be correlated with both 1) what is occurring anatomically, chemically, electrically etc. in the brain and then relate that to 2) what the patient is "feeling" and perceiving.

SPECT is a computed image, and is often used with corrections or other methods of imaging such as CT to confirm anatomy, etc.

fMRI can tell you where the brain is active, but doesn't tell you what it is doing (or why).

Both of these imaging modalities are more advanced than previous methods, but care must be exercised in interpreting the results. They show what they show, and no more.

Stephen,

You present the perfect example of the crimes committed against humanity by short sighted criminal defense lawyers.

You write: "Most criminal behavior is caused by brain dysfunction. It's obvious, but the problem then becomes a dialog over the concept of 'blame."

This is totally untrue. Criminal behavior may well be caused by inequity in the structure of our society as well as by unfair laws, and of course by immoral behavior. Cocaine, opiates, and marijuana should be decriminalized. That would cut back on all sorts of crime. White collar criminals should be prosecuted which is happening more and more, and sadly it's often these guys with the big bucks that claim snazzy defenses like bipolar made me embezzle and such.

You write: "This is why there is so much confusion - the images are different. The brains of healthy normal people are different from those of repeat offenders.

There are thousands of neuroimaging studies of the obvious link between brain dysfunction and behavior. Yet we are held hostage to moral arguments which ignore science in favor of ignorant, opinion based beliefs."

These statements are just untrue. There are no neuroimaging studies that show an obvious link between brain dysfunction and behavior. There are not any, there are none. Furthermore, it is now known that the brain continues to grow and change throughout life. Your lack of understanding of the importance of morality in criminal behavior and in the punishment of such is an indication of your own personal corruption and depravity.

Equating "mental illness" with morality, well, that's evil. Most crimes are committed by people with no psychiatric history or label. The confusion comes when filthy dung like you convince people who either committed crimes or are wrongly accused to hide behind the label of mental illness. If one man gets a ngri verdict because some lawyer claims he's bipolar then all people labeled bipolar are treated as murderers, which seems to be the world you want, a world of forced drugging and "counseling" for some, supervised by lawyers like yourself who never volunteer for the brain imaging just to see what you might be capable of.

Between my second and third years of law school I was labeled bipolar erroneously. I finished law school with a pshrink monotoring me with no meds, but with the label in my record, I can't take the bar exam because of trash like you. And then there are all of those people rotting in jail or else in the always worse psychiatric hospital or chemically and mentally castrated in the living hell that is outpatient commitment because of idiots like you.

THE BRAINS OF CRIMINALS ARE NOT STRUCTURED DIFFERENTLY FROM THE BRAINS OF "NORMAL" PEOPLE, THE BRAINS OF THOSE LABELED MENTALLY ILL ARE NOT STRUCTURED DIFFERENTLY FROM THE BRAINS OF THOSE NOT SO LABELED. THERE ARE PEOPLE WHOSE BRAINS ARE STRUCTURALLY DIFFERENT FROM THE BRAINS THEY WERE BORN WITH DUE TO INJURY AND DRUGS, PARTICULARLY THE PSYCH DRUGS YOU ADVOCATE - THESE PEOPLE AS A GROUP DO NOT COMMIT MORE CRIMES THAN OTHER PEOPLE.

Carlat has some great stuff on the bullsh*t of brain imaging: http://carlatpsychiatry.blogspot.com/2008/05/more-on-spect-scans-and-daniel-amen.html

Stephen, you've made enough money of off the suffering of others in our unfair system. I hope you voluntarily surrender your license to practice law soon.

"You do not fully understand the biology of mental illness"

Do you understand Stephen?
Are you saying that you understand the biology of mental illness?
There! We have a Nobel in the Blog!
Congratulations Stephen!

"Most criminal behavior is caused by brain dysfunction."

Can you please tell us which of this brain dysfunctions are more common and what are the crimes related?

I want to hire a person to clean my house. Surely I'll make all candidates have their brain studied for I don't want trouble.

"There are thousands of neuroimaging studies of the obvious link between brain dysfunction and behavior."
There are thousands of neuroimaging studies of the obvious link between brain dysfunction and behavior
Can you please give us the links to such precious data?

I second Jo Ann

It means nothing!

Stephen please,
Refers yourself to the article:

Neuroscience with a conscience?
Thoughts, lies and anti-terrorism
By Olivier Oullier
http://mondediplo.com/2005/12/16neuroscience

I only have access to the French and the Portuguese version.

Sally,
Thank you.
I haven't seen your comment while I was writing mine.
I was going to search one of the numerous sites that makes statements like the one you have done.

I was so appalled by all these absurds that I had to come back to say what you're saying:

Stephen,

I've just visited your site.
Shame on you Stephen! Do you want people to believe that you're a serious lawyer with a site like that?
Dear Lord!
I have lawyers in my family!
All you have written here shows that you know nothing about anything.
Isn't discrimination against people with mental illnesses a crime in US?

Stephen,
"California disability law prohibits discrimination on the basis of both “physical” and “mental” disabilities"

Get in touch with these lawyers:

http://www.stevenrubinlaw.com/PracticeAreas/Disability-Discrimination-Center.asp

WWW is a place where many people are keen to do harm to others.
As the allegations made by Stephen who is "Founding Director of Brain Health Alliance (2007)", as I've just saw in his site, are so absurds I wrote him a message in this site asking if it was really he who wrote these absurdities.
I cannot believe that a "normal" person can make such statements.

Let's wait an see.

Stephen/Steven, you're an idiot.

Sally, I didn't know you had gone to law school. On what basis are you not allowed to write the bar exam? That sounds patently discriminatory to me. Was this some time ago? Mental patients need all the legal advocates they can get!

Jesus! Why I wrote to the man?
The man has a blog and made a post showing the "photograph" of a criminal brain:
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
What does the Criminal Mind look like?

http://florida-criminal-law.blogspot.com/

LOL
At least we can have some fun!

My only big concern is that Stephen is putting in jeopardy his own job!
Stephen,
Can't you see that now we need no lawyers?
A SPECT is the only evidence required!
Wow! That will change everything!
The judge will read the SPECT and make the sentence according to brain images.
Welcome to the wonderful scientific world!