Category: Psychiatry & The Criminal Justice System: Simplicity On The Near Side Of Complexity

Mental Health is going to have to change a whole Lot to be effective -- & a big part of that is appreciating the large role of the immune system in Mental & brain disorders

9/17/2018

We're almost always in the position of not knowing everything.

How we deal with that has ENORMOUS MORAL & ETHICAL CONSEQUENCES for ourselves and others.

We've got a Mental Health Profession that:

Doesn't have a valid diagnostic manual;
Many treatments have stagnated or stalled;
They have a very incomplete understanding of "mental illness"
States & the Federal Government are paying Millions, Billions of Dollars for mental health treatment with pretty underwhelming results;
And yet this same profession is going into Criminal Court & testifying in criminal cases often greatly affecting the lives of very poor, traumatized disenfranchised people.

The practice of using Mental Health Evaluations as a predicate for punishment in some criminal cases has to stop, and really needs to stop TODAY on the part of both State and Private Mental Health Evaluators.

Does that cause problems well yes it does -- because we also have to reform our Criminal Justice System. Is that going to be hard -- you bet it is.

BUT LIVING THE LIE WE'RE CURRENTLY LIVING IS A SIN.

‘Drain Pipes’ in the Brain: Lymphatic Vessels Act As Pipeline Between Brain and Immune System

The Brain-Immune-Gut Triangle: Innate Immunity in Psychiatric & Neurological Disorders
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261994663_The_Brain-Immune-Gut_Triangle_Innate_Immunity_in_Psychiatric_and_Neurological_Disorders

Oslo University Hospital, Norway

BBC:

BBC health reporter James Gallagher explores the increasing body of evidence that a dysfunctional immune system is responsible for the depression or psychotic illness experienced by hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people in the UK.

James talks to the psychiatrists investigating this new understanding of mental illness and to people who may benefit from treatments aimed at the immune systems rather than their brain cells.

"I believe this is one of the strongest discoveries in psychiatry in the last twenty years", says Professor Carmine Pariante of his and other research on the immune system and depression. "It allows us to understand depression no longer as just a disorder of the mind and not even a disorder of the brain, but a disorder of the whole body.

It shifts conceptually what we understand about depression." James also talks to New York journalist Susannah Cahalan.

he began to experience paranoid delusions and florid hallucinations when her immune system made damaging antibodies against part of the molecular circuitry in her brain.

Treatment to eliminate the antibodies prevented her committal to psychiatric hospital.

Psychiatrist Professor Belinda Lennox at the University of Oxford says she has evidence that a significant proportion of people presenting for the first time with psychotic symptoms are victims of a similar autoimmune problem.

Possible linkages between Childhood Trauma -- Inflammation -- Damage to Immune System -- & Ultimate Mental Illness

Social Behavior & the Immune System

Alzheimer's & the Immune System

University of Colorado @ Denver
http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/medicalschool/departments/neurology/clinical/rmadc/Pages/default.aspx

"Leukine stimulates immune system macrophages, which ingest and dispose of harmful microorganisms and waste products.

"Based on evidence that patients with the autoimmune disease rheumatoid arthritis do not tend to develop Alzheimer’s disease, the investigators first determined that a factor in these patients called “Granulocyte-Macrophage-CSF (GMCSF)” that stimulates production of immune system macrophages might help to protect them from developing Alzheimers.

"That possibility is consistent with recent research suggesting that patients with Alzheimer’s disease may have reduced capacity to clear away amyloid from the brain. GMCSF is the active ingredient in Leukine."
http://www.dana.org/Media/GrantsDetails.aspx?id=38876

See Also:

The Emerging Link Between Autoimmune Disorders and Neuropsychiatric Disease
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3086677/

What Does The Environment Have To Do With Diseases Affecting The Immune System
https://ensia.com/features/environment-diseases-immune-system/

Learn more about
Psychoneuroimmunology
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/psychoneuroimmunology

Below, Prof. Wieckert is the same Professor & Researcher who just made the breakthrough that some people with Schizophrenia have more immune cells in the brain.
https://neurosciencenews.com/schizophrenia-immune-cells-9867/

Is An Overactive Immune System A Cause for Schizophrenia

Houston Medical Research Center

Summary: A major finding from researchers at Houston Methodist reveals a significant number of people diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder may actually have a treatable immune system disorder.

