I think it's a drag when people like this pervert give us loonies a bad name. I'm quite sure that if I robbed a bank, my defense attorney would jump up and down and take the same position. But it sucks.

Posted by: Francesca Allan at June 24, 2008 01:21 PM

oh this sort of thing totally pisses me off....

This guy is a sick lech and it has nothing to do with being bipolar.

It's people like that that gets people like TAC support.

If people believe hypomania makes people truly out of control that gives justification to all the people out there that would strip us of our civil rights and drug us up against our will in our homes as well as in hospitals...

truly sickening.

this man should go to jail for sexual assault, not get let off the hook for a bogus claim of not being able to control himself.

this is the stuff that stigma is made of.

Posted by: Gianna at June 24, 2008 01:52 PM

Well, I'll go out on a limb here and say that if he were using a medication induced behavioral defense I'd be a lot more supportive about it than using a mental illness induced defense. Frankly I do believe that medication can lead to some bizarre behavioral changes that could well be very much out of character and, if someone has not been warned in the slightest that this could happen, should they be shown some leniency? Possibly -- I'm not saying I know exactly where I stand on this one. Just saying that it does happen. Of course we don't know whether the Senator was medicated before these incidents or not. But "hypomanic"? There's no definitive way to tell whether someone "has" hypomania or even bipolar disorder or not so I don't think it's a good defense. And everyone who commits a sexual assault is probably a little wacko so if we make that a good defense than everyone should get off. That doesn't sound right.

Posted by: Sara at June 24, 2008 03:17 PM

If there is justice, he will win with this defense and get put in a criminally insane institution for a longer period of time than the sentence of what should have been served for a felony charge.

That is the reality of "not criminally responsible" for most defendants.

Posted by: therapyfirst at June 24, 2008 04:27 PM

Sorry, but you guys who accept the bipolar label have to admit it's right there in the dsm. In light of current thinking and diagnostic procedures, it's a good defense. Of course I don't believe in the label. I do however believe that being hyped up on psych drugs could cause such a loss of inhibitions especially when combined with a team of mental health professionals telling you you have a chemical imbalance in your brain and can't control your impulses. Wonder if he was taking an snri, effexor maybe, that "unmasked" his bipolar?

Posted by: Sally at June 24, 2008 05:04 PM

Sally,
I don't know who you're talking to...I don't accept the bipolar label, but there is indeed bipolar behavior that gets labeled. It is sometimes expedient to use the term...

I use the term on my website to get people who think they're bipolar to start thinking outside the box....

we are in a culture that accepts these labels...

and there is no denying that there is phenomena of behavior that happens and that is how people get labeled...I was indeed psychotic and manic....it may have been drug induced but the behavior and experience was there.

Denying the phenomena of symptoms doesn't help anyone but blaming this sort of poor impulse control on something as mild as hypomania is what emboldens people to hang on to labeling.

Posted by: Gianna at June 24, 2008 07:25 PM

This is infuriating, it's manipulative sniveling twits like this guy that allow the stigma to continue and flourish. And hypomania? Like you said Phil, if he were full-blown psychotic that would be one thing, but hypomania could hardly accomplish this.

Notice he checked into the facility AFTER being accused, not after the incident. Do we have anything showing that he has been in treatment for his condition PRIOR to this hitting the news?

Posted by: Jordan at June 24, 2008 11:48 PM

"I've never heard of trying to invoke the bipolar defense based on hypomanic symptoms..."

I have: Deborah Lefave and Mary Kay Letourneau, for starters. Hypersexuality associated with hypomania, you know about that, yes?

"'I want the world to see that bipolar is real,' Lafave said. 'Not one time has the media brought up the subject of my bipolar. I challenge you to read a book or an article on bipolar illness.' Her relationship with the student, Lafave said, was a result." From Charges dropped in teacher sex scandal.

Plus Ex-Rangers cheerleader sex-crazed, say attorneys. She didn't assault anyone but in a complicated case in which she sued Madison Square Garden, their defense was that she was hypersexual from bipolar.

"In the sweeping counterattack, Garden attorney Melissa Rodriguez said Prince's behavior 'is not surprising as she suffered from bipolar disorder, a classic symptom of which is hypersexuality.'

"Rodriguez based her claim on the report from a Columbia University psychiatrist who examined Prince last October.

"Affidavits from six fellow skaters also attacked Prince's claim that she was fired from her $150-a-game gig in 2004 after complaining of being sexually harassed by a Rangers executive. Prince maintains the executive tried to talk her into a threesome at a West Village bar.

"The skaters claim Prince pretended to simulate sex on the ice during one practice and regularly coached skaters to appear more 'f---able.' She also grabbed other skaters' breasts and used explicit terms to describe their anatomy, the skaters said."

I'm definitely not defending a sex offender, but bipolar can certainly be a cause (*not* an excuse).

Posted by: Tinkerbelle at June 25, 2008 12:43 AM

tinkbelle, i was referring solely to the use of the term hypomania in the fashion in which the politician's leakers seem to be using it. i don't recall the term hypomania coming up in the mary kay trial and don't recall seeing it in coverage of lafavre either. i do recall seeing bipolar disorder spring up with the latter, but again it never got to the hypomania level of specificity. either way, it strikes me as a bullshit line of legal defense, destined to not win favor with juries. hypomania ain't insanity.

