So, because of his suffering from a mental disease, paranoid schizophrenia, he didn’t really understand that he had killed Mrs. Hughes? Waley’s voice was filled with wonder at the power of science. No, came the answer. He had no idea what he was doing? No, he was dominated by his psychotic ideation. Or that what he was doing was wrong? No. In a sense, Jonathan Rohbling was not even there. Thank you, Doctor. Your witness.
“Dr. Bannock,” Karp began, “you’ve testified that the defendant has a mental disease called paranoid schizophrenia, and that you were treating him for that disease. What was that treatment?”
“Well, with schizophrenia the best we can hope for is a reduction in the symptoms through the use of drugs. Halperidol is used, the thiothixenes, and for more refractory cases, chlorpromazine and clozapine.”
“And what was the defendant in fact taking at the time of the murder?”
Bannock pursed his lip, paused for his usual moment. “I can’t say what he was actually taking. I had prescribed sixty milligrams daily dosage of Navane, which is a thiothixene antipsychotic.”
“When you last saw him, before the murder, as you testified, on April seventeenth, had he been taking his medication?”
“I can’t say for certain, obviously. He said he was.”
“In your professional opinion, was he?”
A longer pause. “No.”
“So, on April seventeenth, the defendant, your patient, was an unmedicated psychotic there in your office, was he?”
An impatient wrinkling of the noble brow. “It’s not as cut and dried as that. He may still have had some drug in his system.”
“I see,” said Karp. “But to all appearances he was normal, he was not in blackface, he did not think he was this Jared, he was not having conversations with imaginary people, he showed none of the symptoms you have described, correct?”
“Yes.”
“He presented the aspect of a drug-controlled schizophrenic then, this is what you’re telling us, Doctor?”
“That is correct.”
“You didn’t think on the afternoon of April seventeenth that he could not comport his behavior to the requirements of the law, did you?”
A clever man, Dr. Bannock. He saw the trap closing and thought for a moment on how to avoid it. “It’s not that simple. The underlying schizoid state does not-”
“Just answer the question, Doctor,” said the judge.
“No, not at that time,” said Bannock grumpily.
“Because if he had been manifestly incapable, you, as a good citizen and a doctor, would not have allowed him to roam the streets, isn’t that so?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you,” said Karp. “So that was Wednesday. On Thursday, since, as we have heard, the defendant, in disguise, appeared in Harlem, met Mrs. Hughes at a church affair, befriended her, made a date for Saturday, kept that date, and killed her, are you therefore saying, Doctor, that in three days he somehow lost that substantial capacity to comport his behavior to the requirements of law?”
“Yes, with schizophrenics we often see periods of near-normal-appearing behavior.”
“I see. Now, then, you’ve testified that you also saw the defendant on the Monday after the murder for his regular appointment. The twenty-second of April. How did he seem then?”
“He appeared calm and normal.”
“So are you telling us, then, that he appeared to have no mental disease on the seventeenth, trots out a mental disease on the eighteenth, kills Mrs. Hughes on the twentieth, still in the grip of a mental disease, and then appears normal in your office two days later?”
“No, not exactly. The disease is always present, but it can take different forms, mild or severe, depending on both internal and external factors. Some triggering event often causes the actual psychotic break, and the-and the aberrant behavior.”
Karp heard the little stammer, observed some moisture on the noble brow, and was glad. “What triggering event, Doctor?”
“Well, the situation, the presence of a black woman of the correct age, middle-aged or older, the blue suitcase, the opportunity …”
“So the presence of all these would trigger this psychotic break?”
“Yes. Would tend to.”
“Doctor, if you look around the courtroom, you will see several women of that description. There is even one on our jury. The blue suitcase is right here. Yet Mr. Rohbling is sitting calmly in his seat. How do you explain that?”
“The situation, I mean here, a courtroom, is not appropriate for the situation in which we would see the psychosis actually evinced.”
“Do you mean that if he rose from his seat, grabbed the blue suitcase, and tried to smother Mrs. Finney there in the jury box, the court officers would stop him?”
“Yes, but what I meant was that a certain situation of intimacy is necessary to trigger the response.”
“Intimacy, I see. You mean, he has to be alone in an apartment, say, with a helpless woman before he becomes incapable of comporting his conduct to the requirements of the law.”
“Well, in effect, that is the case.”
“In simple terms, he only goes crazy and kills when he can get away with it, is that what you’re saying?”
“That is the effect, but in the event he is not thinking in those terms. He-”
“Thank you. How terrifically convenient for Mr. Rohbling! He only becomes an insane killer when he can escape the consequences of his act.”
“Objection! Argumentative. Not a question.”
“Sustained. Jury will disregard.”
“Doctor,” Karp resumed quickly, “your testimony-this business about Jared, and Clarice, and Mr. Rohbling’s mental states-is entirely based on what Mr. Rohbling has told you, isn’t that true?”
“Yes.”
“You haven’t been able to look into his head, say, with modern instruments of any kind, or do any definitive blood or tissue tests that would independently establish this diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia?”
“No.”
“Why not, sir?”
“Because there are no such tests. The indicia of the disease are straightforward, as I’ve testified. The flatness of affect, the retreat into hallucinatory fantasies, the inability to form normal social bonds, are diagnostic for this disease.”
“Yes, thank you, Doctor. You’re a scientific man, do you know what Occam’s razor is?”
This caught the witness off guard, as it was meant to. He frowned and said, “In a general way. I believe it’s the principle that says that if you want to explain something, some experimental result, then the simplest explanation, the one making the fewest assumptions, is the one likely to be true.”
“Yes, very good, that’s my understanding exactly,” said Karp, beaming. “So, Doctor, since we have on one hand an elaborate set of assumptions about some mental disease, based on another set of assumptions of how this disease was generated during the defendant’s youth, based on the defendant’s word alone, with no independent verification, and on the other hand we have the alternate possibility that the defendant is spinning a line of malarkey to escape punishment, wouldn’t Occam’s razor practically force us to believe that you are being fooled?”
Karp was rewarded by the flush that blossomed on the witness’s cheeks. “Absolutely not!” he declared.
“Pray tell, why not, sir?” said Karp gently, as to a child.
“Because I’m a psychiatrist. I’ve had years of training to distinguish malingerers from genuine sufferers, in addition to nearly twenty years of experience with all types of mental disease. I know what I’m talking about!”