The condition causes NMDA receptors to stop functioning properly and can result in symptoms commonly associated with neuropsychiatric disorders.

Source: Houston Methodist.

“We suspect that a significant number of people believed to have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder actually have an immune system disorder that affects the brain’s receptors,” said Joseph Masdeu, M.D., Ph.D., the study’s principal investigator and a neurologist with the Houston Methodist Neurological Institute.

“If true, those people have diseases that are completely reversible – they just need a proper diagnosis and treatment to help them return to normal lives.”
Houston Methodist Research Center
http://neurosciencenews.com/schizophrenia-immune-disorder-bipolar-8179/

Immune System linked to Alcohol Drinking Behavior
http://neurosciencenews.com/immune-system-alcohol-7494/

University of Adelaide, Australia

Childhood Trauma Can Result in Chronic Inflammation which can affect the Immune System (2012)
http://www.medicaldaily.com/childhood-trauma-can-result-chronic-inflammation-241114

Elevated Risk for Autoimmune Disorders in Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (2014)
http://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(14)00457-0/fulltext

University of California @ San Francisco, Dept. of Psychiatry & VA

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/mind-and-body-scientists-identify-immune-system-link-to-mental-illness

New Science is Amazing: It has Huge Moral Implications Now

Immune System & Mental Health

The Microbiome: Stress, Trauma, the Anna Karenina Principle, & Justice

5/3/2018

Personalized medicine is a big deal now -- recognizing the importance of individual differences to health outcomes.
We've argued for some time how critical personalized medicine is to mental health treatment, especially given how idiosyncratic the biological systems are for people with mental illness.
There are many, many reasons for differences -- but it turns out that one of them or trillions of them are the microbiota that make up our individual microbiomes.
Well what can our microbiomes affect:

Mood
Anxiety
Sleep
Personality
Etc.

When we have our Knowledge- Challenged Clinical Profession handing out "Personality Disorder" Diagnoses in the Justice System, how much longer can we ignore that they just don't have the knowledge available to make the determinations they are asked to make and that they are in fact making.

Good Bacteria, Mental Health Policy, & CU Research involving the Microbiome & PTSD

Nova Wonders: What's Living in You? Preview

Psychology Today

Chronic Stress Discombobulates Gut Microbiome Communities
Gut microbiome communities become unpredictable when someone is in distress.

When people are feeling healthy, relaxed, and safe, their gut microbiome communities generally work together harmoniously in a predictable symbiotic manner, according to a new study.

However, the Oregon State University researchers found that when someone is under stress, his or her gut microbiome communities become discombobulated and behave erratically, in ways that are unpredictable and vary from person to person.

This study, “Stress and Stability: Applying the Anna Karenina Principle to Animal Microbiomes (,” was published online August 24 [2017 in Nature Microbiology.]

Leo Tolstoy famously said: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

After realizing how unpredictably each individual's gut microbiome communities responded during "unhappy" stressful situations, the research team coined their discovery the "Anna Karenina principle" in honor of Tolstoy's dictum. In the study abstract, the authors write:

"The result is an ‘Anna Karenina principle’ for animal microbiomes, in which dysbiotic individuals vary more in microbial community composition than healthy individuals—paralleling Leo Tolstoy's dictum that “all happy families look alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

We argue that Anna Karenina effects are a common and important response of animal microbiomes to stressors that reduce the ability of the host or its microbiome to regulate community composition."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201708/chronic-stress-discombobulates-gut-microbiome-communities

Coming To Terms with the Criminal Justice System as the Disability Provider of Last Resort

3/11/2018

So we don't completely understand:

Mental Health
Brain Injury
Developmental Disability

BUT we have learned a lot.
If there were ever areas in which personalized medicine and services were essential -- these complicated areas are such areas.
Now -- what do we do about the Criminal Justice System in which there is a lot of "Pretense to Knowledge" regarding mental health, brain injury, developmental disability with a level of certainty that even "experts" couldn't possibly possess.
From my perspective, there are a lot of people with "DISABILITIES" in the Criminal Justice System -- whether it is:

Mental Illness
Brain Injury, or
Developmental Disabilities
Etc.

