In 1978, Rodney Alcala of California approached Liane Leedom, who was 17 years old at the time. He struck up a conversation, showed her some of his photographs, and then asked to photograph her. Although he was later convicted of murdering four women and a girl, Rodney Alcala did not kill Liane Leedom.
In 1983, Brian Dugan of Illinois abducted and murdered a 10-year-old girl. The next year he raped and murdered a 27-year-old woman, and the following year he raped and murdered a 7-year-old girl.
Both of these men are psychopaths. They’re both facing the death penalty for their crimes. But last November, at Brian Dugan’s sentencing, defense attorneys argued that because the man had a personality disorder, because he was incapable of experiencing normal emotions like remorse, he should get life in prison, not death.
Kent Kiehl, Ph.D.
The star witness in the plea for leniency was a prominent psychopathy researcher, Kent Kiehl, Ph.D. of the University of New Mexico. Kiehl evaluated Dugan according to the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised—the murderer scored 37 out of 40.
Kiehl also scanned Dugan’s brain using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging). The technique measures blood flow within the brain, which is thought to reflect brain activity. It shows which area of a person’s brain “lights up” with different thoughts.
According to Miller-McCune Online Magazine,
The scans show that the psychopath’s brain does indeed look different from others. “This shouldn’t really surprise people,” Kiehl said. “When your behavior is very different, your brain is different.” He estimates that 15 to 20 percent of prisoners in minimum to medium security prisons qualify as psychopaths, while the figure might run as high as 30 percent for those in maximum security.
Kiehl thinks it’s absurd to execute convicted murderers who have malfunctioning brains. “It’s kind of like telling a patient who has dyslexia to go read Faulkner, or something really difficult,” he said. “They have no chance, but you’re going to punish them because they can’t read?”
Kiehl testified about Dugan’s fMRI scans in the sentencing hearing—the first time fMRI evidence was ever used in court. The psychologist was asked if Brian Dugan had a normal brain. He said no.
Mitigating factor
Psychopathy, the defense team said, was a mitigating factor, a reason why Dugan shouldn’t get the death penalty. But why wasn’t it an aggravating factor?
Yes, psychopaths do not feel normal emotions, and perhaps we should feel sorry for them because of it. But psychopaths know the rules of society. Even if they don’t feel any emotional inhibition about raping and killing, they know on an intellectual level that these behaviors are wrong and can get them arrested, tried and possibly sentenced to death.
Other experts espouse this point of view. Stephen J. Morse, a professor of law and neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania was also quoted in the Miller-McCune article:
All the law really requires, he says, is a general capacity to understand and follow rules. “The law doesn’t really ask a lot of us,” Morse said. “How hard is it to know that you shouldn’t kill people, you shouldn’t rape people, you shouldn’t burn buildings that aren’t yours, and you shouldn’t take what doesn’t belong to you?”
Neuroscientific expertise may also become a double-edged sword that could be used against defendants, he warns. “There are going to start to be prosecution experts who are going to come in and tell the jury why this doesn’t have the implications that the defense claims,” he said. “Rather than being mitigating, for example, evidence of brain abnormalities might be aggravating because they will indicate that the defendant is particularly dangerous.”
Capable of choices
Psychopaths do exercise choice. They are capable of controlling their behavior when they want to. Rodney Alcala killed four women and a child, but he did not kill Liane Leedom. Perhaps he killed the others because he thought he could get away with the crimes. But he could have chosen not to kill them either.
A diagnosis of psychopathy shouldn’t be used to get people off. It should be used to convict them and send them away.
For further discussion of these issues, read:
A mind of crime—how brain-scanning technology is redefining criminal culpability, in Miller-McCune Online Magazine.
Science in court: Head case, in Nature.com.
Thank you to the Lovefraud reader BloggerT7165 for sending a link to this story.
one/joy_step_at_a_time
wow.
Ox Drover
Thanks to the LF reader who sent this link, I was wondering yesterday what was going on with this guy.
He’s been in CUSTODY since 1979–30-31 years! And now there will be another 15 years of appeals again, how much time has been WASTED on legal RANGLES, how much money? This guy is 66 yrs old, so 15 years from now when his last appeal is over, and his death date is set they will go to court and won’t be able to execute him because he has senile dementia and can’t understand why they are killing him!
That poor mother will never get justice and complete closure for herself or her daughter. I can only say that I am so glad Liane Leedom’s mother is not in that court crying for justice for Liane, who dodged that bullet by only millimeters.
ErinBrock
KILL EM!!!!
NOW!
Once convicted…..do em in! IMMEDIATELY!
Ox Drover
Dear EB,
I used to be a “hang em high and let the crows pic k their eyes out” let the bodies rot! However, after spending 20+ years having contact with the CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM (boy is that an OXY MORON!) There are way too many people who have been wrongly convicted for me to continue to support the death penalty—that said!~
I highly support LIFE WITHOUT ANY SORT OF PAROLE AND ONLY ONE REASONABLE APPEAL for any conviction unless there is NEW EVIDENCE of a compelling nature.
