Sanity could well kill prisoner of madness

If lucid, the suspect in two U.S. Capitol officers' murders might face death. So he's left unmedicated.

By ANNE HULL, Washington Post

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 25, 2001

WASHINGTON -- The legal definition of "not competent to stand trial" is kept in a cell with a slit of frosted glass for a window and an outer door marked ISOLATION. He hides beneath his blanket, picking at sores. He believes the ripening of corn causes the reversal of time.

This is Russell Weston, the paranoid schizophrenic accused of killing two U.S. Capitol Police officers in July 1998 in a bloody shootout in the marble corridors of the U.S. Capitol.

After the rampage, a judge ordered Weston to a federal psychiatric facility for treatment. The idea was to make him competent for trial. What Weston needed was a course of Risperdal or Haldol or Prolixin.

But when the consent forms were put before him, Weston refused to sign.

And when the gurney was on its way to forcibly medicate him, his lawyers stepped in.

For the past 20 months, Weston's lawyers have prevented so much as one drop of anti-psychotic drug from hitting their client's brain, bringing the case of United States of America vs. Russell Eugene Weston Jr. to a standoff.

Because Weston could face the death penalty if convicted, lawyers from the federal public defender's office argue that to medicate him for trial is to march him toward the execution chamber.

But this defense is exacting a cruel cost on Weston. Two court-appointed psychiatrists have testified that his mental condition has worsened. Because Weston has received no treatment and could be dangerous, he has been kept in seclusion for more than two years, an unheard-of period of isolation in modern times.

In the coming days, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan is expected to rule for a second time whether Weston should be medicated.

At the last hearing in November, Weston sat at the defense table, unbarbered and bearded, like some winter wanderer who had come in from a cardboard box. His blue eyes roamed toward his lawyers, fit and silken, as they made the case to preserve his mental rot.

What price the defense?

Justice moves in cycles. Weston's rampage at the Capitol took place in an era of skepticism about the insanity defense. Ever since John Hinckley Jr. shot Ronald Reagan and was found not guilty by reason of insanity, mentally ill defendants have been left with slim cover.

Three years after Hinckley's assassination attempt in 1981, Congress sharply raised the bar for the insanity plea and switched the burden of proof from the prosecution to the defense. Many states tightened release rules for those found not guilty by reason of insanity.

"Jurors are more afraid of the mentally ill than mean people," said Michael Mears, a death penalty lawyer for the Georgia Indigent Defense Counsel. "It's the tenor of our times."

Against this landscape, lawyers have scrambled for ways to defend the mentally ill. Weston's defense team borrowed from blueprints created by death penalty lawyers.

In Ford vs. Wainwright, the Supreme Court ruled that the state cannot execute an incompetent convict. Left unresolved in that ruling however, was whether the state has a right to medicate the convict against his will to restore competence for his execution.

Weston's lawyers moved this question to a pretrial scenario. Can a defendant be forcibly medicated to become competent for a trial in which he could face the death penalty?

"This is of profound ethical significance to psychiatrists," says Richard Bonnie, director of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, who wrote a letter to the court at the request of Weston's lawyers, outlining the dilemmas. "No one ever thought it was a problem forcing a sick person found incompetent for trial to take medication, but the death penalty has a way of taking latent, routine issues and making them ethically anguishing."

The Supreme Court has never squarely addressed what conditions must be met before a mentally ill defendant can be forced to take medication solely to be made competent for trial. The Weston case, billowing with thousands of pages of briefs and expert witnesses from Ivy League psychiatry departments, is being watched by lower courts across the country. Neither federal Public Defender A.J. Kramer nor Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald L. Walutes Jr. would comment for this story.

If Weston loses the medication fight, he will begin treatment in a psychiatric facility. Should he then become competent for trial, his lawyers could mount an insanity defense.

If Weston fails to be restored to competence within a "reasonable" time period, a judge could decide to civilly commit him to a psychiatric facility indefinitely. Once that happens, legal experts say, it's unlikely he'll ever be brought to trial.

The defense's strategy troubles some.

"Keeping him in a florid psychotic condition in seclusion, leaving him as a stark raving madman is not good," says Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "It's keeping him alive, but the cost is absurd."

Except that Weston's soured mind is the one hope the defense has. The government's evidence is overwhelming.

Even if mentally ill, Weston drove 750 miles to Washington, negotiated the one-way streets, parked his truck, stuffed his pocket with ammunition, concealed his weapon, walked through the metal detectors of the U.S. Capitol, aimed his .38 at the back of the head of an officer, pulled the trigger and then went down a hallway and killed another.