Further, many people in the Criminal Justice System have more than 1 "invisible disability."
What has made people with "mental illness" particularly unsympathetic in the Criminal Justice System is they often have above-average intelligence.
So unless someone is floridly psychotic, there's A LOT of SKEPTICISM regarding any claim of "mental illness." This is so, even though it is well documented that many people with "mental illness" have above average intelligence.
BUT we don't really have a solid definition of "mental illness" and at least according to former NIMH Director Thomas Insel -- the DSM 5 is NOT a valid diagnostic manual.
Further, we have enshrined in our LAWS some pretty demonstrably scary, uniformed ideas about "insanity." So much so that in our opinion they violate Constitutional Protections for DUE PROCESS.
We really must come to terms with the UGLY fact that the Criminal Justice System is a HORRIFICALLY ABUSIVE PROVIDER OF INTELLECTUAL & MENTAL DISABILITY SERVICES of LAST RESORT -- Especially for boys & men.
Maybe problem-solving courts are the first step in the desperate need to acknowledge the reality and complexity of disability in our Society.
BUT even they are dependent on the legally sufficient and adequate provision of:

Bed Space;
Housing; and
Community Services, including Intensive Community Services

for all people in our Community with:

Mental Illness;
Brain Injury; and/or
Developmental Disability

The Need & the Gross Violation of Human Rights are Happening --- NOW.

Inadequate access to treatment, housing, education & jobs leads to longer sentences and re-offending.

Mental Health's Tower of Babel

Social Determinants of Health

Insanity

Brain Injury in CO Jails

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) in the Criminal Justice System

How Unrealistic Over-Optimism Hurts People with Disabilities in the Criminal Justice System

3/9/2018

Expecting people to conform to our "pretense to knowledge" is getting us into a lot of trouble.
I'm obviously very concerned about how the "invalid" DSM 5 plays itself out in our antiquated Criminal Justice System.
I also get really concerned about all kinds of wild extrapolations regarding our "current" ability to "completely control":

epigenetic changes;
complete control of our nervous systems;
etc.

"It's all in our hands to change." Really?
I actually think we probably will get there and we are getting there. BUT we're not completely there now.
Well, what is the problem with just being a little or lot overly optimistic about that? Well, it can really affect our judgments about what individuals should be capable of controlling and doing in their lives NOW.
And that plays itself out in a lot of ways, including how we treat people who pretty clearly have not been able to sufficiently control their actions and have landed in the Criminal Justice System.
If we think that human beings currently have complete control of:

their epigentic changes
their nervous systems
their environments
their social determinants of health

Then any failure is often viewed as a moral failure of the individual justifying punishment.
Now if there is some kind of significant failure of behavioral control, we need to recognize it because it very easily could represent a threat to the safety of the community. And any violation of the law is not going to be good for the person either.
BUT if we don't acknowledge the very REAL:

Mental Illnesses;
Brain Injuries; and
Neuro-Disabilities

people are really struggling with: we've missed it. Further, many of these are created or exacerbated by bad environments in our Society.
There is reason for HOPE and CHANGE -- but if we're not realistic -- we are setting ourselves and others up for failure.
AND when that failure happens-- more often than not we blame the weakest and least sympathetic party -- and that's often the person with a mental or neuro-disability.

[There are numerous amazing scientific discoveries that researchers are working to harness for common benefit.

In the meantime, it is important to be HUMBLE about where we really are.]

Mental Health's Tower of Babel: Science, Clinical Practice, the Criminal Justice System, Politics, and Individuals with "Mental Illness"

2/24/2018

There's A LOT to be said about the current lack of:

logic,
reason, and
coherent, clear and precise definitions

in Mental Health practice and policy.

