Сборник текстов для перевода. Борисова Л.А. - 28 стр.

                                        TEXT 21

                                       Crazy Talk

       Can killers be cunning and methodical, yet so mentally ill they aren't fully
responsible for their crimes?
       Psychologists say yes, but jurors overwhelmingly say no. And that may
bode poorly for Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski, who is standing trial for
four of the 16 mail bombings attributed to the Unabomber over 17 years.
       Jurors tend to think of an insane person “as someone who's living on Mars
and wouldn't begin to know how to put a bomb together,” says Scott Sundby, a
law professor at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Va. Sundby has
interviewed 152 capital-case jurors in California for a death penalty research
project.
       Kaczynski's defense attorneys, Quin Denvir and Judy Clarke, may be ask-
ing jurors to challenge that traditional view. They gave notice in June that they
will present expert testimony about Kaczynski's mental condition during his trial
for the murder of two people, which was set to begin in November in U.S. Dis-
trict Court in Sacramento.
       In theory, mental illness evidence could form the basis of an insanity de-
fense or – if Kaczynski is convicted of murder – provide a mitigating circum-
stance to persuade jurors to spare his life.
       But Sundby and other experts say it is extremely hard to sway jurors with
mental illness evidence, even in what is considered an ideal case. And Kaczyn-
ski's case is far from ideal.
       Prosecutors say FBI agents who searched the Montana cabin of the
mathematics professor-turned-recluse found an assembled bomb, a Unabomber
manuscript and a journal discussing the bombings.
       The federal insanity defense has been regarded as a tactic of last resort
since 1984 when the Insanity Defense Reform Act was passed by Congress.
       The law compels defendants to prove by clear and convincing evidence
that a “severe mental disease or defect” left them unable to “appreciate ... the
wrongfulness” of their actions. The previous test required prosecutors to prove
sanity.
       Only 1 percent of defendants plead insanity, according to the American
Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. It published a study of about 9,000 cases in
49 counties between 1976 and 1987. About 26 percent of those defendants were
acquitted, mostly in cases where prosecutors agreed to the plea. Only 7 percent
of acquittals came from jury trials, the study found.

      Planning Does Not Equal Sanity



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