"Are his lawyers acting immorally?" asks Bruce Winick, a University of Miami School of Law professor and the author of The Right to Refuse Mental Health Treatment. "No. They are trying to save his life. Does it come at the sacrifice of his emotional well-being? Perhaps it does."

Weston's lawyers at one time raised the possibility that his legal interests conflicted with his medical interests, requesting Weston be assigned a guardian. The judge denied the request.

And yet even the lawyer who defended Andrew Goldstein, the New York schizophrenic who pushed a woman to her death in front of a subway, ponders the wisdom of quarantining a defendant with his own madness.

"What's better," asks Kevin Canfield, "hell on earth, or death?"

A history of delusions

Long before his rampage at the Capitol, the theme of Weston's exhaustive psychiatric history found in court records is his refusal to take medication during two decades of mental illness.

By 1996, his schizophrenia had fully blossomed. He was holed up in a one-room shack in Montana, living on Social Security disability payments and rocking on the porch because rocking made him less of a target. He had paranoias galore, some of which perked the ears of the local Secret Service in Montana but were dismissed as low-level menace. The sheriff of Jefferson County said Weston made plenty of threats, but "he always went right to the border line, he always stopped just short of being arrested for intimidation."

According to court documents, Weston showed up at St. Peter's Community Hospital in Helena, complaining that a man in a field had pointed a gun at him. He said a dentist had implanted a chip in his tooth that allowed communication with the Russian ambassador. Still, a doctor believed Weston wasn't enough of a threat to be committed. Weston declined medication and follow-up treatment.

In the summer of 1996, Weston bought a new suit, a lavish gesture for a man who bathed infrequently and earned the nickname "Crusty" from Montana locals. He got in his truck and drove to Washington.

Weston arrived at the gates of the CIA headquarters in McLean, Va., giving his operative name as "the Moon." Because he said he had a report for the CIA director, he was brought inside the gates. An agent led Weston into a small conference room.

Very calmly, Weston launched into 50 minutes of mind-bending expository. A videotape recorded the entire session.

When the interview ended, Weston wasn't detained or arrested because he hadn't threatened the president, an official would later say.

Three months later, Weston received his first blast of anti-psychotic drugs when he was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility.

He had shown up at an emergency room in Montana, threatening a lab worker he believed had injected him with a needle contaminated with feces and Rohypnol. His threats earned him a stay at the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs.

Inside the hospital, after he tried to punch a nurse in the face, Weston was put in restraints and secluded for several hours. He refused to take anti-psychotic drugs. He was held down and injected.

Over the next few weeks, he was dosed with various mood stabilizers and antipsychotics: Risperdal, Haldol, Depakote, Trilafon and Loxitane.

He felt the side effects of each. The Depakote gave him terrible headaches. With the Haldol and Depakote, he could not sit still and felt woozy. He was sleeping fitfully. Three weeks into his medication, he felt "antsy" at lunch, and tired and dizzy most of the time. Substitutions were made.

A nurse noted he looked oversedated. "Thinks it's Depakote," his records show.

A day later, his hands were shaking.

Yet he seemed to be improving:

Russell continues to do well. Is pleasant and cooperative with both staff and peers. Takes meds willingly. Personal hygiene good.

Remains able to discuss his delusional system without becoming angry. Voices no threats toward anyone. Specifically denying thoughts of harming anyone when asked. His delusional system, however, remains intact.

Weston was discharged after seven weeks, with a 31-day supply of drugs. A follow-up appointment was made for him at a clinic in Waterloo, Ill., near his elderly parents' home.

When he showed up for the appointment, he was bizarre and paranoid, according to court records. Clearly, Weston had gone off his meds. When he learned follow-up treatment wasn't court-ordered, he never returned.

Weston's obsession with Washington grew. The city was diseased by "Black Heva." He was convinced the override console for his imaginary Ruby Satellite System was kept on the first floor of the U.S. Capitol.

In July 1998, Weston's father came home and found a bucket full of dead cats that Weston had shot with a rifle. He suggested his son find another place to live. After Weston left, his father noticed a .38-caliber revolver was missing.

Just after 3:30 p.m. July 24, Weston approached the ground-floor entrance of the U.S. Capitol on the House side.

Officer Jacob Chestnut, in uniform, was giving directions to a tourist and his 15-year-old son. Weston allegedly barged through the metal detector. He raised his gun to Chestnut's head. The 15-year-old boy was soaked in the officer's blood.

Weston turned left and ran down a short hallway, opened a door marked PRIVATE ENTRANCE and found Special Agent John Gibson, who provided protection for Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas. Gibson was fatally shot in the chest.

Weston took three bullets. He was given a 50-50 chance of survival and underwent several surgeries.

His mind was left untouched.