Posted by: Philip Dawdy at June 25, 2008 01:30 AM

There we go again with the word "bipolarity"!
And the symptoms!
From what I've been reading here it seems that "sexual perversion" is one of the symptoms.
It's amazing that when a person has maniac-depressive psychosis he/she is only seen as "symptomatical" people. Nothing else matters.
Gee! I didn't know my ex husband was a sexual pervert! Now I'll have to rethink what we were doing every time there was sexual activity involved. I'm having doubts about the sweet, tender and loving things he used to say. He was lying! Surely.
When he kissed me it meant nothing sweet! He is bipolar so...
I also have to rethink about his character, personality and everything!
Perhaps that's why there are so many bipolars making lots of money prostituting themselves.
That's where they get their money to buy antipsychotics and pay psychiatrists.

Posted by: Ana at June 25, 2008 02:07 AM

Gianna, I'm not denying that the accused here groped a woman, and I'm not denying that groping a woman might be a sign of poor impulse control. But you have to admit, sexual acting out is a primary diagnostic criteria for hypomania.

I think the point is that sometimes people do bad things, impulsively bad things but if you accept that hypomania exists, you accept that people in that state you are arguing that people in that state are too sick to uphold their obligations to society and must be drugged and segregated. I'm not saying people don't become agitated and do wrong, I'm saying becoming agitated, i.e. being hypomanic, is not a mental illness.

What the hell happened to Biderman? Why do we get so much more outraged over one sexual assualt than we do over this man making millions poisoning children? It's the Spitzer syndrome. Stealing lots of money in a way that will eventually be found out really does also meet the diagnostic criteria for hypomania but no one accuses him of mental illness.

Posted by: Sally at June 25, 2008 03:45 AM

I truly believe that it will take too much time to raise any kind of voice in US against all the psychiatry scandal.
Too much aggression.
The more you as American citizens who are concerned with mental health fight against yourselves more powerful psychiatry becomes.
All Biedermans thank you very much for being unable to discuss the subject without passion and with objectiveness in order to draw some lines and ask for, at least, respect.
That's what I like about Philip's work.
He is trying hard to be objective and reporting as a journalist. He is a journalist.
The mainstream media would never ask him to work for them.
He does his work, and what a work!, here.
Congratulations Philip!
And please, do me a favor,
keep on reporting without passion and forgetting your symptoms.
I know how hard it must be when you're depressed, you've already been depressed once and kept on posting, to keep on with clarity and objectiveness.
But this is exactly what makes your work good.

Posted by: Ana at June 25, 2008 03:57 PM

"I somehow have a hunch that a judge or jury would have a tough time with such a defense, as they should. I'm not sure that anyone could establish that hypomania removes one from their obligations to others in society--that would include not assaulting them--and that thy aren't able to discern between right and wrong.

What do you think?"

As soon as I saw the charges I first thought nononononononooooooo

Sorry "my Bipolar made me do it"* is not an acceptable excuse.

Nor is "the Devil made me do it" acceptable either.

The proper answer is, "I screwed up, it was 100% my fault. It was poor impulse control, poor judgment and I take full responsibility for my actions"

That is the only answer I want to hear from him.

Correct me if I am wrong, and I may be but,

The hypothalamus and amygdala are part of the limbic system the *impulse* system. The limbic system is an early evolutionary system, it is part of the primitive side.

The limbic system is present in animals and humans.

Humans however have nifty structures like the frontal lobes and especially the prefrontal cortex.

The frontal lobes and PFC are involved with planning, judgment, consequences, rule abiding, socializing, personality, restraint and inhibition.

Frontal lobes also have a say so on voluntary movement.

Children are taught not to touch certain things because of certain consequences.

Young children and babies are not expected to understand societal mores, norms, expected social behavior, right from wrong and concepts like personal space or privacy.

Coping a feel is giving in to the limbic system and whilst ignoring the inhibitory commands of the frontal lobes.

We don't expect babies and small children to know such things partly because their brains, their neuron density and lobe development is significantly less than that of late teens and adults.

We do expect these things from adults in communities. We agreed to certain rules, spoken and unspoken in order to live in close proximity to each other.

This senator was not manipulated by a disease, he chose to cop a feel deliberately and activated his nervous system voluntarily of his own free will.

At best it could be called an serious lack of good judgment and immature behavior. A momentary lack of reason.

That I can understand and even sympathize having had several unrelated incidents of poor judgment and impulse in my own life.

If he does get off on hypomania defense he should toast himself and his lawyer, a victory over common sense and the evolution of human brain structures.

*My unproven and unspecific lifelong genetic chemical imbalance is at fault is not a scientifically valid excuse for poor judgment despite what Big Pharma may say in it's literature.

Now if he can cough up of some MRI scans that prove his frontal lobes are damaged and that this damage prevents inhibition against limbic system input than I might be inclined to think twice about my own judgment here. Good luck with that ‘Baby’ Marzilli.

Posted by: Jane at June 28, 2008 01:25 PM

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