This CRAP about the “technical” over turns because someone’s lawyer’s mother didn’t breast feed him is BULL FLOP! The ENDLESS appeals is HORRIBLE!
Saw a man in for 35 years for a rape he didn’t commit final;ly FREED the other day, if he had been executed, they couldn’t have freed him. He at least got back a small portion of his life and his honor.
So my position now, after many years of offering to pull the trigger at executions, or the switch, or the trap door, I am solidly on the side of LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE and really make it stick. Also I vote that murder of any kind that is premeditated is L W/O Parole.
silvermoon
Oh Ox, I so agree with you. There are plenty of cases that don’t add up to a decision which can’t be reversed.
I’m thinking a lot about that these days. When you don’t know exactly what IS true, its always a possibility – best to be right- but what is right can be very political. very. and politics are not just.
Parole has been locked down federally and in many states.
And as even EB pointed out, the guys we want to count on bring ego to the job and don’t dig – not like she does! And there are SPATHS in that community too.
Its enough to twist a gut and colic over. Really.
There are times and cases where what is true and how things look are very, very different and in those, just as we do in a SPATH relationship, we have to work for bringing truth out.
I see that to be a mission in everything now.
Its not about bogeymen hiding behind trees, its about what is true from the simplest to the most complex things.
I wish the political and legal and justice professionals were so obviously committed to the same thing that there would be very little homework for the rest of us. But it is not so. And no matter what we do or don’t, we are required to THINK and there is no getting around that we may have to repeat it over and over as the landscape around the truth changes.
Like in the case of that man who was in jail for 35 years. And there are many throughout history. Some of those individuals have in fact, changed the course of history. One that comes to mind is Nelson Mandela. There are many, many more.
Execution is only an option when there is proof without ANY doubt. I’m and advocate of it from the point of view that its a practical solution. If we won’t house and feed the other mentally Ill in this country, why would that population get different treatment.
But it is no small thing to take a man’s life. And if you do, you can’t give it back.
Tough question. Very tough. If it takes many years to get the answer, then so be it.
Ox Drover
Being brought up in a Scots-Irish-redneck community of “God, country, Mom and Apple pie” where an “eye for an eye” is justice and hanging or executing a murderer is acceptable and desirable—-I never really thought about it too much, but in the last few years, after realizing that “justice” depends on how much money you have to pay the “right” attorney with, and nothing to do with the TRUTH of what happened (OJ Simpson’s wife Nichole’s murder is one great example) and that juries while at best are great folks, none the less are human, and cops CAN be wrong. Some times on purpose.
Eye witness testimony is a VERY poor indicator of justice too.
All these things make me feel that death for a criminal is neither fair or just to anyone one the way our system is administered.
Also, I am learning as I am getting older (if not wiser) that I can frequently be WRONG and others can be too. I am no longer so sure I have any of the right questions, much less the right answers.
While I would actually advocate for the death penalty in my own son, in which there is NO DOUBT at all that he is guilty of murder, most cases are not quite so open and shut.
Some are, but life without parole leaves an opening for DNA or other evidence to let someone out if it turns out they are innocent. The death sentence does not. Right now there is a young man on Arkansas’ death row that I think, and many others think, was railroaded into the death row on almost NO evidence and upon community hysteria 17 years ago. There is a great deal of work going on to free him and his two friends who are in gen pop at the prison. Look up “west Memphis Three” for the story.
silvermoon
After many years on the LEFT Coast, my hang’em first notions were softened considerably. And I can’t help but be struck by that story.
It must be constantly asked- what don’t I know FOR SURE? And until the answer is nothing, you don’t know for sure.
You are spot on, unless it is absolutely true, it isn’t and we have seen way too many examples of how money, hysteria and other agndas influence the way things like this turn out.
Ox Drover
NEWSFLASH: Tomorrow’s 48 HOURS MYSTERY will be about Rodney Alcala and the 40 years of murder and rape. The late Harold Dow’s final report is on CBS Saturday September 25th 10 pm E and Pacific time, and probably my guess is 9 central. Check your local TV schedule.
This guy was the one that took the photos of our Dr. Liane Leedom, which happened between two of his murders. Even years later, I cannot imagine how Liane feels to have dodged a bullet that closely.
bulletproof
interesting article, great posts-
I’m struck by an image in my head of a psychopath in prison..life without parole….staring out through the bars of his/her prison cell, dreaming of murder….much like a wild animal caged in, pacing…instinct intact, pining for freedom to act spontaneously
the brain of sociopaths and psychopaths is certainly different and slightly more dangerous than someone with dyslexia…..lol different…incureable…innate… Evil…always waiting to manifest and express itself…I wonder why we wait for them to kill when we already know by looking at their brains what they are capable of…..we already know what they are born to manifest..
one/joy_step_at_a_time
bp – your description is chilling and accurate. i would suggest the cell is also woven of everyday life.
i might use the word ‘compulsively’, instead of spontaneously…the freedom to act on his/ her drives unfettered, as i think wild animals come almost soley from a place of instinct and spaths know what they are doing – self aware, but uncaring.