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Lawyer says insanity defense is hard to sell
Friday, May 05, 2000 By Marylynne Pitz, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The insanity defense is a hard sell to a jury, a criminal defense lawyer said yesterday.
"Jurors don't buy insanity defenses," said attorney Patrick J. Thomassey.
Defense lawyers are better off trying to convince jurors that a shooting rampage suspect is mentally ill and did not fully comprehend the impact of his actions. In that scenario, a defendant who is found guilty but mentally ill, can be imprisoned or confined to a mental hospital.
Richard Baumhammers, a 34-year-old Mt. Lebanon lawyer, is accused of killing five people and critically wounding a sixth.
Baumhammers has been hospitalized twice for mental illness. His lawyer, William Difenderfer, has promised to mount a mental infirmity defense on behalf of his client. But Difenderfer has not specified which approach he will take.
Lawyers for Ronald Taylor have a similar problem. The 39-year-old black man from Wilkinsburg is accused of shooting three white men to death on March 1 and seriously wounding two others.
In both cases, Thomassey said, if lawyers use an insanity defense, they will be hard-pressed to convince jurors that someone accused of a series of shootings labored under a "defect of reason," or a "disease of the mind" and, consequently, did not know the difference between right and wrong. Those are the elements needed to prove an insanity defense.
Thomassey made his comments during a taping of the KD/PG Sunday Edition, which airs Sunday at 11 a.m..
William F. Manifesto, a criminal defense lawyer who also appeared on the show, said lawyers who use such defenses are trying to find mitigating factors that weigh in their client's favor.
Defense lawyers are required to zealously represent their clients, Manifesto said, and an attorney who succeeds in swaying a jury to spare a defendant's life has won a victory.
A defendant who is found guilty but mentally ill can be sent to a mental hospital or a prison, but would not be released until the sentence is served.
A defendant who is truly psychotic should mount an insanity defense, Thomassey said.
But in the two instances that Thomassey argued that his clients were insane, jurors rejected the claim. Instead, they found them guilty of first-degree murder. Both men are on death row.
Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said he has to consider motive and the elements of a crime before deciding what degree of murder to prosecute in the Baumhammers case.
"Motive is not an element of the crime of homicide. But it does have bearing on the degree of homicide. Why he killed these people will have bearing on whether this is a capital murder case and whether the death penalty will be a consideration," Zappala said.
"The theory that's being advanced is that he killed these individuals because of their race. They were hate crimes. That deals with motive," Zappala said.
Thomassey said the ancillary charges in the case, such as ethnic intimidation and aggravated assault, are unnecessary.
"If I were the D.A., I'd keep it simple with five charges of homicide," Thomassey said, adding that charges of ethnic intimidation just complicate the case.
Joel Ratner, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said yesterday that the charges of ethnic intimidation are more than symbolic.
"The heart of this matter is not just the fact that people were murdered, which, in and of itself is tragic, but that he chose people who were of ethnic and religious minorities. This is an attack on a community and its values," said Ratner.
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