We are only scratching the surface, but we will be continuing to develop these ideas because it is so important to rational:

Mental Health practice
Legal practice, and
Public Policy discussions and decision-making.

Ultimately, this ISN'T about knowing everything. It's really about:

Honesty
Honesty about what we do know;
Honesty about what we don't know;
& the Honesty to Limit Our Actions accordingly.

WE ARE NOT DOING THAT.

We've got an incoherent mess of systems and we've lulled ourselves into believing it doesn't really matter -- EXCEPT it does matter -- A LOT.

Science: The DSM 5 is not a valid diagnostic tool because it just describes symptoms and does not get to the underlying biology.

Science Up

New Science is Amazing, and it has HUGE Moral Implications for our society -- Now

Clinicians: Rely on the DSM 5 because they largely don't have anything else. This reliance extends to reports and testimony in the Criminal Justice System.

Criminal Justice System: They have their own standards for "insanity" and "incompetent to proceed" that don't mesh well with the DSM 5 much less current scientific knowledge and lack thereof. Of course, those LAWS are largely the result of the political process.

"Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked"

Insanity

Politics: The will of the majority, largely concerned with SAFETY. Public policy discussions tend to use BROAD categories like "MENTAL ILLNESS" to discuss extremely complicated issues such as gun control. Clinicians can provide some refinement, but are largely unable to provide the clarity and precision that is needed.

Housing & Service Provision for people with "mental illness" are not provided as required by LAW or as needed, but on the basis of political budgetary calculations that may not be irrational from a SHORT TERM political calculation but are irrational both with respect to the TRUE NEEDS of people with disabilities and the LONG TERM COSTS to the Society. So we have a grossly inadequate supply of:

Housing;
Bed Space;
and Intensive Mental Health Services

Even though our Federal Laws and CMS Oversight Procedures would seem to prevent the ABUSE, NEGLECT and RIGHTS VIOLATIONS of people with disabilities that are rampant in most States and in Colorado -- when we don't follow or adequately enforce the LAWS -- it doesn't prevent the ABUSE, NEGLECT or RIGHTS VIOLATIONS of people with disabilities.

Colorado Abuse & Neglect Scandals

Alicia Keys & 60 Minutes: "Cause Right Now It Don't Make Sense"

Individuals with "Mental Illness": Are probably more acutely aware than most in the society, that "MENTAL ILLNESS" is BOTH a Biological Reality and a Social Construct. Tens of Millions of people with "mental illness" in the US are vulnerable to unfair stigma and refusal of reasonable accommodations. Additionally, over 300,000 people with mental illness are in the US Justice System, and Thousands are in the Colorado Justice System.

An Orchid Valentine to the Mental Health Profession

2/13/2018

It probably has not escaped most people's notice that:

On the one hand, we are extremely critical of the Mental Health Profession,
On the other hand, we are vigorously arguing for intensive mental health treatment.

What's Going On?

Well, there's the idea that there is a fine line between Love & Hate.

We think what is really going on is: REALITY.

The Mental Health Profession is an incredibly complicated mixed bag -- right up there with the Legal System.

It does an enormous amount of GOOD, and it does an enormous amount of HARM.

For the most part it is pretty OBLIVIOUS to the HARM that is does, the mental health profession's first reaction to such claims is to assert the other person's "LACK OF INSIGHT" or maybe the person has an "ANTI-SOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER" [generally, for boys] or a "BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER" [often, although not always, for girls.]

Of course, that's a pretty HUMAN reaction -- that's pretty much what we all do.

EXCEPT, it is in the mental health profession and the CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM -- that one can really do A LOT of HARM with that kind of CRAP, and NOT EVEN REALIZE IT.

So most medical disciplines DON'T HAVE PERFECT KNOWLEDGE --- BUT they're generally not making claims in a CRIMINAL JUSTICE System beyond the discipline's or profession's knowledge base -- the mental health profession does it across this Country and in Colorado EVERYDAY.

