Confronting the breakdown of law and order.

• Author: Wiseman, Bruce

DURING THE 1995 New Mexico legislative session, State Sen. Duncan Scott proposed an amendment to a bill stating: "When a psychologist or psychiatrist testifies during a defendant's competency hearing, the psychologist or psychiatrist shall wear a cone-shaped hat that is not less than 2 feet tall. The surface of the hat shall be imprinted with stars and lightning bolts. . . ."

While the New Mexico State Senate was voting in favor of the "Wizard's hat" amendment, a Florida columnist proposed another solution. He recommended that the confusion created by psychiatric "experts" be reduced by placing a red light and a digital display above the witness stand indicating the price paid for the testimony.

The New Mexico bill was not signed into law, and digital displays and red lights have not been installed. Both solutions might have reminded judges and juries of the actual value of "expert" psychiatric and psychological testimony.

Justice is based on the concept that each man is responsible for what he does and accountable for his actions. However, psychiatry has pushed society to a state of chaos wherein no one is responsible for anything. A wife can mutilate her husband; children can kill their parents; and a man can shoot the President - yet, psychiatrists claim the perpetrators are themselves the victims, and therefore, not guilty. Psychiatric testimony often serves to occlude the fact that a crime has been committed, prolong litigation, and drive the cost of justice even higher.

Psychiatrists' inability to assess and predict human behavior is a well-documented fact. In one typical study, two "skilled psychiatrists" each chose six of 20 patients as being depressed - but they were not the same six.

Psychiatric testimony is valueless in adjudicating criminal intent. In 1988, psychologist Jay Ziskin indicated: "Studies show that professional clinicians do not in fact make more accurate clinical judgments than lay persons." Defense attorneys are aware of this and have been known to "shop around" for a psychiatric report that will serve their purposes. Hence, the red light to expose the nature of the witness and the digital display to advise the jury at what price the criminal's "illness" was manufactured.

"What amazes me is that, in any trial I've ever heard of, the defense psychiatrist always says the accused is insane, and the prosecuting psychiatrist always says he's sane," Jeffery Harris, executive director of the Attorney General's Task Force on Violent Crime, points out. "This happened invariably, in 100% of the cases, thus far exceeding the laws of chance. You have to ask yourself, `What is going on here?'"

Even when courts do not accept the psychobabble, its introduction into the legal process has come close to destroying Americans' faith in justice. Examples include the "Twinkie" defense, blaming the sugar in the snack cake for driving the accused to crime, and the murder trial in which a psychiatrist testified that a man murdered his wife because of the movie (which made its debut one month after the crime), "Crocodile Dundee."

Psychiatrists even have given Americans another reason to stay indoors during the winter's cold. According to psychiatrist Marc Sageman, murders committed during cold weather are not a crime. In 1995, he testified that Joseph Harris killed his ex-supervisor, her boyfriend, and two former co-workers because he "hated the onset of winter."

The...