No Regrets

against the sunshine, children kept indoors rather than being let out to play, or a vacant look in a mother’s eyes.
    I sat in the trial that ended this case and felt nothing but compassion for the accused. Perhaps you will see it in the same way. And if you ever feel the need to intervene in a situation that seems somehow wrong, please do.
    I promise you: You will have no regrets.

 
    I have had to deal with all manner of brutality, tragedy, sorrow, and pain, but I can recall no other story I have researched that had the sheer gut-wrenching impact of the Christine Jonsen case.
    Beyond the news headlines, there were questions raised and differing legal philosophies that had to be dealt with. Few of my readers choose to read about murder cases for their sensationalism, and if they do, they will be disappointed. I believe they want to understand the motivations behind the killings and to learn how detectives approach each case and combine modern forensic science techniques with old-fashioned hunches and years of experience. In this light, in this case, it’s important to explore the ramifications of the most widely accepted standard used to weigh insanity and murder in America: the M’Naughton Rule.
    This premise originated in England in 1843 at the trial of a man named M’Naughton. In essence, it is a very simple rule: If the accused recognized the difference between right and wrong at the time he committed the crime, he was legally sane. Further, the rule decreed that if he knew what he was doing was wrong and made an attempt to escape detection by covering up his crime, most juries would find him guilty. However, if he should be found sitting next to his victim babbling incoherently,making no excuses, and with no comprehension of what he has done, he will be far more likely to be deemed insane. But it is a judgment almost impossible to assess. Unless the jury members were there at the crime scene— which they cannot have been—they cannot know what the mental acuity of the perpetrator was at that precise moment. A defendant may have been seen before the crime, and he may have been seen after the crime. But who can say that his mind is the same mind it was at the time of the murder?
    Some forty-five years ago, the American Law Institute, objecting to the “right or wrong concept” of M’Naughton, suggested a substitute ruling to test insanity. This modified test would ask, “Did the defendant have the substantial capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law?”
    That is, the defendant might have known that what he was doing was wrong—but, if insane, would not have had the ability to stop. In 1971, the Washington State Supreme Court upheld the M’Naughton Rule in a murder conviction and threw out the proposed substitute.
    This is all fairly technical, but in viewing Christine Jonsen’s case, it is necessary in order to understand and evaluate what she did on an icy night along the Columbia River in eastern Washington.
    Before I attended Christine’s trial, I wrote about three other cases in which I doubted the sanity of the defendants.
    • A brilliant and wealthy young man had been under psychiatric care since his mother committed suicide a few years before. He himself had attempted suicide three times. He knew that his mind was not tracking well, and he went to Western Washington State Hospital andbegged to be admitted. He told doctors there that he was afraid he would hurt someone, but they gave him tranquilizers and sent him away. The next day he beat two elderly neighbors to death with a hammer he had just borrowed from them. That, of course, seemed to be the act of an insane person. But he took pains to wash his own bloodied clothing—allegedly to escape detection. Under M’Naughton, he was found guilty of first-degree murder and sent into the general population of the Washington State Penitentiary.
    • A fifteen-year-old boy whose father had been diagnosed as insane saw his parents literally “shoot it out” in a gun battle when he was three years old. He was close enough to be drenched by their blood as he crouched, screaming in terror. He had shown signs of profound mental illness for years before he finally raped three women and killed two more. But he, too, made efforts to cover up his crimes. He was convicted as an adult of first-degree murder and sent to prison under the M’Naughton Rule.
    • A young man, also highly intelligent, who had fled to Turkey to avoid the