So We've Got A BIG Problem with That.

On the other hand, we DON'T have a problem with the Mental Health Profession providing:

Person-Centered, Strength Based Care;
Engaging in Shared Decision-Making;
Doing the BEST IT CAN to determine Dangerousness;
ACKNOWLEDGING the PROFOUND Gaps in its Knowledge Base;
Refusing to allow itself to be used for purposes of punishment.

IT IS VERY COMPLICATED -- & IN MANY WAYS WE'RE RELYING ON THE MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSION AS CRITICAL PLAYERS IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF OUR SOCIETY.

BTW -- Wear a HELMET when going Skateboarding & Biking.

We Gotta Talk

So what are we trying to say with this video? We've been telling the mental health profession it needs to "Science Up" -- so that could be read as making things more "complicated." AND if one has followed our policy prescriptions, one realizes how complicated our relationship with the mental health profession really is. BUT what we're trying to say with respect to this video, is that the mental health profession's pretension to knowledge it doesn't have [even though they do have some knowledge in some respects quite a bit, in others not very much] -- DEEPLY HURTS the people they are trying to help -- that is certainly true in the Criminal Justice System.

----Stephen Covey

I love this video., and what I love about it is how HONEST the speaker is -- Steven Morgan with Soteria Vermont. Psychosis, mental health are COMPLICATED and we DON'T HAVE IT ALL FIGURED OUT -- acknowledging that might help give patients a mental health professional they could TRUST.

Soteria Project

Unscientific & Vague: Personality Disorders Must Be Reformed

Sufficiency of Knowledge, the Criminal Justice System, People with Disabilities and the Human Rights Issue of Our Time

9/27/2017

So what are we trying to say with regard to the sufficiency of the body of knowledge in mental health as it relates to the criminal justice system?

We're NOT saying ----there is NO knowledge in the mental health profession. In fact, there is a lot of knowledge.
What we are saying is that whether knowledge is sufficient depends on the task @ hand. One may be a whiz @ engineering and not be able to get a rocket out of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Because of the historical nature of "mens rea" or mental element in the criminal law, mental health professionals have been pressed into service by desperate defense attorneys to provide "expert" testimony as to whether their client was "insane" and prosecutors have engaged their own "experts."
No other area of medicine [mental health] is so implicated in punishment and no other is so struggling in lack of sufficient scientific grounding.
The Criminal Justice System really can't just reform itself, or not easily. It will likely take a combination of Legislation and Court decisions to reform the fairly routine human rights violations that are committed against people with disabilities, especially invisible, largely cognitive disabilities, that occur on really a daily, hourly basis.
Of course, what we really need to do is get people with disabilities -- mental illness, brain injury, developmental disability, etc. --- out of the criminal justice system and provide the housing and services, including intensive services if necessary, that they will need to remain outside of the Criminal Justice System and other institutions.
This truly is the Human Rights and Civil Rights Issue of Our Time.
We Hope You Will Support Our Draft CO Olmstead Planning Bill

Mary Robinson was an Irish Independent politican who served as the 7th, and first female, President of Ireland from December 1990 to September 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002. -- Wikipedia

New Science Is Amazing AND It Has HUGE Moral Implications for Our Society: NOW

One of Orchid's Symbols: The Vietnam War

9/24/2017

Orchid Themes & Symbols

Ken Burns & Lynn Novick's Documentary "The Vietnam War" does on a much grander scale what we try to do with mental health and criminal justice, etc. -- look at multiple perspectives -- with one big significant difference -- some historical distance.
We've really had a perfect storm of:

psych meds that weren't as great as we hoped for some people;
a disability community that was in horrible denial that a small but nonetheless significant percentage of their members could be caught up in the criminal justice system. Further, most did not want to be further "stigmatized" as criminals.
a criminal justice system and public that just didn't "buy" the "medicalization of evil"
a DSM 5 that lacks scientific validity according to Dr. Thomas Insel, former head of the US National Institute of Mental Health, and one of the driving reasons for the Institute's creation of the Research Domain Criteria Program.
Mental Health is now much more linked to gut and immune health than previously appreciated.
AND the reality is if the State does start to take some responsibility for the true Scale of the Need for BEDs, HOUSiNG, & INTENSIVE SERVICES -- that's expen$ive.

Integrating Physical Health, Mental Health & the Law: Trying To Shore Up Our Incompetent Mental Health & Legal Systems

9/10/2017

The Telegraph (UK)

“You can’t separate the mind from the body,” said Prof Sir Robert Lechler, President of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

“The immune system does produce behaviour. You’re not just a little bit miserable if you’ve got a long term condition, there is a real mechanistic connection between the mind, the nervous system and the immune system.

“Our model of healthcare is outdated.

"We have a separation. Mental healthcare is delivered by mental health professionals, psychiatrists, mental health nurses and so on, often in separate premises from where physical health care is delivered and that is simply wrong and we need to find ways to ever more closely integrate and train amphibious healthcare professionals who can straddle this divide.”

"Research has also shown that people who have suffered severe emotional trauma in their past have inflammatory markers in their body, suggesting their immune system is constantly firing, as if always on guard against abuse."
. . .

One promising treatment for depression on the horizon is the use of electrical stimulation to change the signals between the brain and the immune system.

Prof Kevin Tracey, President and CEO, of the US Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, discovered that the brain controls production of a deadly inflammatory chemical called TNF, which if released in high doses can be fatal, causing people to, literally, die of shock.

He has recently developed a electrical device which reproduces the connection and switches off the chemical. Three quarters of patients with rheumatoid arthritis recovered following trials.

“This is the tip of the iceberg of a new field called bio-electric medicine,” he said.

“This is a new way of thinking about medicine. We’re using electrons to replace drugs. This will not replace all drugs. But there will be many drugs that are either too expensive, too toxic which may be replaced by these devices.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/
2017/09/08/depression-physical-
illness-could-treated-anti-inflammatory/

Val's Take

It is not just our model of Healthcare that is outdated -- our model of Justice is outdated and not just a little bit -- It Shocks the Conscience.
We have Legal Systems in place that purport to make determinations in which the scientific knowledge to make such determinations does not exist -- and saying they're just Legal Concepts is a Legal Fiction I'm not willing to go along with.
Amazingly, these determinations are made everyday.
How did this happen? Well, I think actually for initially benevolent purposes and at the behest of defendants and their counsel to address the situation of someone who at the time of the crime was "insane. "
Well, this hardly ever happens -- except it happens a lot -- things turned out to be a lot more complicated than we thought.
Right now (subject to change):

One of the leading theories regarding mental health is the Immune-Gut-Brain Triad
Former National Institute of Mental Health Director Thomas Insel says we don't even have a parts list for the Brain and this is a time of "discovery" -- we have to be "humble."
Further, Insel maintained that the DSM 5 lacked scientific validity and that's one of the reasons for the Research Domain Criteria Program (RDoC).

The Law treats the criminal law and "punishment" differently than other determinations with higher burdens of proof.

When we punish someone we're theoretically punishing both the bad act and the bad intent.

Reality is presenting us a very messy picture not only with the Immune System and the Microbiome but with Social Determinants of Health.

It is long past time for us to let go of punishment, and focus on:

safety
evidence-based treatment, and
addressing the "root causes" of problems.

Psychiatry and the Criminal Justice System: Simplicity on the Near Side of Complexity

5/4/2014

               Let's just say for argument's sake, that at one time in the distant past -- the lawmakers and judges who came up with our criminal law thought they knew what they were doing, whatever the ultimate truth may have been.

               But I would argue that we don't have that luxury anymore. Now psychiatry which has often done such a great job of raising questions AND often struggled and stumbled in accurately answering them, especially in the area of the criminal law, once again appears to be the "Emperor Without Any Clothes."

               While the National Institute of Mental Health is doing its best to push psychiatrists in the direction of "clinical neuroscience,"  we are far from that day. In the meantime, mental health professionals rely on an increasingly outdated yet growing Diagnostic & Statistical Manual (DSM), that is oblivious to the harm it causes by both acts of omission and commission.