Competence and insanity

Ten weeks after the shooting, the U.S. District Court appointed a forensic psychiatrist to evaluate Weston to assess whether he was competent to stand trial.

Sally Johnson was the chief psychiatrist and an associate warden for the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, N.C. She had been the first to examine Hinckley after he shot Reagan. She later examined the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski.

Johnson found both Hinckley and Kaczynski competent to stand trial.

The legal standard for competence is much lower than the threshold for the insanity defense. Do you understand the role of your lawyer? The judge? The prosecutors? And can you assist your lawyers in their defense?

Johnson visited Weston at the Correctional Treatment Facility in the District of Columbia. A guard stood outside his door. Inside the cell, Weston was lying on a hospital bed. Johnson's evaluation lasted 20 hours over four days.

"I can explain everything very clearly to you," Weston told her.

Weston recited his theories on the Ruby Satellite System, which "washes time in reverse." He described his involvement in the World Summit for Time Reverse Technology.

When Johnson asked Weston to explain the role of the defense, he said he was confident his lawyers could explain his concepts of time reversal.

"They didn't just get off the pickle boat," Weston said.

Johnson asked Weston about his trial. His answer was oddly prescient.

He said the trial would never happen. "They will simply do a time reverse, and I'll be off and running in a different direction," he said.

Johnson filed her report with the judge:

He appeared unable to even in a hypothetical situation talk about why society might view it as wrong to kill someone. This appears to be directly related to his belief that because of his power of time reversal, no event is ever permanent.

On specific questioning it is clear that he does not believe that the victims are necessarily permanently deceased.

Johnson's opinion was that Weston was incompetent for trial. But, she added, "with adequate treatment with anti-psychotic medication, there is a significant likelihood that competence can be restored."

The report was a blow to prosecutors. Citing "significant gaps" in Johnson's evaluation, the U.S. attorney's office asked to have its psychiatrist examine Weston. The judge agreed.

But Weston had nothing to say; he stopped cooperating.

The cocoon of madness

Every day in the criminal justice system, mentally ill defendants are packed off to psychiatric facilities for "competence restoration": 90 or 120 days of treatment with antipsychotic drugs.

The reasoning is both humane and legally practical: to help a sick person, and to carry out the state's interest in having that person brought to trial.

Weston was packed off to Johnson at the federal prison in North Carolina. But his attorneys had put in place a safeguard: It would take a court order before Weston could be given any drugs.

The medication issue froze the case. There were hearings and more hearings. Prosecutors cited a 1992 Supreme Court decision, Riggins vs. Nevada, that said "medically appropriate" involuntary treatment can be justified for safety reasons. Weston could hurt himself or others without medication, prosecutors said.

Finally, Judge Sullivan signed the order to medicate.

The defense appealed and won. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sent the matter back to Sullivan, instructing the court to dig into the more thorny implications of medicating a defendant against his wishes.

Would the drugs and their potential side effects interfere with Weston's appearance before a jury, violating his ability to get a fair trial? What if Weston improved on the drugs so much, one judge wrote in his opinion, that the jury would see a completely different person from the one who burst into the Capitol?

By the summer of 2000, two years after Weston's arrest, the defense argued that Weston had gone so many years without treatment that his brain was toxic and might not respond to medication.

For most schizophrenics, anti-psychotic drugs dampen the delusions and impulses to act. They don't cure the illness but can make living more tolerable.

Which is what Weston deserved, according to testimony by Johnson.

"I think that you would never choose not to offer a trial of treatment to someone who has never been treated, based on a belief that the likelihood of success would be diminished."

"I am warehousing him in a psychotic state," she argued.

Judge Sullivan called for another round of hearings before he decided.

In November, a second court-appointed psychiatrist agreed with Johnson that Weston's condition was deteriorating. Keeping Weston in seclusion for two years, the psychiatrist testified, was harming him.

Weston's lawyers have said in court that Weston could be medicated immediately if the U.S. attorney's office would back off from seeking the death penalty.

But with two federal officers dead, the U.S. attorney's office will not.

Judge Sullivan's much-awaited ruling is likely to be appealed by either side.

Weston remains in seclusion at the psychiatric unit at the federal prison in North Carolina. He is watched constantly by a guard through a window.

One of Weston's former lawyers, who worked on the case for 16 months, offers another view from the psychiatrists and ethicists who have testified over the past two years.

Weston is not tormented in his current state, says former federal public defender Barry Boss. In fact, medication could be the real cruelty.

"When you have complete confidence you are immortal," Boss wonders, "what's going to happen when you're brought back to sanity and you realize what you've done?"

Maybe the cocoon of madness is more humane.

"Cruelty, in this case, is an abstract," Boss says.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright