Opinion ID: 2633370
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Expert Witnesses Called by the People

Text: Dr. Paul Cutting, a psychiatrist, examined defendant at the pretrial stage to determine whether defendant was competent to stand trial; at that time Dr. Cutting also examined defendant for sanity. He interviewed defendant for a little over one hour and examined about 200 pages of documents supplied to him by the district attorney's office. He did not administer any psychological tests. Defendant told him about the voices he heard in his head, and Dr. Cutting thought defendant did actually experience such voices. Dr. Cutting concluded defendant suffered from a schizoid personality disorder but not schizophrenia, because he did not satisfy enough of the criteria of schizophrenia listed in the DSM-III. When asked, What criteria in DSM-III ruled out schizophrenia? he replied: It is a degeneration from our previous level, previous level of behavior, and he didn't have any particular regression from [a] previous high level of behavior or adaptation, his lifelong poor adaptation, and there wasn't any skid downhill in this case, he just never rose [above] a very low level of adaptation. Dr. Cutting also found defendant did not suffer from PTSD. Dr. Cutting concluded defendant was not insane: I felt he knew what he was doing. I felt that he could listen to one voice or the other, obey whichever voice he wanted to obey. [¶] He didn't always obey the man's voice, incidentally, because the man's voice would frequently tell him to kill himself, and, obviously, he didn't act on that man[`s voice]. Dr. Francis Matychowiak, a psychiatrist, was appointed by the superior court to examine defendant to determine if he was insane at the time of the crimes. Dr. Matychowiak examined prior medical reports, law enforcement investigative reports, and a transcript of defendant's court testimony. He also examined defendant in jail. He concluded defendant suffered from a personality disorder, showing a mixture of paranoid and antisocial traits. He concluded defendant was sane. He rejected a diagnosis of PTSD, finding defendant's talking to imaginary persons was a survival technique but that it was not a posttraumatic reaction to his war experiences. Dr. Richard Burdick, a psychiatrist, was also appointed by the court to examine defendant for sanity. Dr. Burdick concluded defendant demonstrated an antisocial personality disorder, meaning he was responsive to inner urges and needs without particular conscience for what effect their behavior will have on another person. . . . They tend to get into difficulties with people and are either on the fringe or breaking the law, getting arrested. They do not seem to be responsive to correction by being incarcerated or having other forms of limits put on them. He thought defendant's report of hearing voices could be fabricated but, in any event, the voices did not play a role in the crimes. He admitted that if someone suffered from both schizophrenia and a personality disorder, it was sometimes difficult to perceive the underlying schizophrenia. Dr. Burdick admitted he was not an expert in PTSD but found no indication of that condition. He testified that although he frequently examined criminal defendants at the superior court's request, he did not frequently find them insane. He concluded defendant was not legally insane. Dr. Francis Criswell, a psychiatrist, was, like Dr. Cutting, appointed during the pretrial period to examine defendant both for competence and sanity. Dr. Criswell testified that defendant had suffered an abusive childhood from an extremely pathological family, but he agreed with other prosecution witnesses that, although defendant suffered from a personality disorder, he was not psychotic, schizophrenic, or otherwise suffering from a mental disease or defect. Because defendant appreciated the criminality of his conduct and could conform his actions to the law, Dr. Criswell concluded defendant was not legally insane. Dr. Mary Cholet testified for the People. She worked on the defense team of Dr. Lundgren, Dr. Dietiker and Mr. Powers, was a psychological assistant at the time of her examination of defendant, but was a psychologist at the time of trial. She administered psychological tests to defendant and interviewed him. She disagreed with the other members of her team, concluding defendant was not schizophrenic but merely suffered from a personality disorder. She found no evidence of organic brain damage and saw no evidence of hallucinations when she was with defendant. She also concluded defendant did not suffer from PTSD, although she admitted she was not familiar with the various diagnostic tools used by experts in the area of PTSD. She concluded defendant knew the difference between right and wrong, admitted she was only fairly familiar with the legal definition for insanity, and admitted this case was the first one in which she had tested someone to determine their sanity.