               I'm not saying everything in the DSM is wrong, AND I am saying it is definitely "on the near side of complexity."

Further, the DSM cannot reliably be relied upon when we now know that:

there are literally billions and billions of neural circuits in the brain,
our understanding of brain disorders as chemical imbalances is far too simplistic and is actually causing harm (see the Youtube TedxTalk below of Neuroscientist David Anderson from Cal Tech), and
this information is all vitally important to a finding of criminal guilt -- which must be "proven beyond a reasonable doubt."

The Clayton Lockett "botched execution," is also notable not only for the "botched execution" but for another although not unusual reason: in the trial court, a failed "mitigating factors" defense during the penalty phase largely rested on the defense's assertion that Clayton Lockett had PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) and the State argued that Mr. Lockett had instead "Anti-Social Personality Disorder."

Dr. Call told the jury that he had
interviewed Mr. Lockett and tried to administer a personality test but that Mr. Lockett had refused to cooperate.

But even without the personality test, Dr. Call testified, he was able to conclude that Mr. Lockett did not suffer from any mental illness.

Dr. Call asserted that Mr. Lockett displayed no symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Dr. Call testified, however, that Mr. Lockett had anti-social personality disorder and was a psychopath.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA (D.C. No. 5:03-CV-00734-F)

See below a link to Erin Burnett with CNN and with one of Mr. Lockett's attorneys -- Oklahoma criminal defense attorney David Autry. Autry, a brilliant criminal defense attorney, was one of my colleagues many years ago in Oklahoma.

http://outfront.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/30/inmate-dies-of-heart-attack-after-botched-execution/

See CalTech TedxTalk with neuroscientist David Anderson, making many points, including that we need to have a much more complicated and sophisticated view of the brain beyond simply the brain being bathed in a bag of chemical soup.

This blog was last revised 11/13/2019

Science Up

The Anti-Socials

Personality Disorders: Unscientific & Vague -- Must Be Reformed

New Science Is Amazing & It Has Huge Moral Implicatons --NOW

Hair Analysis, Psychological Analysis, Criminal Law and the Ethical & Moral Imperative to Pull Back

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., circa 1894

"I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, But I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

This quote begins a chapter entitled "On Simplicity and Complexity" in . . . [the] book entitled "The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace" (John Paul Lederach). The thesis of the chapter is that you have to "complexify before you simplify" (33) because the simplicity that comes before knowing all of the varying in sundry complicating factors in a situation is really worthless, inane and naïve. But, often times, the true answer is also remarkably simple: you just have to be on the far side of complexity in order to see it clearly.

http://five-small-stones.blogspot.com/2008/12/simplicity-on-far-side-of-complexity.html

[Parenthetically, I first came across this quotation of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr's. from self-help and business leadership guru Stephen Covey]

Dr. Tom Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health

Currently, patients with mental disorders are treated episodically with medications that are focused on symptoms and not on the core pathology.

The available treatments are slow, incomplete, and can be limited by adverse effects.

In mental disorders, just as in the rest of medicine, better understanding of pathophysiology should yield diagnosis based on biomarkers and treatments based on rational designs targeting the pathophysiology

Dr. Elias Zerhouni, Director of the National Institutes of Health

“The explosion of data about the brain is overwhelming conventional ways of making sense of it," said Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., Director of the National Institutes of Health. "Like the Human Genome Project, the Human Brain Project is building shared databases in standardized digital form, integrating information from the level of the gene to the level of behavior. These resources will ultimately help us better understand the connection between brain function and human health.”

King's College London

Of particular interest, see:

Psychopathy Linked to Specific Structural Abnormalities in the Brain (2012)

Read it and weep.

And after you've wept, let's work together to see that our badly beaten criminal justice system comports with reality and constitutional principles of due process, equal protection, and fundamental justice.

We can get to the far side of complexity, but pretending we are already there is literally killing us.

Val's Blog